'Before them first a table fair she spread,Well polished, and with feet of solid bronze;On this a brazen canister she placed,And Onions as a relish to the wine,And pale, clear honey, and pure barley meal.'
Among the Romans the onion seems to have been the common food of the people, although Horace could not understand how they digestedit. Its use for promoting artificial tears was also well understood by them, for Columella speaks ofLacrymosa cæpe, and Pliny ofCæpis odor lacrymosus. Ovid, again, says that both onions and sulphur were given to criminals to purify them from their crimes, upon the old theory of purgation by fumigation. The Romans thought not only that the onion gave strength to the human frame, but that it would also improve the pugnacious quality of their gamecocks. Horace, however, thought that garlic was a fit poison for anybody who committed parricide. The Emperor Nero, on the other hand, thought that eating leeks improved the human voice, and as he was ambitious of being a fine singer, he used to have a leek diet on several days in each month.
The onion tribe must have been held in reverence elsewhere than in Egypt, for, according to Mr. Thiselton-Dyer, in Poland the flower-stalk of the leek is placed in the hands of Christ in pictures and statues.
On Halloween, in some parts of the country, girls attempt a method of divination by means of a 'Saint Thomas onion.' They peel it, wrap it up in a clean handkerchief, and, placing it under their heads, repeat the following rhyme:
'Good St. Thomas, do me right,And see my true love come to-night,That I may see him in the face,And him in my kind arms embrace.'
On the other hand, to dream of an onion is supposed in some parts to foretell sickness.
Or else:
'To dream of eating onions meansMuch strife in the domestic scenes,Secrets found out, or else betrayed,And many falsehoods made and said.'
It is also a portent of the weather:
'Onion's skin very thin,Mild winter's coming in;Onion's skin thick and tough,Coming winter cold and rough.'
It was the practice in some places to hang up or burn an onion as a safeguard against witchcraft, and the theory of this was that the devil respected it because it was an ancient object of worship. This seems a survival of the Egyptian story; but Mr. Hilderic Friend says that the Arabs, Chinese, and many other peoples, to this day employ onions, leeks, or garlic for preventing witchcraft, and that he himself has frequently seen them tied up with a branch of sago-palm over the doors of Eastern houses for this purpose.
The old custom of throwing an onion after a bride is doubtless well known. It had the same origin as the old Scotch custom of throwing a besom after a cow on its way to market, to avert the evil-eye, and insure luck.
The idea of bad dreams being associated with the onion seems due to the old herbalists. At all events, Coghan wrote in 1596: 'Being eaten raw, they engender all humourous and contemptible putrefactions in the stomacke, and cause fearful dreams, and, if they be much used, they snarre the memory and trouble the understanding.'
Old Gerarde had no opinion of the medicalproperties of the tribe. Of both leeks and garlic he wrote most disparagingly, as 'yielding to the body no nourishment at all,' but 'ingendereth naughty and sharpe bloud.'
Some of the other old herbalists treat it more kindly, and some ascribe almost every virtue to garlic and onion. Garlic came to be known as 'Poor Man's Treacle,' and in some old works is thus often described. But the word treacle here has no reference to molasses, and is probably derived from the Greektheriakos, meaning venomous, for garlic was regarded as an antidote against poison, and as a remedy for the plague.
Pliny long ago wrote of garlic as a remedy for many of the mental and physical ailments of the country people. It was used by the Romans to drive away snakes; and the Romans seem to have adopted this idea from the ancient Greeks. It was recommended by one old English writer as a capital thing with which to frighten away birds from fruit-trees; and has been recently recommended, in solution, as the best preservative of picture-frames from the defilement of flies. Bacon gravely tells of a man who lived for several days on the smell of onions and garlic alone; and there was an old belief that the garlic could extract all the power from a loadstone.
The belief that the eating of onions will acclimatize a traveller seems not uncommon in Eastern countries. Thus, in Burnes' Travels into Bokhara it is recorded that at Peshawur 'Moollah Nujieb suggested that we should eat onions in all the countries we visited, as it is a popular belief thata foreigner becomes acclimated from the use of that vegetable.'
And in Morier's Travels in Persia it is said: 'Those who seek for sulphur, which is found at the highest accessible point of the mountain of Damarvend, go through a course of training previous to the undertaking, and fortify themselves by eating much of garlic and onions.'
The general explanation given of how the leek became the emblem of Wales, and is worn on St. David's Day, is this: In 640 King Cadwallader gained a complete victory over the Saxons, owing to the special interposition of St. David, who ordered the Britons always to wear leeks in their caps, so that they might easily recognise each other. As the Saxons had no such recognisable headmark, they attacked each other as foes, and aided in their own defeat.
There is a more poetic story. It is that St. David lived in the valley of Ewias, in Monmouthshire, spending his time in contemplation:
'And did so truly fastAs he did only drink what crystal Hodney yields,And fed upon the leeks he gathered in the fields,In memory of whom, in each revolving year,The Welshmen, on his day, that sacred herb do wear.'
