BookA__G:._6_5' r> /3 7^ A HISTORY OHAEACTEE AKD AOHIEYEMEE"TS OF THE SO-CALLED CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. BY AAEON GOODRICH "As the most obscure soldier of an army may sometimes by a fiery arrow destroy the strongest fortress of the enemy, so may the weakest man, when he makes himself the courageous champion of truth, overcome the most sohd ramparts of superstition and error." Manou. WITE NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATION'S, AND AN APPENDIX. \^:-mi- NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 549 & 551 BROADWAY. 1874. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S74, By AAEON GOODRICH, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. / TO THE MEMORY OF TOE PATEIOT, SOnOLAR, JURIST, STATESMAN, AND FRIEND, WILLIAM HENEY SEWAKD, WHO, DURING A LONG AND EVENTFUL LIFE, SUFFERED PATIENTLY, AND LABORED EARNESTLY AND WISELY, FOR THE ADV ANCEMENT OF HIS RACE, THIS WORK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED By AARON GOODRICH. A few months before his lamented death, while this work was yet in 2^rogress, Hon. William H. Seward had kindly permitted its dedication to himself hut, in the interval which elapsed before its completion, the nation was called to mourn the loss of one of her greatest so7is, and the author that of a revered and beloved friend. It is, therefore, as a tribute to his memory, that this volume is in- scribed. " Gold is the most precious of all commodities ; gold constitutes treasure, and he who possesses it has all he needs in this world, as also the means of rescuing souls from purgatory, aiid restoring them to the enjoyment of para- dise.'''' — (CoLUMBrrs's letter to the sovereigns, July 7, 1503.) " When Simon saw that through laying on of the apostle's hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying, ' Give me also this power, that, on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.' But Peter said unto him, ' Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.' " — (Acts viii. 18-20.") PEE FAO E. In giving the present work to the public, in sending it forth a single champion against a host of opponents, many of whom are the flower of literary chivalry, the author is aware that its reception will not be altogether a friendly one ; he has, however, devoted several years of thought and study to the subject which is now imperfectly treated, and the deeper he has dived into the secrets of unpublished or forgotten history, the more firm have become his convictions that some proclamation of the truth should be made, some protest entered against the further propagation of a falsehood under the name of history. If, in his attempt to do this, he should appear too solely to attach himself to one side of the case, too severely to censure, and to dwell too particularly on the errors and crimes of his hero, on the partiality and inaccuracy of historians, let it be remembered that for three centuries only one side of the case has been presented, the one laudatory of Columbus ; that during all that time nothing has been left unwritten which could excite the enthusiasm and admiration of the reader in his behalf: histories have hitherto been written solely to praise him ; the writer ap- pears, therefore, as the self-constituted counsel for the opposite side, the vindicator, however inadequate, of the truth of history ; he would show the injustice which has been done to worthy men who lived when Columbus lived, whom the latter and his advo- cates ruthlessly assail, and woidd prove that what has hitherto been termed the history of a great man is but a gilded lie, a vi PREFACE. ■wliited sepulchre, fair without, but within full of rottenness and dead men's bones. In this attempt he departs widely from the plan of any for- mer history of the discovery of America ; he treats some subjects which at the first blush appear irrelevant, or at any rate far- fetched, in their association with the inscription on the title-page ; yet he feels assured that upon reflection the reader will find no subject broached which has not a direct bearing on the state- ments contained in the life of Columbus, the facts revealed, or the theory which is inevitably dedaced from these facts. "Works of genius, human greatness, cannot, it would seem, be too largely or too enthusiastically extolled ; the historian should, however, bear in mind that justice more than enthusiasm is his mission : however small a portion of the history of humanity his work may embrace, however ardently he may be enamored of his subject, lie should see to it that he does not commit injustice toward any individual, land, race, or age ; that he sacrifices no truth, immolates no worthy name to the shrine which he would honor. This conception of the higher moral duties of the historian is too rarely entertained ; the learning of antiquity is ignored that the pride of modern times may be inflated, great names of all ages are unjustly thrust into oblivion or condemned to ignominy, that some one or more of their contemporaries may be made to embody all the greatness and virtue whiicli belonged to a gener- ation. Examples of this will rise innumerable to the mind of the scholar and thinker. In many lands, in many races, humanity has risen to the acme of intelligence, then sunk again into the insignificance of ignorance and superstition. As centuries have succeeded centu- ries in the great calendar of time, races and nations in regular rotation have had their childhood, their manhood, their old age : their childhood, simple and credulous ; their manhood, vigorous, and, as far as things of this world can be, perfect ; their old age, which sinks them into the puerility of childhood without its hope PEEFACE. yii and promise ; witli some, old age has terminated in moral or actual death and extinction, but as each falls into this sad and inevitable dotage, another race, youthful and vigorous, springs up, which must tread the same path, attain substantially the same perfection, and decline into the same insignificance. Not without thought did the wise man of the Hebrews declare, when his race was at the height of its strength and glory, that there is no new thing under the sun ; the hopes, aspirations, emotions, plans, and j)rojects, which to the youth appear a part of himself and his generation, individualizing it and him especially, have all been experienced and projected before him, by his sire, grand- and great-grandsires ; even so, the science, learning, and ci^dlization which appear to pretentious modern times especially to distinguish them, and to prove the law of progression, had been discovered, achieved, attained by the remote nations of an- tiquity, in what are termed dark and prehistoric ages. The injustice done is not altogether willful ; the present is surrounded as with an atmosphere by its great thoughts and achievements, while in the past these are only represented by isolated results or obscure traditions : what wonder, then, that the men of the present should regard the times in which they live, the age in which their race attains its perfect manhood, as teem- ing with more thought and brain, throwing greater light, and nearer grasping perfection, than those gone by, each of which in its turn looted with like self-gratulation on its own attainments, and with like misconception and injustice on those of its prede- cessors ? It is with a conviction of this great fact, with a belief that there is no new thing under the sun, that races and nations rise inevitably in turn, and in turn as inevitably fall, that the writer, while endeavoring to sink the so-called Christopher Columbus to his just level in the estimation of posterity, and raise to theirs those of his contemporaries whose fame was sacrificed to create the fictitious glory with which he has been endowed, also en- deavors to rehabilitate the memory of past generations whose viii PREFACE. achievements have been ignored or denied for the especial ag- grandizement of modern times. Hence the chapters on the An- cients and the Northmen. The writer may therefore ascribe a twofold object to his work : 1. To place in its true light the character of a man the importance of whose connection with the history of America has been magnified ; in whom have been incorporated, at the sac- rifice of justice and truth, the thoughts, deeds, and glory which belong in fiir greater measure to his contemporaries. 