1.The Biblical account.2.That of Josephus.3.The Babylonian.4.The Hindu.5.The Chinese.6.The traditions of all nations in the northern hemisphere, and of certain in the southern.
1.The Biblical account.
2.That of Josephus.
3.The Babylonian.
4.The Hindu.
5.The Chinese.
6.The traditions of all nations in the northern hemisphere, and of certain in the southern.
It is unnecessary to travel in detail over the well-worn ground of the myths and traditions prevalent among European nations, the presumed identity of Noah with Saturn, Janus, and the like, or the Grecian stories of Ogyges and Deucalion. Nor is anyone, I think, disposed to dispute the identity of the cause originating the Deluge legends in Persia and in India. How far these may have descended from independent sources it is now difficult to determine, though it is more than probable that their vitality is due to the written Semitic records. Nor is it necessary to discuss any unimportant differences which may exist between the text of Josephus and that of the Bible, which agree sufficiently closely, but are mere abstracts (with the omission of many important details) in comparison with the Chaldæan account. This may be accounted for by their having been only derived from oral tradition through the hands of Abraham. The Biblical narrative shows us that Abraham left Chaldæa on a nomadic enterprise, just as a squatter leaves the settled districts of Australia or America at the present day, and strikes out with a small following and scanty herd to search for, discover, and occupy new country; his destiny leading him, may be for a few hundred, may be for a thousand miles. In such a train there is no room for heavy baggage, and the stone tablets containing the detailed history of the Deluge would equally with all the rest of such heavy literature be left behind.
The tradition, however reverenced and faithfully preserved at first, would, under such circumstances, soon get mutilated and dwarfed. We may, therefore, pass at once to the much more detailed accounts presented in the text of Berosus, and in the more ancient Chaldæan tablets deciphered by the late Mr. G. Smith from the collation of three separate copies.
The account by Berosus (see Appendix) was taken from the sacred books of Babylon, and is, therefore, of less value than the last-mentioned as being second-hand. The leading incidents in his narrative are similar to those contained in that of Genesis, but it terminates with the vanishing of Xisuthros (Noah) with his wife, daughter, and the pilot, after they had descended from the vessel and sacrificed to the gods, and with the return of his followers to Babylon. They restored it, and disinterred the writings left (by the pious obedience of Xisuthros) in Shurippak, the city of the Sun.
The great majority of mythologists appear to agree in assigning a much earlier date to the Deluge, than that which has hitherto been generally accepted as the soundest interpretation of the chronological evidence afforded by the Bible.
I have never had the advantage of finding the arguments on which this opinion is based, formulated in association, although, as incidentally referred to by various authors, they appear to be mainly deduced from the references made, both by sacred and profane writers, to large populations and important cities existing subsequently to the Deluge, but at so early a date, as to imply the necessity of a very long interval indeed between the general annihilation caused by the catastrophe, and the attainment of so high a pitch of civilization and so numerous a population as their existence implies.
Philologists at the same time declare that a similar inference may be drawn from the vast periods requisite for the divergenceof different languages from the parent stock,[97]while the testimony of the monuments and sculptures of ancient Egypt assures us that race distinction of as marked a type as occurs at the present day existed at so early a date[98]as to preclude the possibility of the derivation of present nations from the descendants of Noah within the limited period usually allowed.
These difficulties vanish, if we consider the Biblical and Chaldean narratives as records of a local catastrophe, of vast extent perhaps, and resulting in general but not total destruction, whose sphere may have embraced the greater portion of Western Asia, and perhaps Europe; but which, while wrecking the great centres of northern civilization, did not extend southwards to Africa and Egypt.[99]The Deluge legends indigenous in Mexico at the date of the Spanish conquest, combining the Biblical incidents of the despatch of birds from a vessel with the conception of four consecutive ages terminating in general destruction, and corresponding with the four ages or Yugas of India, supply in themselves the testimony of their probable origin from Asia. The cataclysm which caused what is called the Deluge may or may not have extended to America, probably not. In a future pageI shall enumerate a few of the resemblances between the inhabitants of the New World and of the Old indicative of their community of origin.
I refer the reader to M. Lenormant’s valuable essay[100]for his critical notice on the dual composition of the account in Genesis, derived as it appears to be from two documents, one of which has been called the Elohistic and the other the Jehovistic account, and for his comparison of it with the Chaldean narrative exhumed by the late Mr. George Smith from the Royal Library of Nineveh, the original of which is probably of anterior date to Moses, and nearly contemporaneous with Abraham.
I transcribe from M. Lenormant the text of the Chaldean narrative, because there are points in it which have not yet been commented on, and which, as it appears to me, assist in the solution of the Deluge story:—
I will reveal to thee, O Izdhubar, the history of my preservation—and tell to thee the decision of the gods.The town of Shurippak, a town which thou knowest, is situated on the Euphrates. It was ancient, and in it [men did not honour] the gods. [I alone, I was] their servant, to the great gods—[The gods took counsel on the appeal of] Anu—[a deluge was proposed by] Bel—[and approved by Nabon, Nergal and] Adar.And the god [Êa,] the immutable lord,—repeated this command in a dream.—I listened to the decree of fate that he announced, and he said to me:—“Man of Shurippak, son of Ubaratutu—thou, build a vessel and finish it [quickly].—By a [deluge] I will destroy substance and life.—Cause thou to go up into the vessel the substance of all that has life.—The vessel thou shalt build—600 cubits shall be the measure of its length—and 60 cubits the amount of its breadth and of its height.—[Launch it] thus on the ocean and cover it with a roof.”—I understood, and I said to Êa, my lord:—“[The vessel] that thou commandest me to build thus,—[when] I shall do it—young and old [shall laugh at me].”—[Êa opened his mouth and] spoke.—He said to me, his servant:—“[If they laugh at thee] thou shalt say to them: [Shall be punished] he who has insulted me, [for the protection of the gods] is over me.— .... like to caverns .... —— .... I will exercise my judgmenton that which is on high and that which is below .... —— .... Close the vessel .... —— .... At a given moment that I shall cause thee to know,—enter into it, and draw the door of the ship towards thee.—Within it, thy grains, thy furniture, thy provisions,—thy riches, thy men-servants, and thy maid-servants, and thy young people—the cattle of the field and the wild beasts of the plain that I will assemble—and that I will send thee, shall be kept behind thy door.”—Khasisatra opened his mouth and spoke;—he said to Êa, his lord:—“No one has made [such a] ship.—On the prow I will fix .... —I shall see .... and the vessel .... —the vessel thou commandest me to build [thus]—which in ....[101]On the fifth day [the two sides of the bark] were raised.—In its covering fourteen in all were its rafters—fourteen in all did it count above.—I placed its roof and I covered it.—I embarked in it on the sixth day; I divided its floors on the seventh;—I divided the interior compartments on the eighth. I stopped up the chinks through which the water entered in;—I visited the chinks and added what was wanting.—I poured on the exterior three times 3,600 measures of asphalte,—and three times 3,600 measures of asphalte within.—Three times 3,600 men, porters, brought on their heads the chests of provisions.—I kept 3,600 chests for the nourishment of my family,—and the mariners divided amongst themselves twice 3,600 chests.—For [provisioning] I had oxen slain;—I instituted [rations] for each day.—In [anticipation of the need of] drinks, of barrels and of wine—[I collected in quantity] like to the waters of a river, [of provisions] in quantity like to the dust of the earth.—[To arrange them in] the chests I set my hand to.— .... of the sun .... the vessel was completed.— .... strong and—I had carried above and below the furniture of the ship.—[This lading filled the two-thirds.]All that I possessed I gathered together; all I possessed of silver I gathered together; all that I possessed of gold I gathered—all that I possessed of the substance of life of every kind I gathered together.