St. David, however, died in 544, and therefore it is probable that the leek was a common and favourite vegetable in Wales during his lifetime—that is to say, more than thirteen hundred years ago. A still more prosaic explanation of the Welsh emblem is sometimes offered. It is that it originated in a custom of the Welshfarmers when helping each other in a neighbourly way to take their leeks and other vegetable provender with them. Now, as the word leek is from the Anglo-Saxonleac, which originally meant any vegetable, it is probable enough that the Saxons sneeringly applied the word to the Welsh on account of their vegetarian proclivities. We cannot, of course, be sure that the leek was worn as a badge in Cadwallader's time, but we have at any rate Shakespeare's authority for concluding that it was worn by the Welsh soldiers at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356.
The phrase 'to eat the leek'—meaning to retract and 'knuckle-under'—is supposed to have originated in that famous scene in Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth, where Fluellan the Welshman compels Pistol to swallow the vegetable at which he had been expressing such abhorrence. But there is earlier evidence that the leek was regarded as something ignominious in England. Thus in Chaucer:
'The beste song that ever was madeIs not worth a leke's blade,But men will tend ther tille.'
Without dwelling on the culinary uses of the onion tribe, which have been exhaustively described by others, a few applications, not generally known, may be briefly noted.
In olden times there was a famous ointment called Devil's Mustard, which was supposed to cure cancer, remove tumours, and so forth. It was a compound of garlic and olive-oil, and had a smell which was enough to frighten away anydisease—or else to create one. Then the fair dames of old had a favourite cosmetic for the hands and face, and one also which was used as an antiseptic, which was largely composed of garlic. Leek ointment, again, made of pounded leeks and hog's lard, was used as a liniment for burns and scalds.
It is said that in India, where dyspepsia is common, garlic is found to be a great palliative. It is in many countries regarded as a sure antidote against contagion; and persons have been known to put a small piece in the mouth before approaching the bed of a fever-stricken patient. Whether it has any real virtue of the kind one may doubt, but let us hope that it has more than is ascribed to some so-called disinfectants—the power to kill one bad smell with another.
In The Family Dictionary, popular in our grandfathers' time, appears the following certain remedy for the plague: 'Take away the core of an onion, fill the cavity with treacle dissolved or mixed with lemon-juice, stop up the hole with the slice you have cut off, roast the whole on hot ashes so long till well incorporated and mixed together, then squeeze out the juice of the roasted onion, and give it to a person seized with the plague. Let him presently lie down in his bed and be well covered up that he may perspire. This is a remedy that has not its equal for the plague, provided the patient perspires presently.'
And if it did promote perspiration, one can well believe that it might be curative.
Not only has garlic been esteemed as an antidote to the bite of snakes, but it has also been regarded as a cure for hydrophobia, while onions have been claimed as a cure for small-pox, and leeks as an antidote for poisonous fungi. Old Celsus, from whom Paracelsus took his name, regarded several of the onion tribe as valuable in cases of ague, and Pliny had the same belief. In our own time the onion is held to be an excellent anti-scorbutic, and is thought to be more useful on ship-board than lime-juice in preventing scurvy.
In fact, in all skin diseases, and in many inflammatory disorders, preparations of the onion have a real value. The juice is also useful in stopping bleeding, although one may hesitate to believe, as was popularly supposed, that a drop of it will cure earache, and that persistent application will remove deafness.
There still exists, however, a belief that onion-juice is the best hair-restorer in the market, in spite of its disagreeable smell.
It would take too long to mention all the virtues that have been claimed, with more or less reason, for all the members of theAlliumgenus, but it is a curious fact that the onion, which relieves dyspepsia and aids the digestion of some, is a certain cause of indigestion in others. Is it not said that Napoleon, who was a martyr to indigestion, lost the Battle of Leipsic through having partaken of a too hurried meal of beefsteak and onions? It is a savoury dish, but has worked woe to many. One does not wonder that the old writers declared that onions brought bad dreams—if they were eaten raw, or badly cooked, at late supper.
It is open to grave doubt whether the author of The Family Dictionary was right in saying that 'they that will eat onions daily will enjoy better health than otherwise.' What is one man's meat is another man's poison; and certainly there is no article in common use which produces such opposite effects upon the human system as the onion. It has often been found beneficial to individuals in feverish attacks, and yet the malingerers in our garrison hospitals know well how to promote febrile symptoms by a hearty consumption of garlic.
A fitting conclusion to this chapter will be the summary of Sir John Sinclair, the author of a Code of Health and Longevity:
'Onyons in physick winneth no consent,To cholerick folke they are no nutriment;By Galen's rule, such as phlegmatic areA stomacke good within them do prepare.Weak appetites they comfort, and the faceWith cheerful colour evermore they grace,And when the head is naked left of hair,Onyons, being sod or stamp'd, again repair.'