2. To enter a protest, however feeble, against the spirit of the age, which would incorporate in modern times all the greatness of past ages, and arrogates to itself the honor of in- venting: or discoverino; sciences and arts which had beeu carried to as great perfection as human intelligence will permit, before the so-called history of the world began. With this twofold object in view, seeking ever the guidance of justice and truth, the author has written the present work. Its success or failure cannot alter his convictions that the cause he has espoused is a righteous one, and that it is worthy a far abler pen than his, not only to rehabilitate those who have been unjustly contemned, but also to cast down idols which have be- come the objects of base and ignoble, because blind and unthink- ing, worship. Aaeon Goodrich. St. Paul, Minnesota, Juhj 6, 1873. LIFE OF COLUMBUS. CHAPTER I. AECHITECTUEAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE ANCIENTS. It Las been too mucli the custom of modern writers to dis- parage the achievements of the ancients, that they may thereby magnify the deeds and exploits of those in whose interests they write ; hence we are tauglit that, in ancient times, the facilities Baalbec. for promulgating knowledge were small, the ideas entertained of astronomy and the form and size of our planet primitive to a ridiculous extent ; the ships rude in construction and unable to 2 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. leave the coast ; while many of the phenomena of JSTature, which are now in daily use, were totally unknown. How unjust are these teachings we will endeavor briefly to expose. It is universally admitted that one branch of knowledge lea^s almost inevitably to another ; that the whole vast array of sci- ences and arts move in a circle, linked hand-in-hand, as it were, one with another ; when, therefore, we find a nation or people incontestably preeminent in one or more of these, v,c may, should their learning and achievements have fallen into oblivion, natu- rally infer that in other branches they equally excelled. As the modern traveler visits the fallen cities of Asia, and pauses amid the ruins of Babylon, Nineveh, Tadmor in the Desert, grand even in their decay, he can scarce imagine an ignorant people inhabiting such noble structures, still less plan- ning and erecting them ; these fallen stones and prostrate col- umns, in their colossal size and beauty, put to shame the fairest of our modern architectural monuments. We allow that here the people of the past were preeminent, we concede them perfection in the extraordinary, yet deny them the knowledge of even the ordinary attainments of less civilized nations. Let us, however, rapidly review their achievements, not only in architecture, of which living proof exists, but in geography, astronomy, naviga- tion ; let us study somewhat the facts which have been handed down to us, obscured by superstitious constructions, metaphori- cal or poetical language, and that inevitable and too often im- penetrable veil which the mighty hand of Time casts over all things ; then, following the laws of cause and effect, let us arrive, if possible, at a more just appreciation of the mighty nations that have preceded us. The earliest architectural monument of which we find any mention is that of t\\e Tower of Babel ; though, indeed, Josephus, speaking of the learning and achievements of the sons of Scth, writes : " They studiously turned their attention to the knowl- edge of the heavenly bodies and their configurations. And, lest their science should at any time be lost among men, and what they had previously acquired should perish, .... they erected two columns, the one of brick and the other of stone, and en- graved upon each of them their discoveries, so that in case the brick pillar should be dissolved by the waters, the stone one might survive to teach men the things engraved upon it, and at TOWER OF BABEL. the same time inform them that a brick one had formerly been also erected by them. It remains even to the present day in the land of Siriad." ' This interesting account of the antediluvian Sn-iadic cohmms excepted, the Tower of Babel remains first in the list of the ar- chitectural efforts of the ancients. The Hebrew tradition has most probably given us but an erroneous idea of the reasons m- ductive to the undertaldng ; we contend that it is too much the rule among modern writers upon antiquity, to take for granted the superstition, and, we may almost so express it, mfantile ig- norance, of what they term the primitive races. Scientihc re- search has proved the world to be far older than biblical history would lead us to suppose ; the so-called primitive races must, then have had an earlier origin, and have attained a more ad- vanced stage of civilization, than is generally accorded them, tradition tells us that Babel was intended to become a temple for the worship of Baal, which worship was that of the sun, moon, stars, light, heat. Astronomy was long a study in the East ; we have read how, even in an antediluvian period, the sons of Seth had made and recorded their discoveries, and we know that the Hindoos were at an early age far advanced in this science The flat plains and clear skies of Babylon are admirably adapted for observatories, and the learned men inhabiting them, passing their lives in the contemplation of the heavenly bodies mio-ht easily be supposed to worship these by the unenlightened ma^'sses, who, in their ignorance, might adopt the apparent reli- gion -We know that to this day the enlightened Persian, the so-called worshiper of the sun, when accused of such jn '^ct will reply, not without some contempt for the ignorance of the Ohris- tia^ that in paying respect to the Deity he turns toward the sun, the greatest of his works, but no more thinks of worship- ing that orb than does the Christian devotee the emblems which decorate his churches. . j t ^ If the Tower of Babel was, as we believe, intended lor an astronomical observatory, or gnomen, the confusion ^y^^ch r^. suited in the abandonment of the enterprise is not diihcuit to account for; the most learned men of the land and of the countries round about must have been assembled to superintend 1 It has been said that Josephus here confounds Seth with the Egyptian Pharaoh Sesostris. 4 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. its erection," and what more probable tlian that these same learned men, each eager for the adoption of his own peculiar views, should desire them carried out at the expense of those of others ? Hence disagreement, contests, division, and the fin^l abandonment of the work ; the diverse languages spoken by the learned of different countries, which were unintelligible jargon to the ignorant, might easily have been believed by the masses to have caused the dispersal, and would account fur the tradi- tional confusion of tongues. Tlie vast pile amid tlie ruins of Babylon, called Birs Nimroud, is supposed by many curious an- tiquarians to be the remains of this once famous tower; Kimrod, desiring to embellish the metropolis of his vast empire, is said to have completed it, raising it to the height of seven hundred feet. The great city of Babylon, the oldest and largest of which we have any account, is itself now but a vast and chaotic heap of ruins. Herodotus has, however, *left us a detailed and vivid de- scription of its splendors as well as of the greatness of its sovereigns. Fifty miles square, surrounded by a wall eighty- seven feet through at the base, and, though three hundred and fifty feet high, so broad at the summit that four chariots could drive abreast, one hundred gates of massy brass giving entrance to it, the first aspect of this city must have been imposing indeed. " Yet," writes the Father of History, " its internal magnificence exceeds whatever has come within my knowledge." May we not echo the sentiment, even at the present stage of advanced civilization f Where shall we now find such a palace as that of Nebuchadnezzar, six miles in circumference, entered by gates of wrought brass and adorned with statues of gold and silver ? Here were the hanging-gardens, styled even by the Greeks, that most refined and artistic nation, one of the wonders of the M'oi-ld ; an artificial mountain four hundred feet high, terraced on all sides; the tallest trees of the forest gre^v upon these terraces, Ibuntains and flowers adorned them ; the massive stone pillars and arches supporting them were protected from the action of moisture from the soil by sheetings of lead and zinc, the soil was irri- ' In the " Taschal Chronicle," written in the fourth century, we find the following: "About the time of the construction of the tower, a certain Indian of the race of Arphaxad made his appearance, a wise man, and an astronomer, whose name was Andubarius; and it was he that first instructed the Indians in the science of as- tronomy." BABYLON, TADMOR, ETC. 5 gated by means of hydraulic machinery which drew up water from the Euphrates. The magnificent Temple of Belus, the Jupiter Belus of the Greeks, was one of the chief among the superb buildino-s of Babylon, and indeed the beauties of that city alone would occupy more space than our brief chapter will allow ; these have all disappeared. ''Babylon is fallen. The heautrj of the Chaldees' excellency is laid low ; " a few