—I made all ascend into the vessel; my servants male and female,—the cattle of the fields, the wild beasts of the plains, and the sons of the people, I made them all ascend.Shamash (the sun) made the moment determined, and—he announced it in these terms:—“In the evening I will cause it to rain abundantly from heaven; enter into the vessel and close the door.”—The fixed moment had arrived, which he announced in these terms: “In the evening I will cause it to rain abundantly from heaven.”—When the evening of that day arrived, I was afraid,—I entered into the vessel and shut my door.—In shutting the vessel, to Buzurshadirabi, the pilot,—I confided this dwelling with all that it contained.Mu-sheri-ina-namari[102]—rose from the foundations of heaven in a black cloud;—Ramman[103]thundered in the midst of the cloud—and Nabon and Sharru marched before;—they marched, devastating the mountain and the plain;—Nergal[104]the powerful, dragged chastisements after him;—Adar[105]advanced, overthrowing before him;—the archangels of the abyss brought destruction,—in their terrors they agitated the earth.—The inundation of Ramman swelled up to the sky,—and [the earth] became without lustre, was changed into a desert.They broke .... of the surface of the [earth] like .... ;—[they destroyed] the living beings of the surface of the earth.—The terrible [Deluge] on men swelled up to [heaven].—The brother no longer saw his brother; men no longer knew each other. In heaven—the gods became afraid of the waterspout, and—sought a refuge; they mounted up to the heaven of Anu.[106]—The gods were stretched out motionless, pressing one against another like dogs.—Ishtar wailed like a child,—the great goddess pronounced her discourse:—“Here is humanity returned into mud, and—this is the misfortune that I have announced in the presence of the gods. So I announced the misfortune in the presence of the gods,—for the evil I announced the terrible [chastisement] of men who are mine.—I am the mother who gave birth to men, and—like to the race of fishes, there they are filling the sea;—and the gods by reason of that—which the archangels of the abyss are doing, weep with me.”—The gods on their seats were seated in tears,—and they held their lips closed, [revolving] future things.Six days and as many nights passed; the wind, the waterspout, and the diluvian rain were in all their strength. At the approach of the seventh day the diluvian rain grew weaker, the terrible waterspout—which had assailed after the fashion of an earthquake—grew calm, the sea inclined to dry up, and the wind and the waterspout came to an end. I looked at the sea, attentively observing—and the whole of humanity had returned to mud; like unto sea-weeds the corpses floated. I opened the window, and the light smote on my face. I was seized with sadness; I sat down and I wept;—and my tears came over my face.I looked at the regions bounding the sea; towards the twelve points of the horizon; not any continent.—The vessel was borne above the land of Nizir,—the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over.—A day and a second day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over;—the third andfourth day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over;—the fifth and sixth day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over.—At the approach of the seventh day, I sent out and loosed a dove. The dove went, turned, and—found no place to light on, and it came back. I sent out and loosed a swallow; the swallow went, turned, and—found no place to light on, and it came back. I sent out and loosed a raven; the raven went, and saw the corpses on the waters; it ate, rested, turned, and came not back.I then sent out (what was in the vessel) towards the four winds, and I offered a sacrifice. I raised the pile of my burnt-offering on the peak of the mountain; seven by seven I disposed the measured vases,[107]—and beneath I spread rushes, cedar, and juniper wood. The gods were seized with the desire of it,—the gods were seized with a benevolent desire of it;—and the gods assembled like flies above the master of the sacrifice. From afar, in approaching, the great goddess raised the great zones that Anu has made for their glory (the gods’).[108]These gods, luminous crystal before me, I will never leave them; in that day I prayed that I might never leave them. “Let the gods come to my sacrificial pile!—but never may Bel come to my sacrificial pile! for he did not master himself, and he has made the waterspout for the Deluge, and he has numbered my men for the pit.”From far, in drawing near, Bel—saw the vessel, and Bel stopped;—he was filled with anger against the gods and the celestial archangels:—“No one shall come out alive! No man shall be preserved from the abyss!”—Adar opened his mouth and said; he said to the warrior Bel:—“What other than Ea should have formed this resolution?—for Ea possesses knowledge and [he foresees] all.”—Ea opened his mouth and spake; he said to the warrior Bel:—“O thou, herald of the gods, warrior,—as thou didst not master thyself, thou hast made the waterspout of the deluge.—Let the sinner carry the weight of his sins, the blasphemer the weight of his blasphemy.—Please thyself with this good pleasure, and it shall never be infringed; faith in it never [shall be violated].—Instead of thy making a new deluge, let hyænas appear and reduce the number of men; instead of thy making a new deluge, let there be famine, and let the earth be [devastated];—instead of thy making a new deluge, let Dibbara[109]appear, and let men be [mown down].—I have not revealed the decision of the great gods;—it is Khasisatra who interpreted a dream and comprehended what the gods had decided.”Then, when his resolve was arrested, Bel entered into the vessel.—Hetook my hand and made me rise.—He made my wife rise, and made her place herself at my side.—He turned around us and stopped short; he approached our group.—“Until now Khasisatra has made part of perishable humanity;—but lo, now, Khasisatra and his wife are going to be carried away to live like the gods,—and Khasisatra will reside afar at the mouth of the rivers.”—They carried me away and established me in a remote place at the mouth of the streams.
I will reveal to thee, O Izdhubar, the history of my preservation—and tell to thee the decision of the gods.
The town of Shurippak, a town which thou knowest, is situated on the Euphrates. It was ancient, and in it [men did not honour] the gods. [I alone, I was] their servant, to the great gods—[The gods took counsel on the appeal of] Anu—[a deluge was proposed by] Bel—[and approved by Nabon, Nergal and] Adar.
And the god [Êa,] the immutable lord,—repeated this command in a dream.—I listened to the decree of fate that he announced, and he said to me:—“Man of Shurippak, son of Ubaratutu—thou, build a vessel and finish it [quickly].—By a [deluge] I will destroy substance and life.—Cause thou to go up into the vessel the substance of all that has life.—The vessel thou shalt build—600 cubits shall be the measure of its length—and 60 cubits the amount of its breadth and of its height.—[Launch it] thus on the ocean and cover it with a roof.”—I understood, and I said to Êa, my lord:—“[The vessel] that thou commandest me to build thus,—[when] I shall do it—young and old [shall laugh at me].”—[Êa opened his mouth and] spoke.—He said to me, his servant:—“[If they laugh at thee] thou shalt say to them: [Shall be punished] he who has insulted me, [for the protection of the gods] is over me.— .... like to caverns .... —— .... I will exercise my judgmenton that which is on high and that which is below .... —— .... Close the vessel .... —— .... At a given moment that I shall cause thee to know,—enter into it, and draw the door of the ship towards thee.—Within it, thy grains, thy furniture, thy provisions,—thy riches, thy men-servants, and thy maid-servants, and thy young people—the cattle of the field and the wild beasts of the plain that I will assemble—and that I will send thee, shall be kept behind thy door.”—Khasisatra opened his mouth and spoke;—he said to Êa, his lord:—“No one has made [such a] ship.—On the prow I will fix .... —I shall see .... and the vessel .... —the vessel thou commandest me to build [thus]—which in ....[101]
On the fifth day [the two sides of the bark] were raised.—In its covering fourteen in all were its rafters—fourteen in all did it count above.—I placed its roof and I covered it.—I embarked in it on the sixth day; I divided its floors on the seventh;—I divided the interior compartments on the eighth. I stopped up the chinks through which the water entered in;—I visited the chinks and added what was wanting.—I poured on the exterior three times 3,600 measures of asphalte,—and three times 3,600 measures of asphalte within.—Three times 3,600 men, porters, brought on their heads the chests of provisions.—I kept 3,600 chests for the nourishment of my family,—and the mariners divided amongst themselves twice 3,600 chests.—For [provisioning] I had oxen slain;—I instituted [rations] for each day.—In [anticipation of the need of] drinks, of barrels and of wine—[I collected in quantity] like to the waters of a river, [of provisions] in quantity like to the dust of the earth.—[To arrange them in] the chests I set my hand to.— .... of the sun .... the vessel was completed.— .... strong and—I had carried above and below the furniture of the ship.—[This lading filled the two-thirds.]