Theplanting of a tuber by Clusius, in 1588, in the Botanical Gardens at Vienna, is often referred to as the introduction of the potato into Europe. As a matter of fact, however, this was not the first planting, for the Spaniards brought the real potato—Solanum tuberosum—home to Spain about 1580. From Spain it extended to Italy, and became at once a common article of food there. From Spain it also extended to Belgium, and was cultivated there; and it was from a Belgian that Clusius got the roots which he planted at Vienna in 1588.
Then, again, it has been said that Christopher Columbus was the first European who ever tasted a potato, and that was in 1492, when he reached Cuba. From Cuba he brought samples back with him to Genoa. This would make our history one hundred years older, only it so happens that theSolanum tuberosumis not a native of these parts, and could not have been at Cuba when Columbus was there. What he tasted and brought home was theConvolvulus batatas, or sweet potato, avery different article, although it gave its name, 'batatas,' to our tuber in the modified form of 'potato.'
The real potato is a native of Chili, and it has been proved to the satisfaction of naturalists that it did not exist in North America before the arrival of Europeans. How, then, could Sir John Hawkins bring it from Santa-Fé in 1565, or Sir Walter Raleigh from Virginia in 1584? Well, in the first place, it was the sweet potato that Sir John brought; and in the second place, before Sir Walter went to Virginia, the Spaniards had brought there the real potato on returning from some of their South American expeditions. In 1580 they sent it home, and there is evidence that by 1580 theSolanum tuberosumhad been planted in North America. By the time Raleigh brought it to England, however, it was already a familiar root in Italy.
But did he bring it? There are some who say that it was Sir Francis Drake who brought the roots and presented them to Sir Walter Raleigh, who planted them on his estate near Cork in the year 1594. M'Culloch, however, says that 1610 was the year of the introduction into Ireland, and other writers say that Raleigh knew so little of the virtues of the plant he was naturalizing that he caused the apples, not the tubers, to be cooked and served upon his own table. Buckle, however, says that the common, or Virginian, potato was introduced by Raleigh in 1586, and Lyte, who wrote in that year, does not mention the plant; but Gerarde, who published the first edition of hisHerbal in 1597, gave a portrait of himself with a potato in his hand.
Here, then, we have some negative certainties and some positive uncertainties. Columbus did not take the real potato to Genoa in 1492; Hawkins did not bring it to England in 1565. The Spaniards did take it to Spain in or about 1580; but whether Raleigh was the first to bring it to Britain, and in what year, remains open to doubt.
During the whole of the seventeenth century the potato was quite a rarity in this country, and up to 1684 was cultivated only in the gardens of the gentry. In Scotland it does not seem to have been grown at all, even in gardens, before 1728. Phillips, in the History of Cultivated Vegetables, says that in 1619 the price in England was one shilling a pound. He further says that great prejudices existed against it, that it was alleged to be poisonous, and that in Burgundy the cultivation of it was prohibited.
These early prejudices against the potato are explainable on the supposition that the people did not know how to cook it, and possibly ate it raw, in which state it is certainly unwholesome, if not actually poisonous. Then, again, it belongs to a family of ill-repute, theSolanacæ, of which the deadly nightshade and the mandrake are members, as well as more honoured specimens like the tomato, tobacco, datura, and cayenne-pepper plants. The mandrake, of course, was the subject of ancient dislike, and perhaps it was natural for our superstitious progenitors to regard with suspicion any relative of that lugubrious root.
Even the tempting appearance of the tomato did not suffice to win favour for it when first introduced into Europe, until somebody discovered that, although undoubtedly sent by the infidels to poison the Christians, the Bon Dieu had interfered, and transformed it into an agreeable and wholesome fruit.
One meets with two references to the potato in Shakespeare, and these are said to be the earliest notices of it in English literature. Thus in Troilus and Cressida: 'The devil luxury, with his fat rump, and potato finger, tickles these together!' In the Merry Wives, Falstaff says: 'Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the time of Green Sleeves; hail kissing-comfits, and snow Eringoes.'
There are several references in the early dramatists, which the curious reader may find collected in a note in Steevens's Shakespeare, but which hardly serve our purpose. There is one reference, however, by Waller, which is interesting:
'With candy'd plantains and the juicy pine,On choicest melons and sweet grapes they dine,And with potatoes fat their wanton kine,'
because it seems to be the case that, prior to 1588, the Italian peasants used the potato as food for their pigs as well as for themselves.
We are constrained, however, to conclude that Shakespeare and the old dramatists referred to the sweet potato, sometimes called the Spanish potato. 'Eringoes,' mentioned by Falstaff, were candied roots. Eringo is curiously suggestive of 'Gringo,' which was the name of contempt applied by the Spaniards to all foreigners, but especially Englishmen. The word would seem to have been imported by the gentlemen-adventurers from the Spanish Main, in the time of Good Queen Bess. If we take 'candied roots' in association with 'kissing-comfits,' we are compelled to conclude that Falstaff's potato was the 'batatas,' the sweet, fleshy roots of which were described by Columbus to be 'not unlike chestnuts in taste.'