ruined mounds point the place where once she stood ; the stones of her mighty walls and superb temples have builded cities which in the days of her glory were not known ; those uncouth mounds have indeed served somewhat to demonstrate how far more advanced were knowl- Taumok. edge and civilization two thousand years ao;o than the pride of modern ages would care to have known. Here were found glass of exquisite transparency, ornaments of fine earthen-ware, ala- baster, and marble, and, still greater the discovery, the magnify- ing-lens, which is called a modern invention. How many other great ruins might we not name, that silently testify to the greatness of the past ! Baalbec, with its airy col- umns, so light and graceful against the eastern sky, that the be- holder cannot realize that they are formed of stones similar to the huge masses fallen around ; glorious old Thebes, where the silent 6 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. Sphinx has sat for more than four thousand years, and whose beautiful monuments were conveyed by the greatest of modern conquerors to adorn the greatest of modern cities ; Tadmor in the Desert, the far-famed Palmyra of the Greeks and Romans, built or adorned by the wise man of Israel — the beautiful words of Yol- ney as he contemplated its ruins may well apply to the many fallen cities of the East : " Here once flourished an opulent city ; here was the seat of a powerful empire. A busy crowd once cir- culated in these streets now so solitary. "Within these walls, where a mournful silence now reigns, the noise of the arts, the shouts of joy and festivity, incessantly resounded ; these piles of marble were regular palaces ; these prostrate pillars adorned the majesty of temples ; these ruined galleries surrounded public places. Here a numerous people assembled for the sacred duties of religion, or the anxious cares of subsistence ; here Industry, parent of Enjoyment, collected the riches of all climes ; here the purple of Tyre was exchanged for the precious thread of Serica ; the soft tissues of Cashmere for the sumptuous tapestry of Lydia ; the amber of the Baltic for the pearls and perfumes of Arabia ; the gold of Ophir for the tin of Thule. " Now naught remains of its vast domination but a doubtful and empty remembrance ! To the tumultuous throng which cir- culated under these porticoes, has succeeded the solitude of death. The opulence of a commercial city is changed to hideous poverty. The palaces of kings are become a den of wild beasts ; flocks fold on the area of the temple, and unclean reptiles and creeping things inhabit the sanctuary of the Most High." Thus it is with the glorious cities of the past, thus must it also be with those of the present ; even so shall the traveler yet meditate in solitude where now are London, Paris, and become amazed at the vast pile of ruins which was once the great Cathe- dral of Cologne — Time must annihilate all. With what admira- tion mingled with awe do we not, then, gaze at the gigantic structure overlooking the plains of Jizeh (Gish) ! Here Time has been powerless, during four thousand years, to destroy, and the Great Pyramid has been preserved through all these ages, per- haps to teach us the great moral lesson of our own insignifi- cance, and that what we term progress may sometimes be retro- gression. For centm-ies it was believed that the Great Pyramid, like THE GEEAT PYRAMID. 7 many of the other more modern pyramidal structures which are found in the valley of the Nile, was destined as a place of sepul- ture for Egyptian kings, but the curious researches of many learned men in this century have opened a wider and far more interesting field for the antiquarian, and have demonstrated that this vast monument was raised to "be an eternal standard for weights and measures, also for an astronomical observatory ; so perfectly are the statements made, in support of this theory, in accordance with the measurement of the pyramid, that it is im- possible to regard as accidental such wonderful concurrence. That the Great Pyramid was not intended for a receptacle of the dead is evident from various facts, the foremost of which is that no hieroglyphics or inscriptions are found within or without. It is well kno\\Ti that the Egyptians never entombed their dead without some such inscription being placed on the monument. When the Great Pyramid was in its original state, that is to say, when each of the angular sides, rising from a perfect rec- tangular base, and joining in a perfect point at the summit, was covered with polished beveled casing-stones, it presented a per- fect geometrical figure, its height being to twice its base as the diameter of a circle to its circumference. This assertion, first made by Mr. John Taylor in his remarkable work on the pyra- mid, has since been confirmed by the learned research of Prof. Piazzi Smyth, Royal Astronomer of Scotland; it was contra- dicted by many professed antiquarians and Egyptologists, who, in their measurement of the base of the pyramid, had failed to make allowance for the heap of rubbish which has accumulated on the rocky platform upon which it is built, as also to ascertain with any certainty how far the marble casing w^hich once cov- ered the pyramid extended beyond its present limits; these diffi- culties were finally removed by the finding of the sockets cut in the solid rock base, wherein the corner-stones of the pyramid were set, and the important discovery, by Colonel Howard Vyse, of two of the white marble casing-stones, in situ, a discovery which, besides enabling the pyramid to be measm*ed correctly, also permits us to form some idea of its external appearance in its pris- tine perfection — smooth, polished marble " shining resplendent afar " in a sloping plane, the workmanship as exquisite as that of an optician, the joints so fine as to be almost imperceptible to the close observer, and this with stones nearly five feet high, eight 8 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. feet broad, and twelve feet long ; tlie cement joining these two stones is as firm and solid as it was four thousand years ago. Portions of other casing-stones h^ve been found, efforts to sun- der which at the joints have resulted in the breaking of the mar- ble itself, without accomplishing the object. Since the above discoveries, every attempt to measure the pyramid has served to bring a nearer result, to prove the per- fection of the plan ; and, if there are yet some fractional dilier- ences, learned geometricians avow that the more perfect their means of measurements, the more perfect the result shows the form of the pyramid to be.^ The self-conceit of the modern man of science must receive a slight shock when he is forced to admit that the facilities for making perfect measurements were greater four thousand years ago than at the present day. When the French academicians visited Egypt in 1799, they found, much to their astonishment and admiration, that the orientation of the pyramid (the correspondence of its four corners with the four cardinal points) was, exact within a fraction, and nearer ap- proaching exactness than any modern orientation ; and it has since been found that the fractional difference they noted diminishes as greater perfection of calculation is employed, and would per- haps totally disappear should modern science be able to dis- cover the means einj)loyed by the builders of the pyramid to fix ^ Prof. Smyth, perhaps the most learned of modern writere on the suljject, saj's : " Modern theoretical science no doubt both can compute and actually has com- puted the proportion to a far greater degree of closeness, to three hundred places of decimals, for instance ; but modern science is unfortunately very unequal. Some theoretical points are pursued to an excessive extent, past all visible use, while the application of others to Nature and art is left in a sadly crude condition; and with regard to realizing the proportion now spoken of in a building, the moderns have never reached any thing at all equal to the accuracy of the Great Pyramid. . . . In their measurement of the pyramid, the moderns have had an advantage over the primeval builders of it; and how have they come off in the trial? Why, it has been shown that the exactness of the pyramid has improved under every advance of exactness in the measures applied to it; and whether the differences of modem measures, in their first stage of coarseness, differed from each other by several degrees or subsequently by several minutes, and latterly by a few seconds only, the pyramid itself was ever found in the mean position among them, like the bull's eye in the centre of a target, though the bullet-holes of bad shooters might be found more fre- quently at all points of its circumference ; and whose marks, therefore, seen by them- selves, wovild give subsetiuent visitors exceeding trouble in concluding precisely what the marksmen had been firing at." — (Prof. Smyth, " Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," chap, ii., p. 26.) OEIENTATION OF PYRAMID. 