All that I possessed I gathered together; all I possessed of silver I gathered together; all that I possessed of gold I gathered—all that I possessed of the substance of life of every kind I gathered together.—I made all ascend into the vessel; my servants male and female,—the cattle of the fields, the wild beasts of the plains, and the sons of the people, I made them all ascend.
Shamash (the sun) made the moment determined, and—he announced it in these terms:—“In the evening I will cause it to rain abundantly from heaven; enter into the vessel and close the door.”—The fixed moment had arrived, which he announced in these terms: “In the evening I will cause it to rain abundantly from heaven.”—When the evening of that day arrived, I was afraid,—I entered into the vessel and shut my door.—In shutting the vessel, to Buzurshadirabi, the pilot,—I confided this dwelling with all that it contained.
Mu-sheri-ina-namari[102]—rose from the foundations of heaven in a black cloud;—Ramman[103]thundered in the midst of the cloud—and Nabon and Sharru marched before;—they marched, devastating the mountain and the plain;—Nergal[104]the powerful, dragged chastisements after him;—Adar[105]advanced, overthrowing before him;—the archangels of the abyss brought destruction,—in their terrors they agitated the earth.—The inundation of Ramman swelled up to the sky,—and [the earth] became without lustre, was changed into a desert.
They broke .... of the surface of the [earth] like .... ;—[they destroyed] the living beings of the surface of the earth.—The terrible [Deluge] on men swelled up to [heaven].—The brother no longer saw his brother; men no longer knew each other. In heaven—the gods became afraid of the waterspout, and—sought a refuge; they mounted up to the heaven of Anu.[106]—The gods were stretched out motionless, pressing one against another like dogs.—Ishtar wailed like a child,—the great goddess pronounced her discourse:—“Here is humanity returned into mud, and—this is the misfortune that I have announced in the presence of the gods. So I announced the misfortune in the presence of the gods,—for the evil I announced the terrible [chastisement] of men who are mine.—I am the mother who gave birth to men, and—like to the race of fishes, there they are filling the sea;—and the gods by reason of that—which the archangels of the abyss are doing, weep with me.”—The gods on their seats were seated in tears,—and they held their lips closed, [revolving] future things.
Six days and as many nights passed; the wind, the waterspout, and the diluvian rain were in all their strength. At the approach of the seventh day the diluvian rain grew weaker, the terrible waterspout—which had assailed after the fashion of an earthquake—grew calm, the sea inclined to dry up, and the wind and the waterspout came to an end. I looked at the sea, attentively observing—and the whole of humanity had returned to mud; like unto sea-weeds the corpses floated. I opened the window, and the light smote on my face. I was seized with sadness; I sat down and I wept;—and my tears came over my face.
I looked at the regions bounding the sea; towards the twelve points of the horizon; not any continent.—The vessel was borne above the land of Nizir,—the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over.—A day and a second day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over;—the third andfourth day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over;—the fifth and sixth day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over.—At the approach of the seventh day, I sent out and loosed a dove. The dove went, turned, and—found no place to light on, and it came back. I sent out and loosed a swallow; the swallow went, turned, and—found no place to light on, and it came back. I sent out and loosed a raven; the raven went, and saw the corpses on the waters; it ate, rested, turned, and came not back.
I then sent out (what was in the vessel) towards the four winds, and I offered a sacrifice. I raised the pile of my burnt-offering on the peak of the mountain; seven by seven I disposed the measured vases,[107]—and beneath I spread rushes, cedar, and juniper wood. The gods were seized with the desire of it,—the gods were seized with a benevolent desire of it;—and the gods assembled like flies above the master of the sacrifice. From afar, in approaching, the great goddess raised the great zones that Anu has made for their glory (the gods’).[108]These gods, luminous crystal before me, I will never leave them; in that day I prayed that I might never leave them. “Let the gods come to my sacrificial pile!—but never may Bel come to my sacrificial pile! for he did not master himself, and he has made the waterspout for the Deluge, and he has numbered my men for the pit.”
From far, in drawing near, Bel—saw the vessel, and Bel stopped;—he was filled with anger against the gods and the celestial archangels:—“No one shall come out alive! No man shall be preserved from the abyss!”—Adar opened his mouth and said; he said to the warrior Bel:—“What other than Ea should have formed this resolution?—for Ea possesses knowledge and [he foresees] all.”—Ea opened his mouth and spake; he said to the warrior Bel:—“O thou, herald of the gods, warrior,—as thou didst not master thyself, thou hast made the waterspout of the deluge.—Let the sinner carry the weight of his sins, the blasphemer the weight of his blasphemy.—Please thyself with this good pleasure, and it shall never be infringed; faith in it never [shall be violated].—Instead of thy making a new deluge, let hyænas appear and reduce the number of men; instead of thy making a new deluge, let there be famine, and let the earth be [devastated];—instead of thy making a new deluge, let Dibbara[109]appear, and let men be [mown down].—I have not revealed the decision of the great gods;—it is Khasisatra who interpreted a dream and comprehended what the gods had decided.”
Then, when his resolve was arrested, Bel entered into the vessel.—Hetook my hand and made me rise.—He made my wife rise, and made her place herself at my side.—He turned around us and stopped short; he approached our group.—“Until now Khasisatra has made part of perishable humanity;—but lo, now, Khasisatra and his wife are going to be carried away to live like the gods,—and Khasisatra will reside afar at the mouth of the rivers.”—They carried me away and established me in a remote place at the mouth of the streams.
This narrative agrees with the Biblical one in ascribing the inundation to a deluge of rain; but adds further details which connect it with intense atmospheric disturbance, similar to that which would be produced by a series of cyclones, or typhoons, of unusual severity and duration.
The intense gloom, the deluge of rain, terrific violence of wind, and the havoc both on sea and land, which accompany the normal cyclones occurring annually on the eastern coast of China, and elsewhere, and lasting but a few hours in any one locality, can hardly be credited, except by those who have experienced them. They are, however, sufficient to render explicable the general devastation and loss of life which would result from the duration of typhoons, or analogous tempests, of abnormal intensity, for even the limited period of six days and nights allotted in the text above, and much more so for that of one hundred and fifty days assigned to it in the Biblical account.
As illustrating this I may refer to a few calamities of recent date, which, though of trivial importance in comparison with the stupendous event under our consideration, bring home to us the terribly devastating power latent in the elements.
In Bengal, a cyclone on October 31, 1876, laid under water three thousand and ninety-three square miles, and destroyed two hundred and fifteen thousand lives.
A typhoon which raged in Canton, Hongkong, and Macao on September 22, 1874, besides much other destruction, destroyed several thousand people in Macao and the adjacent villages, the number of corpses in the town being so numerous that they had to be gathered in heaps and burnt with kerosene,the population, without the Chinese who refused to lend assistance, being insufficient to bury them.
A tornado in Canton, on April 11, 1878, destroyed, in the course of a few minutes, two thousand houses and ten thousand lives.