Certain it is that the potato was not regarded in this country as an object of national importance until 1662, when the Royal Society advised that it should be planted. In the history of the Society there is the record of a recommendation of a committee, dated 1662, urging all the Fellows who possessed land to plant potatoes, and persuade their friends to do the same, 'in order to alleviate the distress that would accompany a scarcity of food.'
In Scotland, the first mention of the potato occurs in the household book of the Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth. From Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh we learn that the price in 1701 was half-a-crown a peck. Robertson, of Irvine discovered what he thought the earliest evidence of potatoes in Scotland in the household book of the Eglinton family. The date of this entry, however, was 1733, and Robert Chambers showed that the date in the Buccleuch book was thirty-two years earlier.
Further information is given by the Duke of Argyle in Scotland As It Was, And As It Is. There we learn that, until long past the middle of the eighteenth century, little or nothing was known of the potato in Scotland, although in after yearsit brought about the most prodigious effects on the population. The Celts of Ireland first began to use it as an adjunct, and then as a main article of food. From them it passed over to the Celts of the Hebrides, and was introduced into South Uist by Macdonald of Clanranald in 1743. The Highlanders, always suspicious of novelties, resisted the use of it for some years; and the neighbouring island of Bernera was not reached until 1752. It was soon found, however, that the tuber would grow luxuriantly almost anywhere—even on sand, and shingle, and in bogs. It was quickly planted in those patches of ditched-off land known in the Highlands as 'lazy beds'—a not inappropriate term, which in Ireland is applied to patches of potatoes not sown in drills.
In Ireland and in the Highlands it quickly came to be the main food of the people during the greater portion of the year; but in the Lowlands of Scotland, and the rural districts of England, it was only used as a food accessory, though it soon became an important article of commerce. It has often happened that the potato crops have realized higher prices than any other product of the farm.
It has been sometimes stated that the man who planted the first field of potatoes in Scotland died within the last forty years. This is an error. The first field planted in the Lowlands was at Liberton Muir, about the year 1738, by a farmer named Mutter, who died in 1808. An attempt had been made some years earlier by a farm-labourer, named Prentice, near Kilsyth, but not as a farming operation.
In any case we do not get farther back than about 1730 for potato-planting in Scotland, whereas in England, by 1684 the recommendations of the Royal Society had been largely adopted, especially in Lancashire, where the first serious beginning seems to have been made. On the other hand, the cultivation has not extended so rapidly in England as in either Ireland or Scotland.
The annual crop of Ireland is estimated as, on the average, equal to about one thousand three hundred and twenty pounds per inhabitant; that of Scotland, about three hundred and ninety pounds; and that of England, about one hundred and twenty pounds. Germany is the next largest producer to Ireland, and also the next largest consumer—the crops being equal to about one thousand and sixty pounds per head. Holland and Belgium each produce about five hundred and eighty pounds, and France about five hundred and fifty pounds, of potatoes per inhabitant per annum.
It is curious that, although Spain and Italy were the first cultivators and users in Europe, the product of each of these countries is now only about fifty-five pounds per head.
The annual value of the entire potato crop of Europe may be stated at about one hundred and sixty million pounds; and that of the United Kingdom at about one-tenth of this total. That of North America is about twenty million pounds more; and it is a curious instance of the vagaries of time that theSolarium tuberosumis now known in America as the 'Irish potato,' to distinguish it from the batatas, or sweet potato.
All this immense development of cultivation does not complete the topographical record of our tuber. It has been introduced into India, and is now successfully cultivated both in Bengal and in the Madras Presidency. It has found a home in the Dutch East Indies and in China; and its tastes and habits are affectionately studied in Australia. But as in the tropics it has to be grown at an altitude of three thousand feet, or more, above sea-level, it can never become so common in hot countries as in Europe.
It is not only as a food-plant that the potato has secured the respect and affection of mankind. Starch is made from it both for the laundry and for the manufacture of farina, dextrin, etc. The dried pulp from which the starch has been extracted is used for making boxes. From the stem and leaves an extract is made of a narcotic, used to allay pain in coughs and other ailments. In a raw state the potato is used as a cooling application for burns and sores. A spirit is distilled from the tuber, which in Norway is called 'brandy,' and in other places is used for mixing with malt and vine liquors. Many of the farinaceous preparations now so popular in the nursery and sick-room are made largely of potato-starch; and in some places cakes and puddings are made from potato-flour.