9 orientation. The fractional inexactness whicli occurs in meas- urements may also be the result of the different standards of measure employed at the present day from those of the Egyp- tians four thousand years ago, which appear to have been much more minute. Prof. Smyth, after a succession of ingenious calculations, declares that the standard measure employed at the building of the Great Pyramid was an inch, this pyramidal inch being yro.o w,oto" P^^^ ^^ ^-^^ earth's axis of rotation, and within one-thousandth part the same as the present English inch. Should this wonderful assertion be correct, and to us there ap- pears no reason to doubt its exactness, what a perfect standard of measurement is here handed down to us, and with what ad- vantage might it not be adopted ! It is superior even to the French metre, which is declared to be to.-ow.too" ^^ ^^^® quadrant of the earth's meridian, science having shown that much varia- tion may exist in the shape of that meridian, but fixing the unit measure by the earth's axis at once gives us a perfect and invari- able standard. The Great Pyramid, then, considered in its external phase, after its completion, presented an exact geometrical solid figure, (about seven hundred, and sixty feet broad at the base, and in vertical height about five hundred feet), perfect in orientation, perfect in workmanship, polished and smooth as glass; thus it stood for three thousand years, a sealed and wondrous mystery to the beholder, exciting in the ardent imagination of the East visions of unheard-of wealth, secrets, spells long forgotten, con- cealed within its walls ; yet its silent majesty was long respected, perhaps because a subterranean entrance or descending passage which existed in this as in other pyramids, was considered in early ages as the only entrance, and prevented cm'iosity from sooner beginning the work of destruction, which has, alas ! in modern times advanced only too rapidly. In 820 A. D. the Caliph Al-Mamoun, his cupidity excited by the legends aforesaid of hidden treasures, determined to enter the pyramid ; the subterranean entrance was now totally con- cealed by sand ; the workmen of the caliph therefore began ruth- lessly to quarry into the polished marble surface of the north side. Long and laborious was the task ; at last, aided by the sound of a falling stone, they reached a narrow passage, the primitive subterranean one through which the Rgmans and others had 10 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. penetrated downward into tbe building ; but the stone which had fallen, once a part of the polished ceiling of this passage, revealed by its tall another, ascending instead of descending ; a portcullis of stone, which, though evidently intended to be raised, was too heavy for the present workers to move, obstructed their advance; round it they therefore quarried an entrance into the passage ; thus unexpectedly revealed, this led them to what is now termed the Grand Gallery, which ascends at an angle of 20°, and is one hundred and fifty feet long, twenty-eight feet high, built of hard, polished cyclopean stone ; from this gallery the eager seekers for treasure, believing they had now reached the goal, emerged into the final chamber, which was thirty-four feet long, seventeen broad, and nineteen high, built of polished granite so exqui- sitely finished and cemented that the joints could hardly be per- ceived on the closest inspection ; yet the blocks thus finished were so large that eight roofed the apartment, eight floored it, eight flagged the ends, and sixteen the sides ; but beauty and symmetry were alike lost upon the eager horde that first broke the solitude and silence which for thousands of years had reigned in this mystic recess : they had hoped to find treasures untold with- in its walls, and it contained nothing save an empty stone cofier without a lid ! They abandoned the chamber in disgust. The work of destruction on the outside of the pyramid com- menced two hundred years later ; the exquisite marble casing- stones and much of the solid masonry were carried away, and served to build many edifices in the city of Cairo. The vast pyramid, though desecrated and shorn of all its pristine beauty, still remains a mystery, reminding the traveler that " Time sad- ly overcometh all things and is now dominant, and sitteth on a Sphinx, and looketh into Memphis and old Thebes, while her sister Oblivion reclineth semi-somnorous on a pyramid, gloriously triumphing, making puzzles of Titanian erections, and turning old glories into dreams. History sinketh beneath her cloud. The traveler, as he passeth amazedly through these deserts, ask- eth of her who hath builded them, and she mumbleth some- thing, but what it is he heareth not." ' In latter days those who visited the Great Pyramid, the King's or Porphyry Chamber, the empty coffer, began to con- * "Remarks on Mummies," Sir Thomas Browne : Wilkins's edition. NOT A RECEPTACLE FOR THE DEAD. 11 sider more deeply into the matter. True it had long been ac- cepted as a fact that the pyramid was built to receive the care- fully-embalmed body ot some great Egyptian king ; but if so, why was the coffer (the only object in the chamber) empty, without inscription ? Why was the chamber ventilated by ad- mirably-constructed air-holes, which demonstrated the intention of the builders that it should be visited with impunity ? These questions, indeed, remained unanswered. The riddle was un- solved till, within the last twenty years, a school of men arose, Plains of Gish. represented indeed but by the smallest numbers, who assert that the Great Pyramid M'as built for the noble purpose of preserving an unalterable standard for weights and measures. Yery curious have been the results of the investigations which ensued ; we can, however, but briefly mention a few. It was found that the English measure for wheat, called a quarter, was exactly one-fourth of the cubic contents of the cof- fer. The chamber is exquisitely constructed to further physicnl experiments ; protected on all sides from heat and cold by one hundred and eighty feet of solid masonry, the temperature 12 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. would be invariably C8° Falir., or 20° Centigrade, being one- fifth of tlie distance between the freezing and boiling points of water. The temperature of the country, we know, has not changed, the vegetation being the same as that described by Herodotus. The porphyry coffer is hewn out of one solid rock, so that when struck it gives forth a bell-like sound. Here, then, the standard measure of capacity may become a standard meas- ure of weight ; the filtered water of the Nile, drawn up from a reservoir in this cool, invariable temperature, would serve the purpose, as does distilled water at the present day ; the standard measure of capacity would therefore be the interior of the cofter, and the standard measure of weight the weight of its contents in water at a temperature of 20°, the coffer at the same time typifying the earth's mean density with great exactness. "We have already spoken of the measure of length, the inch, as if to confirm our belief that this was the standard. Over the last door that leads to the king's chamber are five lines, drawn par- allel ; these present the pyramidal cubit, each cubit fifty inches, each inch -sinr.Trlir.inrTr ^^ *^® earth's axis of rotation. Nor is the measurement of time forgotten. The three years of three hundred aDd sixty-five days, and our leap-year of three hundred and sixty-six, the twelve months of the year, the seven days of the week, are all typified, not in figures or hieroglyphics, but by the simple overlapping or grooving of the polished stones in the gallery, antechamber, and king's chamber. If all this be accidental coincidence, then verily is accident more wonderful than forethought ! Further proofs are not wanting in support of this theory. The ancient Saxon chaldron, a measure for wheat, whence the English are said to derive their quarter (which represents one -fourth of the contents of the chaldron) bears strong resemblance in dimensions to the pyramidal coffer, and may very possibly have been transmitted from that source. The tradition that the coft\?i* '^vas destined for some such purpose as the one we ascribe to it, is evidently prevalent in the East. Hekekyan Bey, of Constantinople, writes of this chest : " De- posited by the Aryans in the sanctuary of the first pyramid, as a record of their standard metric system." The vast functions of the pyramid were evidently still more numerous. The sun's rays, obstructed by its sides and apex, east shadows on the sandy plain, which, as they wax and wane, indi- WEIGHT, MEASUEE, ASTRONOMY. 