In view of these few historical facts, which might be greatly supplemented, there appears to my mind to be no difficulty in believing that the continuance, during even only six days and six nights, of extraordinarily violent circular storms over a given area, would, especially if accompanied by so-called tidal or earthquake waves, be sufficient to wreck all sea-going and coasting craft, all river boats, inundate every country embraced within it to a very great extent, submerge each metropolis, city, or village, situate either in the deltas of rivers, or higher up their course, sap, unroof, batter down, and destroy all dwellings on the highlands, level forests, destroy all domestic animals, sweep away all cultivated soil, or bury it beneath an enormous thickness ofdébris, tear away the soil from the declivities of hills and mountains, destroy all shelter, and hence, by exposure, most of those wretched human beings who might have escaped drowning on the lower levels. The few survivors would with difficulty escape starvation, or death from subsequent exposure to the deadly malaria which would be liberated by the rooting up of the accumulateddébrisof centuries. This latter supposition appears to me to be directly indicated by the passage towards the end of the extract referring to famine, and to the devastation of the earth by Dibbara (the god of epidemics).
It is noticeable that in this account there is no suggestion of complete immersion, Khasisatra simply says there is not any continent (i.e.all the hill ranges within sight would stand out from the inundation like islands), while he speaks of his vessel being arrested by the mountain of Nizir, which must consequently have been above the surface of the water.
Neither is there any such close limitation of the numberof persons preserved, as in the Biblical story, for Khasisatra took with him his men-servants, maid-servants, and his young people, while the version transmitted by Berosus (see Appendix to this Chapter), states that Xisuthros embarked his wife, children, and his intimate friends, and that these latter subsequently founded numerous cities, built temples, and restored Babylon.
We have thus a fair nucleus for starting a fresh population in the Euphrates valley, which may have received accessions from the gradual concentration of scattered survivors, and from the enterprise of maritime adventurers from the African coast and elsewhere, possibly also nomads from the north, east, and west may have swelled the numbers, and a polyglot community have been established, which subsequently, through race distinctions, jealousies, and incompatibility of language, became again dismembered, as recorded in the history of the attempted erection of the Tower of Babel.
Confining our attention for the moment to this one locality, we may imagine that the young population would not be deterred by any apprehension of physical danger from reinhabiting such of the old cities as remained recognizable; since we see that men do not hesitate to recommence the building of cities overthrown by earthquake shocks almost before the last tremblings are over; or, as in the case of Herculaneum and Pompeii, within the range of volcanoes which may have already repeatedly vomited destroying floods of lava. Yet, in this instance, they would probably invest the calamity with a supernatural horror, and regard it, as the text expresses it, as a chastisement from the gods for their impiety. If this were so, the very memory of such cities would soon be lost, and with it all the treasures of art and literature which they contained.[110]
The Hindu account is taken from theS’atapatha-Brâhmana, a work of considerable antiquity, being one of a series which Professor Max Müller believes to have been written eight hundred years before Christ. A literal translation of the legend, as given in this venerable work, is as follows:—
“To Manu in the morning they brought water for washing, just as they bring it for washing the hands. As he was using the water, a fish came into his hand. This (fish) said to him, ‘Preserve me, and I will save thee.’ (Manu said), ‘From what wilt thou preserve me?’ (The fish replied), ‘A flood will carry away all these creatures; from that I will preserve thee.’ (Manu said), ‘How is thy preservation (to be effected)?’ (The fish replied), ‘As long as we are small, there is great danger of our destruction; fish even devours fish: at first preserve me in a jar. When I grow too big for that, cut a trench, and preserve me in that. When I outgrow that, carry me to the sea; then I shall be beyond (the reach of) danger.’ Soon it became a great fish; it increased greatly. (The fish said), ‘In so many years the flood will come; make a ship and worship me. On the rising of the flood enter the ship, then I will preserve thee.’ Having preserved the fish he brought it to the sea. In the same year indicated by the fish (Manu) made a ship and worshipped the fish. When the flood rose he entered the ship; the fish swam near him: he attached the cable of the ship to his (the fish’s) horn. By this means the fish carried him over the northern mountain (Himalayas). (The fish said),‘I have preserved thee: fasten the ship to a tree. But lest the water cut thee off whilst thou art on the mountain, as fast as the water subsides thou wilt descend with it.’ Accordingly he descended (with the water); hence this became ‘Manu’s Descent’ from the northern mountain. The flood had carried away all those creatures, Manu alone was left. He being desirous of offspring performed a sacred rite; there also he offered apâka-sacrifice. With clarified butter, coagulated milk, whey, and curds, he made an offering to the waters. In a year a female was produced; and she arose unctuous from the moisture, with clarified butter under her feet. Mitra and Varuna came to her; and said to her, ‘Who art thou?’ (She said), ‘The daughter of Manu.’ (They said), ‘Say (thou art) our (daughter).’ ‘No,’ she replied, ‘I am verily (the daughter) of him who begot me.’ They desired a share in her; she agreed and did not agree. She went on and came to Manu. Manu said to her, ‘Who art thou?’ ‘Thy daughter,’ she replied. ‘How, revered one, art thou my daughter?’ (She replied), ‘The offerings which thou hast cast upon the waters,—clarified butter, coagulated milk, whey, and curds,—from them thou hast generated me. I am a blessing. Do thou introduce me into the sacrifice. If thou wilt introduce me into the sacrifice, thou wilt be (blessed) with abundance of offspring and cattle. Whatever blessing thou shalt ask through me, will all be given to thee.’ Thus he introduced her in the middle of the sacrifice; for the middle of the sacrifice is that which comes between the final and the introductory prayers. He, desirous of offspring, meditating and toiling, went with her. By her he begot this (offspring), which is (called) ‘The offspring of Manu.’”
The correspondence of this legend with the Biblical and the other accounts is remarkable. We have the announcement of the Deluge, the construction of a ship, the preservation therein of a representative man, the settlement ofthe vessel on a mountain, the gradual subsidence of the water, and the subsequent re-peopling of the world by the man thus preserved. The very scene of the cataclysm is in singular agreement with the other accounts; for the flood is said to carry Manu “over the northern mountain.” This places the scene of the Deluge in Central Asia, beyond the Himalaya mountains, and it proves that the legend embodies a genuine tradition brought by the progenitors of the Hindus from their primæval home, whence also radiated the Semitic and Sinitic branches of mankind.
There has been much discussion as to whether the great inundation which occurred in China during the reign of Yao is identical with that of Genesis or not. The close proximity of date lends a strong support to the assumption, and the supposition that the scene of the Biblical Deluge was local in its origin, but possibly widespread in its results, further favours the view.
As the rise of the Nile at Cairo is the only intimation which the inhabitants of Lower Egypt have of the tropical rains of Central Africa, so the inundation of the countries adjacent to the head waters of the great rivers of China may alone have informed the inhabitants of that country of serious elemental disturbances, only reaching, and in a modified form, their western frontier; and it may well have been that the deluge which caused a national annihilation in Western Asia was only a national calamity in the eastern portion of it.
This view is strengthened if we consider that Chinese history has no record of any deluge prior to this, which could hardly have been the case had the Chinese migrated from their parent stock subsequent to an event of such importance; assuming that it had occurred, as there seems valid reason to suppose, within the limits of written history. The anachronism between the two dates assigned by Chinese authors (2297B.C.)and the Jewish historian’s calculation (2104B.C.) is only one hundred and ninety-three years, and this is not so great but that we may anticipate its being explained at some future date. Strauchius’ computation of 2293B.C.for the date of the Biblical deluge is within four years, and Ussher’s (2349-2348) within fifty-one of the Chinese one. The reason for supposing the deluge of Yao to be historically true, will be inferred from the arguments borrowed from Mr. Legge on the subject of theShu-king, in another portion of this volume. It is detailed in the great Chinese work on history, theT‘ung-këen-kang-muh, by Choo He, of which De Mailla’sHistory of Chinaprofesses to be a translation.
This states that the inundation happened in the sixty-first year of the reign of Yao (2297B.C.), and that the waters of the Yellow River mingled with those of the Ho-hi-ho and the Yangtsze, ruining all the agricultural country, which was converted into one vast sea.