To the potato are also ascribed properties of another kind. The folklore of the plant is meagre, considering its wide distribution, but there are a number of curious superstitions connected with it. In some parts there is a belief that it thrives best if planted on Maundy Thursday; in others, thatif planted under certain stars it will become watery. In Devonshire the people believe that the potato is a certain cure for the toothache—not taken internally, but carried about in the pocket. It is by several writers mentioned as a reputed cure for rheumatism in the same way; only it is prescribed that, in order to be an effective cure in such cases, the potato should be stolen. Mr. Andrew Lang mentions an instance of faith in the practice of this cure, which he came across in a London drawing-room. He regards this belief as a survival of the old superstitions about mandrake, and as analogous to the habit of African tribes who wear roots round the neck as protection against wild animals.
The value of the potato as food has been much discussed; but it seems to rank next to the plantain, and a long way behind either rice or wheat. The author of the Chemistry of Common Life has pointed to the remarkable physiological likeness of tribes of people who live chiefly on rice, plantain, and potato. The Hindu, the negro, and the Irishman are all remarkable for being round-bellied, and this peculiarity is ascribed to the necessity of consuming a large bulk of food in order to obtain the requisite nourishment.
It is not, of course, the root of the plant which we consume. The tubers known to the table are the swollen portions of the underground branches, and the so-called 'eyes' are really leaf-buds. It is by cuttings from these tubers, however, that the plant is mostly propagated. About three-fourths of the weight of the potato is water, and this may explainthe injurious effect which excessive rainfall has on the crops. The disease which attacks the plant, and has been the cause of Irish famines, past and prospective, is a species of fungus, which first attacks and discolours the straws, and then spreads downwards to the tubers, increasing the quantity of water in them, reducing the quantity of starch, and converting the albumen into casein.
When this disease once appears it is apt to spread over wide areas where the same climatic influences prevail, and when the disease appears in any strength the crops are rapidly rendered unfit for human food. The trouble of the Irish peasantry of the West is that they have no alternative crop to fall back on when the potato fails. Their plots are too small for cereals, and they cannot be persuaded to cultivate cabbages and other vegetables along with their tubers. It is thus that, when the day of tribulation comes, the potato appears to be really a curse rather than a blessing to agricultural Ireland.
There have been frequent projects for reverting to original types—that is to say, for obtaining a fresh supply of the indigenous plant from South America, and breeding a new stock, as it were. It is a possible mode of extirpating the disease which may be resorted to.
The Irish famine of 1847 was due to the failure of the potato crops in 1846, preceded by two or three years of bad crops. This failure was due to disease, and the eating of the diseased tuber brought on a pestilence, so that altogether the deaths by starvation and epidemics in thatdisastrous period amounted to nearly a million and a quarter persons. To deal with the distress various sums were voted by Parliament to the total amount of over ten millions sterling. This was supplemented by private philanthropy in this country, and by generous aid from the United States and some European countries. What was the actual money cost to the world at large of the failure of the Irish potato crop in 1846 can never be accurately known; but the amount was so enormous as to create a serious economic problem in connection with the homely tuber.
There have been several partial failures since in Ireland, although nothing so extensive as that of 1846, and in 1872 the disease was very bad in England. In that year, indeed, the importation of foreign potatoes rose to the enormous value of one million six hundred and fifty-four thousand pounds to supply our own deficient crops. In 1876, again, there was great excitement and alarm about the 'Colorado beetle,' an importation from America, which was destined, it was said, to destroy all our potato-fields. But the beetle proved comparatively harmless, and seems now to have disappeared from these shores.
The Englishman and Scotchman cannot do without his potato as an adjunct; but the error of the Irishman is in making it the mainstay of his life. The words of Malthus in this connection put the matter in a nutshell, much as he has been abused for his theory of the effects of the potato on population. 'When the common people of a country,' he says, 'live principally upon thedearest grain, as they do in England on wheat, they have great resources in a scarcity, and barley, oats, rice, cheap soups, and potatoes, all present themselves as less expensive, yet, at the same time, wholesome means of nourishment; but when their habitual food is the lowest in this scale, they appear to be absolutely without resource, except in the bark of trees—like the poor Swedes—and a great portion of them must necessarily be starved.'
Whereis it? 'At Charing Cross, of course,' says the self-assured Londoner; and in one sense he may not be far wrong. 'At Boston,' says the cultured inhabitant of the 'hub' of the universe. 'Wherever I am,' says the autocrat who essays to sway the destinies of nations. Well, we all know the story of the Head of the Table, and even if we did not know it, instinct would tell us where to look. But the centre of the world, in an actual, physical, racial, and mundanely comprehensive sense—where is it?
One does not find it so easy to answer the question as did good old Herodotus, who scouted as absurd the idea of the earth being circular. 'For my own part,' says the Father of History—and of lies, according to some people—'I cannot but think it exceedingly ridiculous to hear some men talk of the circumference of the Earth, pretending without the smallest reason or probability that the ocean encompasses the Earth, that the Earth is round as if mechanically formed so, and that Asia is equal to Europe.'