13 cate tlie hours of tlie day. The plain of Gish formed one great dial, superior to the small metallic one proportionately to its size ; here the heavenly bodies record their own history, and lay down their own charts. Astronomy, indeed, played no small part in the building of the pyramid ; through the long inclined passage the north-star was seen in 1817 at the period of its culmination, a fact which excited great interest, and led to the inference that the polar star occupied the same position when the pyramid was built : calculations were made, and it was found that, though the present polar star could not have been visible, owing to the pre- cession of equinoxes, the star a Draconis, which must have been the polar star four thousand years ago, would have occupied the same position. The builders of the pyramid appear, therefore, not only to have fixed its orientation fi'om this observation of the star, but to have intended the passage itself to be an observatory whence accurate astronomical calculations could be made ; we need not add that they must have been learned in astronomy to base such practical operations upon that science. Here, then, we have the standard measurement of weight, ca- pacity, length, time, the practical uses of astronomy, and wonder- ful facilities for making observations and correct calculations in that science, all preserved in one building four thousand years ago, by a people who, to arrive at such wonderful accuracy of result, must have long been versed and preeminent in all scien- tific knowledge (for we cannot bring ourselves to believe in the sudden divine revelation of this knowledge which reason tells us can only be acquired by, and was only intended by the Om- nipotent to reward, the thought, wisdom, and patient industry of generations). " Wise in all the learning of the Egyptians," was an expression in the days of Moses and of Solomon ; we to-day find that we are not wise in all the learning of the Egyp- tians, that our knowledge is often infinitely inferior to theirs, that we are unable even justly to measure and calculate their work. Can we believe that the scientific results and coinci- dences we have recorded are accidental ? Or, admitting they were planned, tliat a polished people like the Egyptians would have expended such vast labor, research, and learning, to fashion a tomb or sarcophagus for some real or unborn person ? We answer : Ko ! the Great Pyramid was never intended for such a pui^pose ; an ignorant people was incapable of planning it, and a 14 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. learned people superior to the taslc of rearing it for any other than national objects. Could the builders of this proud monument of a nation's glory have looked -with prophetic eye, down the dark vista of time, to that fearful day that M-itnessed the destruction of the Alexandrian Library — beheld the genius of unnumbered ages con- signed to the flames — above all, had they foreseen that an igno- rant people should arise and fill the earth, who in afi"ected wis- dom, pointing to this august structure of other days,- should at- tribute to its founders objects or motives incompatible with true greatness, their efforts might have ceased, their arms have been paralyzed. Long might we linger, did space permit, among the architect- ural monuments of Egypt, her temples, obelisks, sphinxes, and colossal statues — volumes could not exhaust the subject ; but we must leave this laud of mystery, and leaving it we arrive nat- urally at its offspring, Greece. Cadmus and Moses left Eg}'pt nearly simultaneously,^ the one migrating to Greece, the other to Judea ; the former introduced into his new country much of the learning and many of the customs of the father-land. The three orders of architecture, Doric, Ionic, and Corin- thian, are generally declared of Grecian birth ; the first two must, however, be excepted, for the Doric column bears strong evi- dences of Egyptian extraction, and an Ionic column -was found amid the ruins of Kineveh, others on the banks of the Tigris ; so that this order is proved to be of Asiatic origin. Another style, said to be invented by the Greeks to perpetuate the humiliation ' Diodorus Siculus who wrote in the first century b. c, ci'ivcs the foUowinff account of and rcaso}is for the Exodus of Cadmus and Moses : " There having arisen in former days a pestiferous disease in Egypt, the multitude attributed the cause of the evil to the Deity; for a very great concourse of foreigners of every nation then dwelt in Egypt, who were addicted to strange rites in their worship and sacrifices : whence the natives of the land inferred that, unless they removed them, there would never be an end to their distresses. They immediately, therefore, expelled these foreigners ; the most illustrious and able of whom passed over in a body (as some say) into Greece and other places, under the conduct of celebrated leaders, of whom the most renowned were Danaus and Cadmus. But a large body of the people went forth into the country which is now called Judea, situated not far distant from Egypt, being altogether desert in those times. The leader of this colony was Moses, a man very remarkable for his great wisdom and valor. When he had taken possession of the land, among other cities he founded that which is called Jerusalem, which is now the most celebrated." — (Diod., lib. xl.) ANCIENT AECHITECTUEE. 15 of some of tlieir captives, the caryatid, or supporting figure, tak- ing the place of a column, is also found in several Egyptian temples ; the only order, therefore, of pure Greek extraction is the Corinthian. The Pandroseum, with its caryatids ; the ancient Temple of Corinth ; the Sysipheum, which Strabo speaks of as in ruins ; the magnificent Temple of Minerva at Athens, the oldest Grecian edifice, perhaps, whose remains permit us to form an adequate idea of the grandeur and beauty of the perfect whole — these and many others, amid the picturesque mountains and valleys of Greece, recall to us the days of her glory, when Phidias, Scopas, and Praxiteles, wrought their exquisite handiwork, when all that was noble, learned, and beautiful, was found within her shores. Few will be the readers who are not familiar with the names, at least, of her monuments, and, thanks to her exquisite works of art, which are yet unrivaled, as also to the rich inheri- tance of literature and science she has handed down to us, the civilization of this country is not often questioned. Greece in turn bequeathed civilization to Pome, which is also rich in monuments, better known and more modern than those of the former ; what need to dwell on the grandeur of the Coli- seum, the Pantheon, the glorious Column of Ti-ajan, the Arches of Titus and Constantino, or to describe the remnants of palaces and temples, the ruins of the Forum, the Capitol, amid which Gibbon resolved to write his "Decline and Fall of the Eoman Empire ? " These are so often depicted with pen and pencil as to be familiar to nearly all. These two lands, Greece and Italy, contain the greater part of ancient architecture to be found in Europe. Other countries, indeed, possess scattered and isolated fragments, but to find an accumulation of ruins which denote the existence of a civilized people ages ago, we must traverse the ocean ; to find remnants of cities that were old when Greece was in its infancy, we must come to the New Woeld ! The reader will here imagine, no doubt, that allusion is made to the Aztec civilization of Mexico, which Prescott depicts in such glowing colors ; but, while admiring the research and perseverance displayed by that eloquent writer, we regret that the " authorities " which he quotes, and which would be beyond refutation had the stories of the Spanish Conquest deserved the name of history, were in reality but one mass of fiction, owing 16 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. to the despotic empire exercised by tlie Churcli and its desire to make all redound to its glory, as also to the self-glorification of the chief actors in the scene, who were their own historians, and not unwilling to play the part of conquerors of a civilized and war- like nation. The Spaniards, at the time of the Mexican Con- quest, had but just emerged from their wars with the Moors or Arabs, a people who had inherited from the East art, wealth, and learning, as well as a poetic and fiery imagination, and a taste for gorgeous display ; who had enriched Spain beyond measure, built the Alhambra and embellished Granada, and who in most arts and sciences were superior to their conquerors. The adventurers KuiNS IN Centbal America. who reached Mexico were not willing to assume a secondary posi- tion to the heroes of the Moorish wars, they therefore depicted the primitive Indian of the forest in colors of Oriental splendor, and magnified their own exploits to the greatness of