But neither in the Bamboo Books nor in theShu-kingdo we find that any local phenomena of importance occurred, with the exception of the inundation. In fact, the first work is singularly silent on the subject, and simply says that in his sixty-first year Yao ordered K‘wan of Ts‘ung to regulate the Ho, and degraded him in his sixty-ninth for being unable to effect it, as we learn elsewhere.
TheShuis more explicit. The Emperor, consulting one of his chief officials on the calamity, says: “O chief of the four mountains, destructive in their overflow are the waters of the inundation. In their vast extent they embrace the mountains and overtop the hills, threatening the heavens with their floods, so that the inferior people groan and murmur.”
According to De Mailla’s translation, K‘wan laboured uselessly for nine years, the whole country was overrun with briars and brushwood, the people had almost forgotten the art of cultivating the ground—they were without the necessaryseeds—and wild animals and birds destroyed all their attempts at agriculture.
In this extremity Yao consulted Shun, his subsequent successor, who recommended the appointment of Yu, the son of K‘wan, in his father’s place.
Yu was more successful, and describes his labours as follows:—
“The inundating waters seemed to assail the heavens, and in their vast extent embraced the mountains and over-topped the hills, so that people were bewildered and overwhelmed. I mounted my four conveyances,[111]and all along the hills hewed down the woods, at the same time, along with Yih, showing the multitudes how to get flesh to eat.
“I also opened passages for the streams throughout the nine provinces, and conducted them to the sea. I deepened, moreover, the channels and canals, and conducted them to the streams, at the same time, along with Tseih, sowinggrain, and showing the multitudes how to procure the food of toilin additionto flesh meat.”
Yu’s success is simply chronicled in the Bamboo Books as, “In his seventy-fifth year Yu, the Superintendent of Works, regulated the Ho.”
There was a legend extant in China in the times of Pinto, which he gives in his book, of the original Chinese having migrated from a region in the West, and, following the course of the Ho in boats, finally settling in the country adjacent to Pekin. That some such event took place is not unlikely. Its acceptance would explain much that is difficult.
The pioneers, pushing through a country infested withhostile aborigines, who would immediately after their passage close up the road of communication behind them—pioneers who may have been fugitives from their kindred through political commotions, or expelled by successful enemies—would have a further barrier against return, even were they disposed to attempt it, in the strong opposing current which had borne them safely to their new homes.
It is probable that such a journey would form an entirely new departure for their history, and that a few generations later it would resemble a nebulous chronological zone, on the far side of which could be dimly seen myths of persons and events representing in reality the history of the not very remote ancestors from whom they had become separated. The early arrivals would have been too much occupied with establishing themselves in their new dominions to be able to give much attention to keeping records or preserving other than the most utilitarian branches of knowledge which they had brought with them. The volumes of their ancestors were probably, like the clay tablets of the royal library of Babylon, not of a portable nature, at all events to fugitives, whose knowledge would, therefore, be rather of a practical than of a cultivated nature, and this would soon become limited for a while to their chiefs and religious instructors, the exigencies of a colony menaced with danger prohibiting any general acquisition or extension of learning.
In this way we can account for the community of the fables relating to the remote antiquity of the Chinese with those of Chaldean and Indian mythology, and with the highly civilized administration and astrological knowledge possessed by Yao and Shun as herediton of Fuh Hi, &c.
We can account for their possession of accurate delineations of the dragon, which would form an important decoration of the standards and robes of ceremony which werecompanions of their flight, while their descriptions of the animal and its qualities would have already entered into the realms of fanciful exaggeration and myth.
The dragon of Yao and Shun’s time, and of Yu’s time was, in my opinion, an aquatic creature, an alligator; but the dragon of their ancestors was a land lizard, which may even have existed down to the time of the great cataclysm which we call the Deluge, and the memory of which is best preserved in the Chinese drawings which have been handed down from remote antiquity, and have travelled from the great Central Asian centre, which was once alike its habitat and that of their ancestors. Its history may perhaps become evolved when the great store of book knowledge contained in the cuneiform tablets, representing the culture of the other branch of their great ethnological family, has been more extensively explored.
Geologists of the present day have a great objection to the bringing in of cataclysms to account for any considerable natural changes, but this one I conceive to have been of so stupendous a nature as to have been quite capable of both extinguishing a species and confusing the recollection of it. The mere fact of the story of the dragon having survived such a period argues greatly, in my mind, for the reality of its previous existence.
Extending our consideration, we are brought face to face with another very important fact, namely, that a large proportion of the human race content themselves with ephemeral structures. Thus, for example, the Chinese neither have now, nor at any time have had, any great architectural works. “The finest building in China is a reproduction, on a large scale, of the tent; and the wooden construction is always imitated where the materials are stone or marble. The supports, often magnificent logs, brought, at great expense, specially from the Straits, represent tent-poles; and the roof has always the peaked ends and the curves that recall thedrooping canvas of the marquee. Architecture evidently died early; it never had life enough to assimilate the new material which it found when it migrated into China Proper. The yamen is a slightly glorified cottage; the temple is an improved yamen. Sculpture is equally neglected in this (æsthetically) benighted country. The human form is as dignified and sightly, to Chinese eyes at least, in China as in the West; but it never seems to have occurred, throughout so many hundreds of years, to any Chinaman to perpetuate it in marble or bronze, or to beautify a city with statues of its deities or great men.”[112]
What holds good of the Chinese now, probably holds good of their ancestors and the race from which they parted company in Central Asia five thousand years ago, when they pierced their way eastwards through the savage aborigines of Thibet and Mongolia, pushing aside tribes which closed in again behind them, so as to intercept their return or communication with their mother country—a country which may have been equally careless of elaborating stupendous and permanent works of architecture such as other nations glory in possessing, and which, like the pyramids of Egypt and of Central America, stand forth for thousands of years as landmarks of the past.
We must, therefore, not be surprised if we do not immediately discover the vestiges of the people of ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand years ago. With an ephemeral architecture (which, as we have seen, is all that a highly populous and long civilized race actually possess), the sites of vast cities may have become entirely lost to recollection in a few thousands of years from natural decay, and how much more so would this be the case if, as we may reasonably argue, minor cataclysms have intervened, such as local inundations, earthquakes, deposition of volcanic ashes from even distantsources, the spread of sandy deserts, destruction of life by exceptionally deadly pestilence, by miasma, or by the outpour of sulphurous fumes.
We have shown in another chapter how the process of extinction of species continues to the present day, and from the nature of this process we may deduce that the number of species which became extinct during the four or five thousand years preceding the era of exact history must have been considerable.
The less remarkable of these would expire unnoticed; and only those distinguished by their size, ferocity, and dangerous qualities, or by some striking peculiarity, would leave their impress on the mythology of their habitat. Their exact history would be lost as the cities of their epoch crumbled away, and during the passage through dark ages of the people of their period and their descendants, and by conquest or catastrophes such as we have referred to elsewhere; while the slow dispersion which appears to have obtained among all nations would render the record of their qualities the more confused as the myth which embalmed it spread in circling waves farther and farther from its original centre.
Amongst the most fell destroyer both of species and of their history must have been the widespread, although not universal, inundation known as the Biblical Deluge; a deluge which we think the evidence given in the foregoing pages, and gathered from divers nations, justifies us in believing to have really taken place, and not to be, as mythologists claim, a mere ether myth. As to its date, allowance being made for trifling errors, there is no reason for disputing the computation of Jewish chronology, especially as that is closely confirmed by the entirely independent testimony of Chinese history.
This interposes a vast barrier between us and the knowledge of the past, a barrier round which we pass for a shortdistance at either end when we study the history of the two great streams of nations which have diverged from a common centre, the Chinese towards the East, the Accadian Chaldæans and Semites towards the West; a barrier which we may hope to surmount when we are able to discover and explore the lost cities of that common centre, with the treasures of art and literature which they must undoubtedly possess.
