Chapter XV: Appendix: No. I (1)

"GENEVA, NOV. 6.--Two days after the news arrived here of the taking of Quebec, Monsieur de Voltaire gave a grand entertainment at his house in the country. In the evening the company retired into a noble gallery, at the end of which was erected an elegant theater, and a new piece, called Le Patriot Insulaire, was performed, in which all the genius and fire of that celebrated poet were exhausted in the cause of liberty. M. de Voltaire himself appeared in the principal character, and drew tears from the whole audience. The scenes were decorated with emblems of liberty, and over the stage was this inscription in Latin and English:

'Libertati quieti Musis Sacrum S P of the F.'

The English line means 'Spite of the French.'

"After the play the windows of the gallery flew open, and presented a spacious court finely illuminated and adorned with savage trophies. In the middle of the court a magnificent fire-work was played off, accompanied with martial music; the star of St. George shedding forth innumerable rockets, and underneath a lively representation, by girandoles, of the cataract of Niagara."--_Public Advertiser_, Nov. 23, 1759.

No. II.

"One of the most singular geographical illusions on record is that which for a long while haunted the imaginations of the inhabitants of the Canaries. They fancied they beheld a mountainous island, of about ninety leagues in length, lying far to the westward. It was only seen at intervals, though in perfectly clear and serene weather. To some it seemed one hundred leagues distant, to others forty, to others only fifteen or eighteen.[199]

"On attempting to reach it, however, it somehow or other eluded the search, and was nowhere to be found. Still, there were so many persons of credibility who concurred in testifying to their having seen it, and the testimony of the inhabitants of different islands agreed so well as to its form and position, that its existence was generally believed; and geographers inserted it in their maps. It is laid down on the globe of Martin Behrm, projected in 1492, as delineated by M. de Murr, and it will be found in most of the maps of the time of Columbus, placed commonly about 200 leagues west of the Canaries. During the time that Columbus was making his proposition to the court of Portugal, an inhabitant of the Canaries applied to King John II. for a vessel to go in search of this island. In the archives of the Torre di Tombo,[200] also, there is a record of a contract made by the crown of Portugal with Fernando de Ulmo, cavalier of the royal household, and captain of the Island of Terceira, wherein he undertakes to go, at his own expense, in quest of an island, or islands, or terra firma, supposed to be the Island of the Seven Cities, on condition of having jurisdiction over the same for himself and his heirs, allowing one tenth of the revenues to the king. This Ulmo, finding the expedition above his capacity, associated one Juan Alphonso del Estreito in the enterprise. They were bound to be ready to sail with two caravels in the month of March, 1487.[201] The fate of their enterprise is unknown.

"The name of St. Brandan, or Borondan, given to this imaginary island from time immemorial, is said to be derived from a Scotch abbot, who flourished in the sixth century, and who is called sometimes by the foregoing appellations, sometimes St. Blandano or St. Blandanus. In the Martyrology of the order of St. Augustine, he is said to have been the patriarch of 3000 monks. About the middle of the sixth century, he accompanied his disciple, St. Maclovio or St. Malo, in search of certain islands, possessing the delights of paradise, which they were told existed in the midst of the ocean, and were inhabited by infidels. After these most adventurous saints-errant had wandered for a long time upon the ocean, they at length landed upon an island called Ima. Here St. Malo found the body of a giant lying in a sepulcher. He resuscitated him, and had much interesting conversation with him, the giant informing him that the inhabitants of that island had some notions of the Trinity, and, moreover, giving him an account of the torments which Jews and pagans suffered in the infernal regions. Finding the giant so docile and reasonable, St. Malo expounded to him the doctrines of the Christian religion, converted him, and baptized him by the name of Mildum. The giant, however, either through weariness of life, or eagerness to enjoy the benefits of his conversion, begged permission, at the end of fifteen days, to die again, which was granted him.