Herodotus found no difficulty in describing the figure and size of the portions of the earth whose existence he recognised, but then he said, 'from India eastward the whole Earth is one vast desert, unknown and unexplored.' And for long after Herodotus, the Mediterranean was regarded as the central sea of the world, and in the time of Herodotus, Rhodes was accounted the centre of that centre.
It is very interesting, however, to trace how many centres the world has had in its time—or rather within the range of written history. The old Egyptians placed it at Thebes, the Assyrians at Babylon, the Hindus at Mount Meru, the Jews at Jerusalem, and the Greeks at Olympus, until they moved it to Rhodes. There exists an old map in which the world is represented as a human figure, and the heart of that figure is Egypt. And there exists, or did exist, an old fountain in Sicily on which was this inscription: 'I am in the centre of the garden; this garden is the centre of Sicily, and Sicily is the Centre of the whole Earth.'
It is a grand thing to be positive in assertion when you are sure of your ground, and the builder of this fountain seems to have been sure of his. But then other people can be positive too, and in that vast desert eastward of India, imagined by Herodotus, there is the country of China, which calls itself the Middle Kingdom, and the Emperor of which, in a letter to the King of England in this very nineteenth century, announced that China is endowed by Heaven as the 'flourishing and central Empire' of the world.
And yet, once upon a time, according to some old Japanese writings, Japan was known as the Middle Kingdom; and the Persians claimed the same position for Persia; and according to Professor Sayce, the old Chaldeans said that the centre of the earth was in the heart of the impenetrable forest of Eridu.
This forest, by the way, was also called the 'holy house of the Gods,' but it does not seem to have had anything to do with the Terrestrial Paradise, the exact location of which Mr. Baring-Gould has laboriously tried to identify through the legends of the nations. It is a curious fact that a ninth-century map, in the Strasburg Library, places the Terrestrial Paradise—the Garden of Eden—in that part of Asia we now know as the Chinese Empire, and it is also so marked in a map in the British Museum.
In a letter supposed to have emanated from the mysterious if not mythical Prester John, it is written: 'The river Indus which issues out of Paradise flows among the plains through a certain province, and it expands, embracing the whole province with its various windings. There are found emeralds, sapphires, carbuncles, topazes, chrysolites, onyx, beryl, sardius, and many other precious stones. There, too, grows the plant called Asbestos.'
And all this was reported to be just three days' journey from the garden from which Adam was expelled, but as the geographical position of the province was not specified the information was a trifle vague. Prester John, however, described awonderful fountain, the virtues of which correspond with those of a well in Ceylon described by Sir John Mandeville, and this is why some people say that the Garden of Eden was in the Island of Spices.
There is a twelfth-century map of the world at Cambridge, which shows Paradise on an island opposite the mouth of the Ganges. And in the story of St. Brandan, the saint reaches an island somewhere 'due east from Ireland,' which was Paradise, and on which he met with a man who told him that a stream—which no living being might cross—flowing through the island, divided the world in twain. Another centre!
In an Icelandic story of the fourteenth century are related the marvellous adventures of one Eirek of Drontheim, who, determined to find out the Deathless Land, made his way to Constantinople. There he received a lesson in geography from the Emperor. The world, he was told, was precisely one hundred and eighty thousand stages, or about one million English miles, round, and is not propped up on posts, but is supported by the will of God. The distance between the earth and heaven, he was told, is one hundred thousand and forty-five miles, and round about the earth is a big sea called the ocean.
'But what is to the south of the earth?' asked the inquisitive Eirek.
'Oh,' replied the Emperor, 'the end of the earth is there, and it is called India.'
'And where shall I find the Deathless Land?' he inquired; and he was told that slightly to the east of India lies Paradise.
Thereupon Eirek and a companion started across Syria, took ship and arrived at India, through which they journeyed on horseback till they came to a strait which separated them from a beautiful land. Eirek crossed over and found himself in Paradise, and, strange to say, an excellent cold luncheon waiting for him. It took him seven years to get home again, and, as he died soon after his return, the map of the route was lost.
Still, Eirek's Paradise may not improbably have been Ceylon.
The latest location of the Garden of Eden is by a recent traveller in Somaliland, in the north-east shoulder of Africa and south of the Gulf of Aden. This is in the neighbourhood of the country of Prester John, but in its present aspects can by no means be regarded as a Terrestrial Paradise.
Sir John Mandeville's description of the Terrestrial Paradise which he discovered gives it as the highest place on the earth—so high that the waters of the Flood could not reach it. And in the very centre of the highest point is a well, he said, that casts out the four streams, Ganges, Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates—all sacred streams. Now, in the Encyclopædia of India it is stated that 'The Hindus at Bikanir Rajputana taught that the mountain Meru is in the centre surrounded by concentric circles of land and sea. Some Hindus regard Mount Meru as the North Pole. The astronomical views of the Puranas make the heavenly bodies turn round it.' So here again we have a mountain as the terrestrial centre.
