taking no account of political divisions, or of those resting on
language or religion. Each climate was further subdivided into ten
sections. In the shape of Africa he followed Ptolemy.]

A special note may be made on Edrisi's account of the voyage of the
Lisbon "Wanderers" ("Maghrurins") some time before 1147, the date of the
final Christian capture of the Portuguese capital. For this is the
earliest recorded voyage, since the rise of Islam, definitely undertaken
on the Western Ocean to learn what was on it and what were its limits.
The Wanderers, Edrisi tells us, were eight in number, all related to one
another. They built a transport boat, took on board water and provisions
for many months, and started with the first east wind. After eleven
days, they reached a sea whose thick waters exhaled a fetid odour,
concealed numerous reefs, and were but faintly lighted. Fearing for
their lives, they changed their course, steered southwards twelve days,
and so reached an island, possibly Madeira,--which they called El Ghanam
from the sheep found there, without shepherd or anyone to tend them. On
landing, they found a spring of running water and some wild figs. They
killed some sheep, but found the flesh so bitter that they could not eat
it, and only took the skins. Sailing south twelve more days, they found
an island with houses and cultivated fields, but as they neared it they
were surrounded, made prisoners, and carried in their own boats to a
city on the sea-shore, to a house where were men of tall stature and
women of great beauty. Here they stayed three days, and on the fourth
came a man, the King's interpreter, who spoke Arabic, and asked them who
they were and what they wanted. They replied they were seeking out the
wonders of the ocean and its limits. At this the King laughed heartily,
and said to the interpreter: "Tell them my father once ordered some of
his slaves to venture out on that sea and after sailing across the
breadth of it for a month, they found themselves deprived of the light