Our elders have divided all of
this middle-earth, quoth Orosius,
which Oceanus surrounds, which
men calleth garsecg into three
deals.
Geography of Alfred.
Sec. 1. According to Orosius, our ancestors divided the whole world which is
surrounded by the ocean, which we call garsecg[2], into three parts,
and they named these divisions Asia, Europe, and Africa; though some
authors only admit of two parts, Asia and Europe. Asia is bounded to the
southward, northward, and eastward by the ocean, and thus divides all our
part of this earth from that which is to the east. On the north, Europe and
Asia are separated by the Tanais or Don; and in the south, after passing
the Mediterranean[3] sea, Asia and Africa join to the westward of
Alexandria[4].
Sec. 2. Europe begins, as I have said before, at the Tanais, which has its
source in the northern parts of the Riphean mountains[5], which are near
the Sarmatic[6] ocean; and this river then runs directly south, on the west
side of Alexander's temples, to the nation of the Russians[7], where it
runs into the fen called Maeotis, and thence it issues eastwards with a
great stream, near the town called Theodosia, into the Euxine. Then
becoming narrow for a considerable track, it passes by Constantinople, and
thence into the Wendel sea, or Mediterranean. The south-west end of Europe
is in Ispania or Spain, where it is bounded by the ocean; but the
Mediterranean almost closes at the islands called Gades, where stand
the pillars of Hercules.
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