ON THE TRANSLATION OF MYTHS BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW WORLD.
Intercourse between various parts of the old world and the new was probably much more intimate even three or four thousand years ago than we, or at all events our immediate ancestors, have credited. The Deluge Tablets referred to in another chapter contain items from which we gather that sea-going vessels, well equipped and with skilled pilots, were in vogue in the time of Noah, and there is wanting no better proof of their seaworthiness than the fact that his particular craft was able to weather a long-continued tempest which would probably have sunk the greater part of those which keep the seas at the present time. The older Chinese classics make constant allusions to maritime adventure, and the discovery by Schliemann in ancient Troy[113]of vases withChinese inscriptions confirms the notion that, at that date at least, commercial exchange was effected between these two widely-distant countries, either directly or by transfer through different entrepôts.
A more striking example, and one which carries us back to a still earlier epoch, will be afforded if the reported discovery of Chinese vestigia in Egyptian tombs is confirmed by further investigation.
The fleets of King Solomon penetrated at least to India, and detached squadrons[114]probably coasted from island to island along the Malay archipelago; while to descend by gradation to modern times, we may quote the circumnavigation of Africa by Hanno the Carthaginian,[115]the discoveryof America prior to Columbus by the Chinese in the fifth century, from the Asiatic side, and by the Norsemen under Leif Ericsson in the year 1001, from the European; and the anticipation of the so-called discoveries of Van Diemen and Tasman by the voyages of Arab and other navigators, from whose records El Edrisi,[116]in the twelfth century, was enabled to indicate the existence of New Guinea, and, I think, of the northern coast of Australia. For although the identity with Mexico of the country called Fu-sang, visited prior toA.D.499by the Buddhist priest Hoei-shiu, has been disputed, yet the arguments in favour of it seem to preponderate. These were adduced primarily by Deguignes, and subsequently by C. F. Neumann, Leland and others, and are based on the facts stated in the short narrative in regard to distance, description of the Maguey plant, or great aloe,[117]the absence of iron, and abundance of copper, gold, and silver.
While there can be little question that the islands and land of Wák Wák are respectively some of the Sunda islands, New Guinea, and the adjacent portion of Australia, it does not appear to have struck any of the commentators on this question that the name “islands of Wák Wák” may be assumed to signify simply “Bird of Paradise islands.” Wallace, in hisMalay Archipelago, emphatically remarks that in the interior of the forests of New Guinea the most striking sound is the cry “Wok Wok” of the great Bird of Paradise, and we may therefore reasonably speculate on the bird having been known as the Wok Wok, and the islands as the Wok Wok islands, just as we ourselves use the imitative names of Cuckoo, Morepork, or Hoopoe for birds, or Snake islands, Ape Hill, &c. for places.
This view is to an extent strengthened by Wák Wák being the home of the lovely maiden captured by Hasan (in the charming story of Hasan of El Basrah in theArabian Nights), after she had divested herself of her bird skin, and to which he had to make so weary a pilgrimage from island to island, and sea to sea, in search of her after her escape from him. It is evident that among the wonders related by navigators of islands so remote and unfrequented, not the least would be the superavian loveliness of the Birds of Paradise, and from the exaggerated narratives of travellers may havearisen the beautiful fable incorporated in theArabian Nights, as well as that other recorded by Eesa or Moosa the son of El Mubarak Es Serafee.[118]“Here, too, is a tree that bears fruit like women with bodies, eyes, limbs, &c. like those of women; they have beautiful faces, and are suspended by the hair; they come forth from integuments like large leathern bags; and when they feel the air and the sun they cry out ‘Wák Wák’ until their hair is cut, and when it is cut they die; and the people of these islands understand their cry, and augur ill from it.” This, after all, is not more absurd than the story of the origin of the barnacle duck, extant and believed in Europe until within the last century or so.
El Edrisi, who, in common with the geographers of the period, believed in a great antarctic continent, after describing Sofala with its mines of gold, abundance of iron, &c., jumps at once to the mainland of Wák Wák, which he describes as possessing two towns situated on a great gulf (Carpentaria?), and a savage population.[119]
The two small towns may very well have been encampments of the aborigines, or trading stations of Malay merchants.
It may be noted that this identification of Wák Wák is in opposition to the view entertained by some commentators; for example, Professor de Goeje of Leyden has recently identified the Silâ islands (which had previously beenconsidered as being Japan) with Corea, and Wák Wák with Japan; but this does not agree with El Edrisi’s account of the people being black, unclothed, and living on fish, shell, and tortoises (turtles), without gold, commerce, ships, or beasts of burden. Elsewhere El Edrisi says the women are entirely naked, and only wear combs of ivory ornamented with mother of pearl.
Lane thinks the Arabs applied the name of Wák Wák to all the islands with which they were acquainted on the east and south-east of Borneo. Es Serafee, beside the details given in a previous note, also says, “From one of these islands of Wák Wák there issueth a great torrent like pitch, which floweth into the sea, and the fish are burnt thereby, and float upon the water.” And Hasan, in the story quoted above, has, in order to reach the last of the seven islands of Wák Wák, to pass over the third island, the land of the Jinn, “where by reason of the vehemence of the cries of the Jánn, and the rising of the flames about, of the sparks and the smoke from their mouths, and the harsh sounds from their throats, and their insolence, they will obstruct the way before us,” &c. &c. I think that in each of these latter instances, the volcanic islands of Java, and other of the Sunda islands are indicated.
The information in our possession is as yet too meagre to permit of our indulging in any profitable consideration of the sources from which originated those nations which peopled America during the very early pre-traditional ages, of which geological evidence is accumulating daily. In fact, the theories on this point have advanced so little beyond the limits of speculation that I feel it unnecessary to do more than quote one of them, as summarized in the ensuing extract. “Professor Flowers, in remarking upon recent palæontological investigations, which prove that an immense number of forms of terrestrial animals that were formerly supposed to be peculiar to the Old World are abundant inthe New; and that many, such as the horse, rhinoceros, and the camel, are more numerous in species and varieties in the latter, infers that the means of land communication must have been very different to what it is now, and that it is quite as likely that Asiatic man may have been derived from America as the reverse, or both may have had their source in a common centre, in some region of the earth now covered with sea.”[120]
The most commonly accepted theory with regard to the origin of those who have peopled the American continent, within the limits of tradition, is that they are of Asiatic descent, and that the migration has been effected in comparatively recent times by way of Behring Straits, and supplemented by chance passages from Southern Asia by way of the Polynesian islands, or from the north of Africa, across the Atlantic. There are, however, some who elaborate Professor Flowers’ suggestion, and contend, in opposition to the more generally received opinion, that the peopling of the present countries of the Old World has in fact been effected from the New.
For instance, a proficient Aztec scholar, Senor Altamirano[121]of Mexico, argues that the Aztecs were a race, originating in the unsubmerged parts of America, as old as the Asiatics themselves, and that Asia may in fact have been peopled from Mexico; while Mr. E. J. Elliott, in quoting him, says: “From the ruins recently found, the most northern of any yet discovered, the indications of improved architecture, the work of different ages, can be traced in a continual chain to Mexico, when they culminate in massive and imposing structures, thus giving some proof by circumstantial evidence to Altamirano’s reasoning.”
Again, “Dr. Rudolf Falb[122]discovers that the language spoken by the Indians in Peru and Bolivia, especially in Quichua and Aymara, exhibits the most astounding affinities with the Semitic languages, and particularly with the Arabic—in which tongue Dr. Falb himself has been skilled from his boyhood. Following up the links of this discovery, he has first found a connecting link with the Aryan roots, and, secondly, has arrived face to face with the surprising revelation that the Semitic roots are universally Aryan. The common stems of all the variants are found in their purest condition in Quichua and Aymara, from which fact Dr. Falb derives the conclusion that the high plains of Peru and Bolivia must be regarded as the point of exit of the present human race.”