In the Avesta there is reference to a loftymountain at the centre of the world from which all the mountains of the earth have grown, and at the summit of which is the fountain of waters, whereby grow two trees—the Heavenly Soma, and another tree which yields all the seeds that germinate on earth. From this fountain, according to the Buddhist tradition, flow four streams to the four points of the compass, each of them making a complete circuit in its descent.
This central mountain is the Navel of Waters where originated all matter, and where sits Yama under the Soma tree—just as in the Norse legend the Norns, or Fates, sit by the great central earth-tree, Yggdrasil.
According to the Greek tradition, Jupiter, in order to settle the true centre of the earth, sent out two eagles, one from east and one from west. They met on the spot on which was erected the Temple of Delphi, and a stone in the centre of that temple was called the Navel of the World. A golden eagle was placed on each side of this stone. The design is preserved in many examples of Greek sculpture, and the stone itself is mentioned in several of the Greek plays.
With reference to this, Mr. Lethaby, in his Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth, observes: 'We may see embodied in this myth of the centre-stone the result of the general direction of thought; as each people were certainly "the people" first born and best beloved of the gods, so their country occupied the centre of the world. It would be related how the oldest and most sacred city, or rather temple, was erected exactly on the navel. A story like thistold of a temple would lead to the marking in the centre of its area the true middle point by a circular stone, a stone which would become most sacred and ceremonial in its import.'
And Dr. Schliemann thus writes of a central circle he unearthed in the palace at Tirynthus: 'In the exact centre of the hall, and therefore within the square enclosed by the four pillars, there is found in the floor a circle of about 3·30 m. diameter. There can be little doubt that this circle indicates the position of the hearth in the centre of the megaron. The hearth was in all antiquity the centre of the house, about which the family assembled, at which food was prepared, and where the guest received the place of honour. Hence it is frequently indicated by poets and philosophers as the navel or centre of the house. In the oldest time it was not only symbolically but actually the centre of the house, and especially of the megaron. It was only in later days, in the palaces of the great Romans, that it was removed from the chief rooms and established in a small by-room.'
All which may be true enough, and yet the placing of the hearthstone in the centre of the house may have had less reference to the earth-centre idea, than to the fact that in the circular huts of primitive man it was necessary to have a hole at the apex of the roof. Still, it is interesting to note that, as in the Imperial palace at Constantinople, so on the floor of St. Peter's at Rome, and elsewhere, is a flat circular slab of porphyry, associated with all ceremonials.
Is there any connection between the old central hearthstone and the Dillestein—Lid of Hell—one meets with in Grimm?
We have seen that the centre of the world is placed in Europe, in Asia, and in Africa, but who would expect to find it in America many centuries ago? Yet the traditions of Peru have it that Cuzco was founded by the gods, and that its name signifies 'navel'; and traditions of Mexico describe Yucatan as 'the centre and foundation' of both heaven and earth. We must, however, go back to the East as the most likely quarter in which to find it, and as the quarter to which the eyes of man have been most consistently turned.
To successive centuries of both Jews and Christians Jerusalem has been the centre of the world, and the Temple the centre of Jerusalem. The Talmud gives directions to those who are in foreign countries to pray with their faces towards the sacred land; to those in Palestine to pray with their faces towards Jerusalem; to those in Jerusalem to pray with their faces towards the Mount; to those in the Temple to pray with their faces towards the Holy of Holies. Now, this was not merely because this sacred spot was a ceremonial centre, but also because it was regarded as the geographical centre of the earth. According to the Rabbis the Temple was built on the great central rock of the world.
It is written in the Talmud: 'The world is like the eyeball of man: the white is the ocean that surrounds the wall, the black is the world itself, and the pupil is Jerusalem, and the image of thepupil is the Temple.' And again: 'The land of Israel is situated in the centre of the world, and Jerusalem in the centre of the land of Israel, and the Temple in the centre of Jerusalem, and the Holy of Holies in the centre of the Temple, and the foundation-stone on which the world was grounded is situated in front of the ark.' And once more: 'When the ark was removed a stone was there from the days of the first Prophets. It was called Foundation. It was three digits above the earth.'
This claim is direct enough, and at Jerusalem to this day in the Dome of the Rock, supposed to occupy the site of Solomon's Temple, is a bare stone which, as Sir Charles Warren was assured, rests on the top of a palm-tree, from the roots of which issue all the rivers of the world. The Mohammedans have accepted this same stone as the foundation-stone of the world, and they call it the Kibleh of Moses. It is said that Mahomet once intended making this the sacred centre of Islam, instead of Mecca, but changed his mind, and predicted that at the Last Day the black stone—the Kaabah—will leave Mecca and become the bride of the Foundation-stone at Jerusalem. So that there can be no possible doubt of the centre of sacred influences.