those of the Cid. Xo blame attaches to Mr. Prescott, who, resting in gdod foith upon a " weight of authority" which is in reality but a fiction, the work of fraud, bigotry, and vain ambition, transmits to us those splendid fables. That they are fiibles there can be little doubt ; no vestiges of past grandeur appear in those places where the splendid towns described by Cortez and his contemporaries ANCIENT AMERICAN EUINS. ir are said to have been situated, and where towns of the same name still stand ; no remains of stately palaces, basins carved in solid rock, gardens, and strong walls, are to be found on the site of the fabulous city of Tezcuco ; had these wonders existed there must surely have remained some traces ; even had the stones been taken to build the present town, they would still be recognizable, but this is built of adobe or dried mud-bricks, and there are no signs of its ever having been otherwise ; so with Mexico, so with Ta- cuba. Furthermore, the Indian of the present day does not rec- ognize or appear to have any knowledge of the ancient ruins in Central America ; it is well known that the traditional history of the Indian is handed down with almost as much accuracy as EiriNS IN Centkai, America. our own written records, and descends unvaried from father io son ; if, therefore, their race had ever reached any thing like the civilization attributed to the Aztecs, some remembrance of its past glories would still be preserved among its descendants. The fine carving of the ruins in Yucatan and elsewhere in Central America appears to have been executed in the same manner as in Egypt ; the tools used in the latter country were, we know, of bronze or copper, hardened by some process un- known to our time ; the arrow-heads and hatchets of the Indians 18 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. were of sharpened stone or flint. Is it likely tliat tlieir race could once have possessed the art of forging and hardening metals to such perfection as the workmanship on the ruins in question de- notes, and then become totally ignorant of that art ? These ruins appear, indeed, throughout, of Egyptian, Pho3nician, or perhaps Asiatic origin, and show signs of great wealth having been expended upon them. Some of the cities are declared to be as large as Thebes. We find among them the Egyptian square column with its carved hieroglyphics. All the ornaments, im- ages, and vessels which have been found, bear the immistakable Egyptian type, notably the statue found at Palenque, which is inscribed in hieroglyphics at the base, and holds in its hand an indented ornament, supposed by some to be the mural crown of the Phoenician Hercules. The statues and carvings are all color- ed. Fine specimens of painting are found, showing this uuknown people to have been further advanced in this art than in that of sculpture. The flesh-tints are of that peculiar red-brown which the Egyptians always used. Another notable Egyptian feature is the pyramidal form of building. True, the Mexican pyramids are truncated, bearing on their summits palaces or temples, neverthe- less, this peculiar style of architecture is common to Egypt and Central America. The pyramid at Copan is almost equal in size at the base to the Great Pyramid, though less perfect in propor- tion and workmanship ; that on which stands the palace at Pa- lenque even bears traces of having been covered with polished stones similar to the casing-stones of the Great Pyramid. The pyramidal gate- ways of Egypt also appear to have existed in .America. Specimens are found at Copan. The serpent, which is carved on the tomb of Pharaoh Necho, and whicli is one of the chief emblems of the Egyptians, forms one of the principal feat- ures of adornment in the Nuns' Hall at Uxmal. A copper coin found at Palenque Avas impressed with the same emblem. The Spaniards, finding a square stone or altar, on which were beautifully-carved figures of warriors leading captives by the hair, immediately declared this to be a representation of human sacrifice, and termed the altar " the sacrificial stone," as having been consecrated to this loathsome rite. AVe believe, how- ever, that the Spaniards, themselves under the power of priest- craft, were too ready to give every emblem, statue, or hiero- glyphic, a religious meaning, and were too apt to interpret that ORIGIN OF ANCIENT AMERICAN RUINS. 19 meaning to the detriment of tlie unfortunate Aztecs. Tlie latter were probably as innocent of the crime of human sacrifice as they were of having erected the stone in question, which is a remnant of the long-extinguished race that first peopled America, raised by them, no doubt, to commemorate their victories. Kenrick de- scribes a similar stone as existing in one of the temples of the Up- per Nile, on which appears a king " holding a number of captives by the hair, who stretch their hands out toward him in an attitude of supplication, while he threatens to strike them with a hatchet." * We might multiply, ad infinitum^ the points of resemblance between the ancient ruins of America and those of Egypt, a re- semblance which can scarcely be considered accidental, as it com- prises the history of the habits, customs, and worship of a people. This resemblance we can record as an incontestable fact, but dis- coveries have hitherto been too limited to admit of any thing but surmise in accounting for it. The ruins in America are in a more advanced state of decay than those of Egypt — shall we therefore believe that here was the parent race, the birthplace of Egyptian art? that the Asiatic nation which gave civilization to Egypt had previously spread itself eastward to this conti- nent \ ' or shall we rather believe that the Phoenicians, when they flourished at Tartessus or Tarshish (the present Cadiz), trad- ing with, perhaps colonizing, the British Islands, extended their voyages as far as America, and colonized the latter, whose ancient monuments mark the decadence of Egyptian art ? Be this as it may, the Spaniards in 1492, the Northmen five hundred years previously, were not the first to establish a con- necting link between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres ; . thousands of years before their time, a people had risen, in what is now termed the New World, to a civilization similar if not equal to that of Egypt. This civilization flourished evidently dur- ing many hundred years, as the many inland cities of which re- mains are visible testify. These must have taken centuries to ar- rive at such dimensions, and prove that inland home commerce existed, sufficient for the support of millions. This, then, was no sea-coast colony of rapid growth and extinction, but a nation that *Kenrick, vol. i., p. 8. ' In our own day Japanese junks have drifted uncontrolled from the shores of that island to those of Alaska and California. Some such accident may have revealed to the Asiatics the so-called New World, thousands of years ago. 20 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. slowlj and steadily increased in numbers and wealth, bow many tbonsand years ago we know not ; but this we know, that trees more tban a thousand years old have been fomid growing on the ruins in Central America, which could only have commenced growth many years after the buildings had fallen into decay. How this people became extinct is yet a mystery. Was it some internal war ? some fell disease or black death ? -or, more Tomb of Sesostris. likely, did savage tribes overcome and destroy them, as barba- rism seems ever to destroy civilization ? These are questions yet unanswered. Future discoveries, perhaps, of other ruins, in a bet- ter state of preservation, may throw greater light on the subject. All we are able now to do is, to travel amazedly through these ruins. Here, indeed, History, to our eager query, " Who hath builded them ? " mumbleth something, but what it is we hear not. CHAPTER 11. ASTEONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, NAVIGATION, LEAENING, AMONG THE ANCIENTS. As well might we attempt to determine the antiquity of intel- lectual man as to fix the age of astronomy. That it is almost coeval with humanity we may, however, reasonably infer, for it is not curiosity, or even a love of science, but the dictates of ne- cessity which impel us to its study : by it the seasons are deter- mined, the proper dates fixed for civil and religious afiairs, the favorable periods for voyages on the vast ocean ascertained. Without it there would be no possibility of fixed rules and regu- lations ; thus is astronomy indispensable to agriculture, politics, and religion. In tracing back its history, the most we can do is, to observe the ancient landmarks, and note the early fragments which have come down to us bearing upon the subject. These are sufficient to show that at a very early age mankind had reached such proficiency in that science as to render it probable that their knowledge was as complete as that of the present day. The Hebrew historian claims for his people the honor of having first studied the heavens ; but the Hindoos, according to their own record, are the most ancient astronomers of whom we have knowledge. They computed eclipses 3102 years b. c, and, as their calculations at this early period represent the state of the heavens with astonishing accuracy, and appear upon examination to be even more correct than those they subsequently made, it is evident they were the result of actual observation. It was the Hindoos who for greater facility of calculation invented the ten numeral figures which the Arabs introduced into Spain, and which have now superseded the old Koman method of comput- ing by means of the letters of the alphabet. 