On the other hand, Mr. E. B. Tylor, in the course of an article upon Backgammon among the Aztecs,[123]which he argues must have reached them from Asia, and very likely through Mexico, points out that the myths and religion of the North American tribes contain many fancies well known to Asia, which they were hardly likely to have hit upon independently, and which they had not learned from white men: “Such as the quaint belief that the world is a monstrous tortoise floating on the waters; and an idea which the Sioux have in common with the Tartars, that it is sinful to chop or poke with a sharp instrument the burning log on the fire.” He quotes Alexander von Humboldt as having “argued years ago that the Mexicans did and believed things which were at once so fanciful and so like the fancies of the Asiatics that there must have been communication. Would two nations,” he asks, “have taken independently to forming calendars of days and years by repeating and combining cycles of animals, such as tiger, dog, ape, hare, &c.? Would they havedeveloped independently similar astrological fancies about these signs governing the periods they began, and being influential each over a particular limb or organ of men’s bodies? Would they, again, have evolved separately out of this consciousness the myths of the world and its inhabitants having, at the end of several successive periods, been destroyed by elemental catastrophes?”
He adds, “It may very well have been the same agency which transported to Mexico the art of bronze-making, the computation of time by periods of dogs and apes, the casting of nativity, and the playing of backgammon.”
Then, again, we have the theory of those, now indeed few in number, who hold that the present Indian inhabitants of America were a distinctly indigenous race. Lord Kaimes, in hisSketches of the History of Man, says, “I venture still further, which is to conjecture that America has not been peopled from any part of the Old World.” Voltaire had preceded him in this line of argument, relying on ridicule rather than on reason. “The same persons that readily admit that the beavers of Canada are of Canadian origin, assert that the men must have come there in boats, and that Mexico must have been peopled by some of the descendants of Magog.”[124]
Missionaries of various sects have endeavoured to identify the Red man with the lost ten tribes. Adair conceived the language of the Southern Indians to be a corruption of Hebrew, and the Jesuit Lafitan, in his history of the savages of America, maintained that the Caribee language was radically Hebrew.
Mr. John Josselyn,[125]in an account of the Mohawks, states that their language is a dialect of the Tartars, and Dr. Williamson, in his history of North Carolina, considers itcan hardly be questioned that the Indians of South America are descended from a class of the Hindoos in the southern part of Asia.
Amongst others, Captain Don Antonio del Rio, who described the ruins of an ancient city in Guatemala, believed that they were the relics of a civilization founded by Phœnician colonists who had crossed the Atlantic ocean; and yet another theory is propounded by Mr. Knox,[126]who considers the extinct Guanches, formerly inhabiting the Canary and Cape de Verde islands, to have closely resembled the Egyptians in certain particulars. He goes on to observe, “Now cross the Atlantic, and in a nearly parallel zone of the earth, or at least in one not far removed, we stumble all at once upon the ruined cities of Copan and Central America. To our astonishment, notwithstanding the breadth of the Atlantic, vestiges, of a nature not to be doubted, of a thoroughly Egyptian character reappear—hieroglyphics, monolithic temples, pyramids; who erected these monuments on the American continent? Perhaps at some remote period the continents were not so far apart, they might have been united, thus forming a zone or circle of the earth occupied by a pyramid-building people.”
It is not impossible that all of these theories may be correct, and that numerous migrations may have been made at various periods by different nations, the most facile would of course be that from North-Eastern Asia by way of the Aleutian islands, for, as the author ofFu-sangwell remarks, a sailor in an open boat might cross from Asia to America by that route in summer time, and hardly ever be out of sight of land; and this in a part of the sea generally abounding in fish, as is proved by the fishermen who inhabit many of these islands, on which fresh water is always to be found. But it is more than likely that the direct route,from the islands of Japan to the coast of California or Mexico, was also occasionally followed, voluntarily or involuntarily, by mariners impelled by enterprise, religious motives, or stress of weather.
Colonel B. Kennon, as an evidence of the possibility of junks performing long ocean voyages, adduces the instance of a Japanese junk picked up by an American whaler two thousand three hundred miles south-east of Japan, and of others which had drifted among the Aleutian islands nearly half-way over to San Francisco; and in noting the resemblance and probable co-origin of the Sandwich Islanders with the Japanese, he adverts to the “ancient and confirmed habit of both Japanese and Chinese of taking women to sea with them, or of traders keeping their families on board, which would fully account for the population of those islands,” or, to extend the argument, of points on the American continent. The Jewish element might easily be introduced through this channel, for the occasional admixture of Jewish blood both among the Chinese and Japanese is so strongly marked, as to have induced some authors to contend for the absolute descent of the latter people at least from Jewish parentage.
It must also be remembered that the waters of both the North and South Pacific are peculiarly favourable to the navigation of small craft, and that Captain Bligh, after the mutiny on board theBounty, was able to safely perform a journey of two thousand miles in an open boat; while all the islands both in North and South Polynesia must necessarily have been gradually peopled by the drifting over the ocean of stray canoes.
Again, as the tradition of the existence of a large continent west of the African coast was extant amongst the Egyptian priests long before the days of Solon, and, as I shall show hereafter, among the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians, it is, I think, more than probable that both Phœnicianand Egyptian mariners, either acting under a Royal Commission, or influenced by mercantile considerations, would endeavour to discover it, and, as in the case of Columbus, would have no difficulty in stretching across the Atlantic before a fair trade wind, though they might be less successful than him on their return.
The possibility of the existence of a large island or continent, midway between the Old and New World, within the traditional period, is included in the important question, which is stillsub judiceamongst geologists, whether the general disposition of land and water has or has not been variable during past ages. Sir Charles Lyell held the first view, and was of opinion[127]that complete alternations of the positions of continent and ocean had repeatedly occurred in geological time.
The opposite idea has been suggested at various dates by eminent authorities, suggested rather than sustained by elaborate arguments, until recently, when the question has been re-examined by Mr. Wallace and Dr. Carpenter.
The former, in that chapter of island life devoted to the permanence of continents, dwells forcibly upon Dr. Darwin’s inference from the paucity of oceanic islands affording fragments of either Palæozoic or Secondary formations “thatperhapsduring the Palæozoic and Secondary periods neither continents nor continental islands existed where our oceans now extend; for, had they existed, Palæozoic and Secondary formations would in all probability have been accumulated from sediment derived from their wear and tear; and these would have been at least partially upheaved by the oscillations of level which must have intervened during these enormously long periods. If, then, we may infer anything from these facts, we may infer that, where our oceans now extend, oceans have extended from the remotest period of which wehave any record; and, on the other hand, that where continents now exist, large tracts of land have existed, subjected no doubt to great oscillations of level, since the Cambrian period.”
I am not aware whether Dr. Darwin has expressed himself more authoritatively on this point in later works, or whether the whole question has been discussed in detail otherwise than by Mr. Wallace in the chapter referred to, in which he quotes what must, I think, after all, only be taken in the light of a suggestion as an auxiliary to the powerful arguments which he himself has enunciated in favour of a similar conclusion. There is no doubt that the paucity of any but volcanic or coralline islands throughout the greatest extent of existing oceans has a certain but not absolute significance, so far as recent geological epochs are concerned.
There is another line of reasoning, debated by Mr. Wallace, based on the formation of the Palæozoic and Secondary strata from the waste of broken continents and islands occupying generally the site of the existing continents, and separated by insignificant distances of inland sea or extensions from the adjacent oceans. It is soundly based on their lithological structure, as generally indicative of a littoral and shallow water origin, but it seems to me to be only positive so far as it shows that, throughout geological time, some land has existed somewhere within the limits of the present upheaval, and simply negative as to what may or may not have been the condition of what are now the great ocean spaces of the world. Indeed, it would at first sight seem only reasonable to infer, that the very depressions which caused the inundations of Europe and Asia, during the deposition of any important formation, would imply a corresponding elevation elsewhere, in order that the same relative areas of land and water might be maintained.