Concerning the stone at Jerusalem, Professor Palmer says: 'This Sakhrah is the centre of the world, and on the day of resurrection—it is supposed—the Angel Israfil will stand upon it to blow the last trumpet. It is also eighteen miles nearer heaven than any other place in the world,and beneath it is the source of every drop of sweet water that flows on the face of the earth. It is supposed to be suspended miraculously between heaven and earth. The effect upon the spectators, however, was so startling, that it was found necessary to place a building round it and conceal the marvel.'
According to Hittite and Semitic traditions mentioned by Professor Sayce and Professor Robertson Smith, there was a chasm in this central spot through which the waters of the Deluge escaped.
Right down to and through the Middle Ages Jerusalem was regarded by all Christians as the centre of the world; sometimes as the navel of the earth; and sometimes as the middlemost point of heaven and earth. The Hereford map of the thirteenth century, examined by Mr. Lethaby, shows the world as a plane circle surrounded by ocean, round whose borders are the eaters of men, and the one-eyed, and the half-men, and those whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders. 'Within this border we find everything the heart could desire; the sea is very red, the pillars of Hercules are pillars indeed; there is the Terrestrial Paradise enclosed by a battlemented wall, and unicorns, manticoras, salamanders, and other beasts of fascinating habits are clearly shown in the lands where they live. The centre of all is Jerusalem, a circular walled court, within which again is a smaller circle, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.'
Even when the earth was recognised as a sphere,the idea of Jerusalem being the centre was not given up. Dante held to it, and veracious Sir John Mandeville endeavoured thus to explain away the difficulty: 'In going from Scotland or from England towards Jerusalem, men go always upwards, for our land is in the low part of the earth towards the west; and the land of Prester John is in the low part of the world towards the east; and they have the day when we have the night, and on the contrary they have the night when we have the day; for the earth and sea are of a round form, and as men go upward towards one point they go downward to another. Also you have heard me say that Jerusalem is in the middle of the world; and that may be proved and shown there by a spear which is fixed in the earth at the hour of midday, when it is equinoctial, which gives no shadow on any side.' Ingenious, if not convincing!
The Greek Church still regard Jerusalem as the middle of the world, and Mr. Curzon tells that in their portion of the Holy Sepulchre they have a magnificently decorated interior, in the centre of which is a globe of black marble on a pedestal, under which, they say, the head of Adam was found, and which they declare to be the exact centre of the globe.
The Mohammedans generally, however, regard the Kaabah at Mecca as—for the present, at any rate—the true centre. This stone is supposed to have been lowered directly from heaven, and all mosques are built to look towards it. Even in the modern schools of Cairo, according to Mr.Loftie, the children are taught that Mecca is the centre of the earth.
The Samaritans, however, look upon Gerizim as the holy mountain and centre of the religious and geographical world. And the Babylonians regarded the great Temple of Bel, according to Professor Sayce, as the house of the Foundation Stone of Heaven and Earth.
Gaya, again, is the Mecca of the Buddhists, where Buddha sat under the tree when he received enlightenment. This tree is the Bodhi tree described by Buddhist writers as surrounded by an enclosure rather of an oblong than of a square shape, but with four gates opening to the four cardinal points. In the middle of the enclosure is the diamond throne which a voice told Buddha he would find under a Pipal tree, which diamond throne is believed to be of the same age as the earth. 'It is the middle of the great Chiliocosm; it goes down to the limits of the golden wheel and upwards it is flush with the ground. It is composed of diamonds; in circuit it is a hundred paces or so. It is the place where the Buddhas attain the sacred path of Buddhahood. When the great earth is shaken this spot alone is unmoved. When the true law decays and dies it will be no longer visible.'
According to Sir Monier Williams, a stone marked with nine concentric circles is shown at Gaya as the diamond throne, and the Chiliocosm is not the centre of the world alone but of the Universe.
But in China, also a land of Buddhists, we findanother centre, and in India there is an iron pillar at Delhi, dating from the fourth century, supposed by the Brahmans to mark the centre from their point of view. And in Southern India the Tamils have the Temple of Mandura, in the innermost sanctuary of which a rock comes through the floor, the roots of which are said to be in the centre of the earth.
The Indian Buddhists, of course, denied that China could be the Middle Kingdom, as the place where Buddha lived must necessarily be the centre. Nevertheless, the centre is now found by Chinese Buddhists in the Temple of Heaven at Pekin, where is one circular stone in the centre of circles of marble terraces, on which the Emperor kneels surrounded by circles—including that of the horizon—and believes himself to be in the Centre of the Universe and inferior only to Heaven.
But in the sixth century a certain Chinese traveller, called Sung-Yun, went to India for Buddhist studies, and he made his way by the Pamirs, the watershed of the great Asiatic rivers Indus and Oxus. And of this country he wrote:
'After entering the Tsung Ling mountains, step by step, we crept upwards for four days, and reached the highest point of the range. From this point as a centre, looking downwards, it seemed just as though we were poised in mid-air. Men say that this is the middle point of heaven and earth.'
This was written more than thirteen hundred years ago, and men to-day still call this part of Asia the Roof of the World.