22 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. India, tlien, as far as we can trace back, appears to have been the cradle of astronomy. She spread her knowledge eastward to China and Japan, westward to Chaldea and Egypt, who in turn bequeathed it to Phoenicia and Greece. Learned men of thesp lands appear to have determined the motion and vohime of the stars, the constellations were named in writings both sacred and profane, the signs of the zodiac fixed many centuries anterior to our era. One of the learned men of our day, who for forty years labored to decipher the hieroglyphics of the ancients, found upon a coffin or Egyptian mummy-case (now in the British IMuseum) a delineation of tlie signs of the zodiac and the position of the planets ; the date to which they pointed was the autumnal equi- nox of the year 1722 b. c. Prof. Mitchell, to whom the ftict was communicated, employed his assistants to ascertain the ex- act position of the heavenly bodies belonging to our solar sys- tem on the equinox of that year. This was done, and a diagram furnished by parties ignorant of his object, which showed that on the Tth of October, 1722 b. c, the moon and planets occupied the exact points in the heavens marked upon the coffin in the British Museum. The Egyptians had, we have already shown, a most perfect knowledge of astronomy, and applied that science to such practi- cal uses that a knowledge of it must have been common to all. Mathematics and geometry are said to have had their birth with them. Diodorus writes : " They pay great attention to geometry and arithmetic. For the river, changing the appearance of the country very materially every year, causes many and various discussions among neighbor- ing proprietors, about the extent of their property ; and it would be difficult for any person to decide upon their claims without geometrical proof founded on actual observation ; of arithmetic they have also frequent use, both in their domestic economy and in the application of geometrical theorems, besides its utility in the cultivation of astronomical studies ; for the orders and mo- tions of the stars are observed at least as industriously by the Egyptians as by any other people whatever ; and they keep a record of the motions of each for an incredible number of years, the study of this science having been, from the remotest times, an object of national ambition with them. "They have also most punctually observed the motions, ANCIENT ASTEONOMY. 23 periods, and actions of the planets .... and not uncommonly predict the failure of crops, or an abundance, and the occurrence of epidemic diseases among men and beasts; foreseeing also earthquakes and floods, the appearance of comets, and a variety of other things which appear impossible to the multitude." The most ancient astronomer of Greece, Thales, acquired much of his great learning in Egypt. Six hundred years before Christ he computed the diameter of the sun, and is said to have predicted that memorable eclipse which on the 30th of Septem- ber, 610 B. c, stayed the eifusion of blood and caused an armis- tice between the Medes and Libyans. Pythagoras, one of his disciples, taught the principles of our solar system, also that the moon reflected the sun's rays, and described accurately the na- ture of comets. He is said to have been the first to observe that Yenus is alternately the evening and the morning star. Eratos- thenes measured the diameter of the earth, 200 b. c, by an arc of the meridian, which is the means now employed. Epicurus speaks incidentally as a matter of course, of " the world turning as it does round the axis of the heavens, and that too with sur- prising rapidity." But the work of the ancients which may be called the most complete that has come down to us is that of Claudius Ptolemy, well named the Prince of Astronomers. In the second century of our era he wrote at Alexandria his ad- mirable works. He determined the latitude and longitude of more than four thousand places, and gives the history of ancient astronomy, with an elaborate list of the stars as known to him and older astronomers. The term " colossal," given by the great Hmnboldt to the work of Ptolemy on geography, applies as well to his astronomical labors. Beroseus * repeats the follow- ing Babylonian tradition, which, whatever may be thought of it as a theory, shows what study and calculation were expended by the ancients on these matters : he maintains that all terrestrial things will be consumed when the planets which now are trav- ersing their different courses shall all coincide in the sign of Cancer, and be so placed that a straight line could pass directly through all their orbs ; but the inundation will take place when the same conjunction shall occur in Capricorn. In the first is ^ Beroseus, or Berosus, lived in the fourth century b. c, and was the contempo- rary of Alexander the Great. His works are quoted by Josephus, by Alexander Poly- histor, who wrote in the second century b. c, by Euscbius, and others. 3 24: LIFE OF COLUMBUS. the summer, in the hist the winter of the year. The great year of Aristotle is that in wliicli the i)hinets, in completing their course, return to the sign from which they originally started to- gether when God set them in motion ; in the winter of this year comes the delufje, its summer brings the conflafrration of the world. This periodical revolution or conjunction is fixed by Orpheus at one liundred and twenty thousand years, and by Copandras at one hundred and thirty - six thousand. Other writers contend that the heavenly bodies shall no more coincide in their original positions. No science seems to have been held by the ancients in such veneration as the noble one which lifts men above the petty strife and turmoil of the world, causing them to contemplate the immense expanse of the heavens and numberless stars. Among all the splendors of the Persian Chosroes, the most magnificent was perhaps a dome supported by a forest of forty thousand col- umns, which was adorned with one thousand globes of gold, imi- tating the motions of the planets and constellations of the zodiac : " 'Twas tlius he taught the fabric of the spheres, The changeful moon, the circuit of the stars, The golden zones of heaven." Many of the proudest achievements of the ancients, both in art and letters, have been lost, mutilated, or so falsified that it is difficult to form a just idea of the original. Notwithstanding these disadvantages under which they must labor, enough re- mains to prove that they had arrived at many just conclusions touching astronomy, and the form and size of our planet, so that, from the days of Nimrod to our own, the ignorant only can have believed the earth to be other than spherical, the ridicu- lous story touching Columbus and the sages of Salamanca to the contrary notwithstanding. If this knowledge was attained with- out the aids of which we boast, their achievements should be re- garded as more wonderful than ours. It may, however, be as well to conclude that, as in all ages human nature has under the same circumstances been about the same, an equal amount of learning, thought, and similar instruments, have ever been em- ployed ; in sliort, that there is no new thing under the sun, and that " wisdom shall not die with us." ' ' It is generally believed that Galileo was persecuted by the Church, and tortured by the Inquisition, on account of discoveries made by him in astronomy. In this be- ANCIENT EGYPTIAN EXPLORATIONS. 