This view has, however, been reduced in its proportions by Dr. Carpenter, who has levelled the results of the recentresearches by theChallengerexpedition against the advocates of the intermutations of land and ocean, and, in pursuing another line of reasoning from Mr. Wallace, has estimated the solid contents of ocean and land above the sea-level respectively, as bearing the proportion of thirty-six to one. So that, supposing all the existing land of the globe to sink down to the sea-level, this subsidence would be balanced by the elevation of only one thirty-sixth part of the existing ocean floor from its present depth to the same level.
It must be admitted that the balance of argument was until lately considerably against the former existence of the country of Atlantis, whose ghostly outlines, however, we could almost imagine to be sketched out by faint contours in the chart illustrative of the North Atlantic portion of theChallengerinvestigations. But it was not so overwhelming as to entitle us to ignore the story entirely as a fable. I do not conceive it impossible that some centrally situated and perhaps volcanic island may once have existed, sufficiently important to have served as the basis of simple legends, which, under the enchantment of distance and time became metamorphosed and enriched.
Mr. A. R. Grote suggests that it is simply a myth founded on the observation of low-lying clouds in a sun-flushed sky, which gave the appearance like islands on a golden sea.
Mr. Donelly, on the other hand, in a very exhaustive and able volume, contends first, that Atlantis actually existed, and secondly, that it was the origin of our present civilization, that its kings are represented by the gods of Greek mythology, and that its destruction originated our Deluge story.
The well-known story is contained in an epic of Plato, of which two fragments only remain, found in two dialogues (the Timæus and the Critias). Critias is represented as telling an old-world story, handed down in his family fromhis great-grandfather Dropidas, who had heard it from Solon, who had it from the Egyptian priests of Sais.[129]
Ælian, again, contains an extract from Theophrastus, who wrote in the time of Alexander the Great, which can hardly imply anything else than an acquaintance with America. It is in the form of a dialogue between Midas the Phrygian and Silenus.
The latter informs Midas that Europe, Asia, and Africa were but islands surrounded on all sides by sea, but that there was a continent situated beyond these which was of immense dimensions, even without limits, and that it was so luxuriant as to produce animals of prodigious magnitude. That there men grew to double the size of themselves, and that they lived to a far greater age, that they had many cities, and their usages and laws were different from their own; that in one city there was more than a million of inhabitants, and that gold and silver were there in vast quantities.
Diodorus Siculus gives an account of what could only have been the mainland of America, or one of the West Indian islands; it is as follows.
“After cursorily mentioning the islands within the Pillars of Hercules, let us treat of those further ones in the open ocean, for towards Africa there is a very large island in the great ocean sea, situated many days’ sail from Libya towards the west.
“Its soil is fruitful, a great part rising in mountains, but still with no scarcity of level expanse, which excels in pleasantness, for navigable rivers flow through and irrigate it. Gardens abound, stored with various trees and numerous orchards, intersected by pleasant streams.
“The towns are adorned with sumptuous edifices, anddrinking taverns, beautifully situated in gardens, are everywhere met with; as the convenient situation of these largely invites to pleasure, they are frequented during the summer season.
“The mountain region possesses numerous and large forests, and various kinds of fruitful trees. It everywhere presents deep valleys and springs suitable for mountain recreations.
“Indeed the whole of this island is watered with springs of sweet water, which gives rise not merely to the pleasure of its inhabitants, but also to an accession of their health and strength.
“Hunting furnishes all kinds of game, the abundance of which in their banquets leaves nothing to be desired.
“Moreover, the sea which washes against this island abounds with fish, since the ocean, from its nature everywhere, affords a variety of fish.
“Finally, the temperature is very genial, from which it results that the trees bear fruit throughout the greater part of the year.
“Lastly, it excels so much in felicity as to resemble the habitations of the gods rather than of men.
“Formerly it was unknown, on account of the remoteness of its situation from the rest of the world, but accident disclosed its position. The Phœnicians have been in the habit of making frequent passages, for the sake of commerce, from the very oldest dates, from whence it resulted that they were the founders of many of the African colonies, and of not a few of those European ones situated to the west; and when they had yielded to the idea which had entered their minds, of enriching themselves greatly, they passed out beyond the Pillars of Hercules into the sea which is called the Ocean, and they first founded a city called Gades, on the European peninsula, and near the straits of the Pillars [of Hercules] in which, when others had flocked to it, they instituted asumptuous temple to Hercules. This temple has been held in the utmost veneration both in ancient times and during later periods up to the present day; therefore many Romans of illustrious nobility and reputation pronounce their vows to that god, and happily discharge their obligations.
“The Phœnicians for this reason continued their exploration beyond the Pillars, and when they were sailing along the African coast, being carried off by a tempest to a distant part of the ocean, were driven by the violence of the storm, after a period of many days, to the island of which I have spoken, and having first acquainted themselves with its nature and pleasing characters, introduced it to the notice of others. On that account, the Tyrrhenians, also obtaining the empire of the sea, determined on a colony there, but the Carthaginians prevented them, both because they feared lest many of their citizens, being allured by the advantages of the island, might migrate there, and because they wished to have a refuge prepared for themselves against a sudden stroke of fortune, if by chance the Carthaginian Republic should receive any deadly blow, for they contemplated that they would be able, while yet powerful at sea, to transport themselves and their families to the island unknown to the victors.”[130]
Among the many proofs which may be cited of community of origin between the Asiatics and certainly a large proportion of the American population is the practice of scalping enemies, quoted by Herodotus as prevalent amongst the Scythians, and universally existing amongst all tribes of North American Indians; the discovery of jade ornaments amongst Mexican remains, and the general esteem in which that material is held by the Chinese; the use of the Quipos among the Peruvians, and the assertion in theI-king, or Bookof Change, one of the oldest of the Chinese Classics, that “The ancients knotted cords to express their meaning, but in the next age the sages renounced the custom and adopted a system of written characters;”[131]the discovery of the meander pattern among Peruvian relics, and the common use of this ornamentation on Chinese vases and tripods, at dates long preceding the Trojan era, in which it is commonly supposed to have originated; the similarity of the features of Chinese, and other Mongols, with those of various Indian tribes; the resemblance of masks and various other remains to Chinese patterns discovered recently by Desirée de Charnay in Central America; and the reserve and stolid demeanour of both races. A good illustration of this is afforded by the story told of the celebrated statesman Sieh Ngan (A.D.320-385), in Mayer’sChinese Reader’s Manual; it could be imagined to apply to any Indian sachem.
It is related of Sieh Ngan that, at the time when the capital was menaced by the advancing forces of Fukien, he sat one day over a game of chess with a friend, when a despatch was handed to him, which he calmly read and then continued the game. On being asked what the news was, he replied: “It is merely an announcement that my young people have beaten the enemy.” The intelligence was, in fact, of the decisive rout of the invaders by the army under his brother Sieh She and his nephew Sieh Hüan. Only when retired within the seclusion of his private apartments did he give himself up to an outburst of joy. The very expression “my young people” is the equivalent of “my young men” which the Indian chief would have employed.
A singular custom prevails among the Petivaces, an Indiantribe of Brazil.[132]“When they are delivered of a child, and ought to have all the ceremony and attendance proper to a lying-in woman, the husband presently lies down in his hammock (as if he had been brought to bed himself), and all his wives and neighbours come about and serve him. This is a pleasant fancy indeed, that the woman must take all the pains to bring the child into the world, and then the man lie down and gruntle upon it.”