25 The attainments of the ancients in astronomy are less often contested than their knowledge of geography, in which they are represented as decidedly deficient ; nevertheless, with the aid of those fragments of their writings which have come down to us, we are able in great measure to refute the charge. Certainly in- terest and enterprise were as nearly connected and as great as at the present day. The huge ships propelled by sails, with hun- dreds of oarsmen to take the place of the latter during calms or adverse winds, guided by the magnetic needle (their knowledge of which we shall presently prove), afforded even greater advan- tages than modern sailing-ships. Pharaoh Necho sent out a for- midable exploring expedition, about 600 b. c, manned by Phoe- nicians, which, descending the Ped Sea and circumnavigating Africa, reached the Pillars of Hercules in the third year and re- turned to Egypt by the Mediterranean, thus performing at that early period the voyage, in an inverse direction, for which Yasco de Gama, two thousand years later, became so renowned, with the additional navigation of the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Herodotus is disposed to discredit the accounts of this voyage, for the best reason that could well be given to establish their veracity : that is, he writes that the Phoenicians asserted that during a portion of their voyage the sun was in the north. A gentleman of our day, who, after seven years' study, travel, and observation, finds the sources of the Nile to be the several lakes mentioned by Ptolemy, and corresponding in number, form, size, and location, with the description of the latter, is thought worthy of knighthood, and hailed with triumph by his learned brethren. If these honors are to be paid to one who has sufiicient- ly informed himself to enable him to indorse the correctness of lief we do not fully concur. Books much older than Galileo were then preserved at Rome and Pisa, containing those very theories for which it is alleged this Pisan was persecuted ; these records have come down to our time. It is more just and reason- able to suppose that he and his books were condemned by the Inquisition on account of an attack made upon that body in the preface of a book for the publication cf ■which he had obtained a license from the holy office, as is alleged, by deception or falsehood. Would the Church destroy liis book for affirming that the earth revolved round the sun in little more than three hundred and sixty-five days, while carefully preserving the writings of the ancients in which they proclaim the same doctrines ? We would not here defend the Inquisition, or justify the tyranny of the Church; yet, let it be remembered that Pope Urban VIII. granted an annual pension of one hun- dred crowns for the support of Galileo in the evening of his days, and one of sixty crowns to his son. 26 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. Ptolemy, wliat honors should we not pay to the memory of the great geographer of seventeen hundred years ago ? The question, however, touching the geograjihical knowledge of the ancients which most interests us in the present work is : "Were they or w^ere they not ignorant of the existence of the Western Hemisphere ? Without reverting to what we have said in the preceding chapter touching the resemblance between the ruins of Central America and of Egypt, in accoimting for which M'e can onl}" have recourse to hypothesis, we may rest upon a sure foundation our belief that they were not. Although most writers on the discovery of America, and extravagant eulogists of Co- lumbus, aftect either utterly to ignore, or to regard as fables, the allusions in ancient writings to a land which can be no other than that which we now call the !New World, those who assisted Co- lumbus in his undertaking and instructed him in the course he was to pursue, were actuated and inspired mainly by these allu- sions, Columbus himself, seeking to give a learned air to his enterprise, and to draw attention from the real source whence he derived his knowledge, dwells largely upon these ancient frag- ments, as does also his son." We will not multiply quotations, but will content ourselves with the following from Plato, which so aecui-ately describes the situation of America that the reader must indeed be obstinate who will not believe that he described a country which had been known, and did not marvelously imagine one which should coin- cide so well with the situation of the real continent : " That sea " (the Atlantic) " was then navigable, and had an isl- and fronting that mouth which you in your tongue call the Pillars of Hercules .... and there was a passage hence to the rest of the islands^ as well as from these isUmds to the whole opposite continent that surrounds that real sea .... the Atlantic Isl- and itself was plunged beneath the sea, and entirely disa]:»peared ; whence even now that sea is neither navigable nor to be traced out, being blocked up by the great depth of mud which the sub- siding island produced." " We cannot conceive, when we observe the character of the writings of Plato, that he could have any object in deceiving or misleading his readers. A disciple of the sublime Socrates, his aim '" See Fernando ColuniT)Us'8 " History of the Admiral," chapters vi., vii., viii., ix., x. " Plato, " The Timaeus," Davis's translation. ISLAND OF ATLANTIS. 27 was to elevate and instruct mankind. With regard to the " great island " of which he speaks, we see no reason to term it the ^^fahled island of Atlantis," as do most authors. Wonderful sub- mersions and convulsions have in our own day changed the as- pect of coasts. The groups of islands east of the AVest Indies may be remains of one vast island ; their broken nature renders this hypothesis probable. Wliy should we not, observing the cor- rectness of the greater part of the above description, accept the whole as truthful, instead of rejecting the whole as a fable be- cause one part records an event which, though wonderful, is by no means impossible % If this great island were submerged it must have taken years before the sea became navigable ; by that time men had ceased to consider it as such, and, drawn toward other interests and pursuits, had abandoned or forgotten the "islands and the whole opposite continent which surrounds that real sea," which could have been none other than the West Indies and the Continent of America. It is not probable that the learned, or even ordinarily educated, ever became totally ignorant or obliv- ious of the existence of this continent, while a convulsion so terrible as must have been the one recorded by Plato would have deeply impressed the masses, whose vague and traditional ac- counts of the event may have given rise to those legends respect- ing the horrors pervading '■'■the shadowy'''' or '■'■gloomy ocean" which are said to have been prevalent in the time of Columbus. Wliy should we wonder that the allusions to the Western Hem- isphere are so vague, or be so assured that Atlantis was a fable? were not Herculaneum and Pompeii lost for more than a thousand years, their existence forgotten, and those authors mentioning them accused of inventing fables to mislead the ignorant ? Yet after all those years an accident revealed to astonished modern times the "fabulous cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii," and with them the habits and customs in their minutest details of a people who had been thus buried in the midst of the affairs of daily life, by the flood of molten lava and fiery shower of ashes, and who are proved to have rivaled, if not excelled, us in all the refinements of civilization. The hardened lava can be hewn asunder, the ashes swept away, but none can roll back the mighty ocean, nor disclose what its waves conceal ; this must remain till the day when the sea shall give up its dead. Nothing more fully proves the advanced stage of civilization 28 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. in the earliest ages, tlian the extensive commerce which was car- ried on. In tlie infancy of nations and peoples, the desire for the acquisition of property is indeed implanted in the breast of man, but this desire cannot develop into commerce till the nation is wealthy and populous. In the days of the Hebrew patriarchs, he who first sat down at a spring, or reposed in the grateful shade of a tree, acquired a right to possess the same, which was respected by subsequent visitors. Abraham exclaims to Lot, when their flocks have become so numerous as to render a separation necessary : " Is not the whole land before thee ? separate thyself, 1 pray thee, from me : if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right ; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere .... even as the garden of the Lord .... Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan ; .... and Abraham dwelled in the land of Canaan." "VVe are not, however, to suppose that all nations were thus primitive in the days of the Patriarch. As well might it be main- tained that the world is at present sparsely populated because there are vast regions in America where a citizen may acquire an ample homestead simply by a residence of a few years on the spot of his choice. Trade and commerce were already well sys- tematized. Gold and silver, in exchange for wares, had taken the place of barter, at the time of which we speak. Abraham paid four hundred shekels of silver, such as were current with the merchant, f