"According to another account, the giant told them he knew of an island in the ocean, defended by walls of burnished gold, so resplendent that they shone like crystal, but to which there was no entrance. At their request he undertook to guide them to it, and, taking the cable of their ship, threw himself into the sea. He had not proceeded far, however, when a tempest arose and obliged them all to return, and shortly after the giant died.[202] A third legend makes the saint pray to Heaven, on Easter day, that they may be permitted to find land where they may celebrate the offices of religion with becoming state: an island immediately appears, on which they land, perform a solemn mass, and the sacrament of the Eucharist; after which, reembarking and making sail, they behold to their astonishment the supposed island suddenly plunge to the bottom of the sea, being nothing else than a monstrous _whale_.[203] When the rumor circulated of an island seen from the Canaries, which always eluded the search, the legends of St. Brandan were revived, and applied to this unapproachable land. We are told, also, that there was an ancient Latin manuscript in the archives of the cathedral church of the Grand Canary in which the adventures of these saints were recorded. Through carelessness, however, this manuscript disappeared.[204] Some have maintained that this island was known to the ancients, and was the same mentioned by Ptolemy among the Fortunate or Canary Islands by the name of Aprositus,[205] a Greek word signifying 'inaccessible,' and which, according to Friar Diego Philipo, in his book on the Incarnation of Christ, shows that it possessed the same quality in ancient times of deluding the eye, and being unattainable to the feet of mortals.[206] But, whatever belief the ancients may have had on the subject, it is certain that it took a strong hold on the faith of the moderns during the prevalent rage for discovery; nor did it lack abundant testimonials. Don Joseph de Viera y Clavijo says there never was a more difficult paradox or problem in the science of geography, since to affirm the existence of this island is to trample upon sound criticism, judgment, and reason, and to deny it, one must abandon tradition and experience, and suppose that many persons of credit had not the proper use of their senses.[207]

"The belief in this island has continued long since the time of Columbus. It was repeatedly seen, and by various persons at a time, always in the same place and the same form. In 1626, an expedition set off for the Canaries in quest of it, commanded by Fernando de Troya and Fernando Alvarez. They cruised in the wonted direction, but in vain; and their failure ought to have undeceived the public. 'The phantasm of the island, however,' says Viera, 'had such a secret enchantment for all who beheld it, that the public preferred doubting the good conduct of the explorers than their own senses.' In 1570 the appearances were so repeated and clear, that there was a universal fever of curiosity awakened among the people of the Canaries, and it was determined to send forth another expedition. That they might not appear to act upon light grounds, an exact investigation was previously made of all the persons of talent and credibility who had seen these apparitions of land, or who had other proofs of its existence.

"Alonzode Espinosa, governor of the island of Ferro, accordingly made a report, in which more than one hundred witnesses, several of them persons of the highest respectability, deposed that they had beheld the unknown island about forty leagues to the northwest of Ferro; that they had contemplated it with calmness and certainty, and had seen the sun set behind one of its points.

"Testimonials of still greater force came from the islands of Palma and Teneriffe. There were certain Portuguese who affirmed that, being driven about by a tempest, they had come upon the island of St. Borondon. Pedro Vello, who was the pilot of the vessel, asserted that, having anchored in a bay, he landed with several of the crew. They drank fresh water in a brook, and beheld in the sand the print of footsteps, double the size of those of an ordinary man, and the distance between them was in proportion. They found a cross nailed to a neighboring tree, near to which were three stones placed in form of a triangle, with signs of fire having been made among them, probably to cook shell-fish. Having seen much cattle and sheep grazing in the neighborhood, two of their party, armed with lances, went into the woods in pursuit of them. The night was approaching, the heavens began to lower, and a harsh wind arose. The people on board the ship cried out that she was dragging her anchor, whereupon Vello entered the boat and hurried on board. In an instant they lost sight of land, being, as it were, swept away in the hurricane. When the storm had passed away, and sea and sky were again serene, they searched in vain for the island; not a trace of it was to be seen, and they had to pursue their voyage, lamenting the loss of their two companions who had been abandoned in the wood.[208]

"A learned licentiate, Pedro Ortez de Funez, inquisitor of the Grand Canary, while on a visit at Teneriffe, summoned several persons before him who testified having seen the island. Among them was one Marcos Verde, a man well known in those parts. He stated that, in returning from Barbary, and arriving in the neighborhood of the Canaries, he beheld land, which, according to his maps and calculations, could not be any of the known islands. He concluded it to be the far-famed St. Borondon. Overjoyed at having discovered this land of mystery, he coasted along its spell-bound shores until he anchored in a beautiful harbor, formed by the mouth of a mountain ravine. Here he landed with several of his crew. 'It was now,' he said, 'the hour of Ave Maria, or of vespers. The sun being set, the shadows began to spread over the land. The navigators, having separated, wandered about in different directions, until out of hearing of each other's shouts. Those on board, seeing the night approaching, made signals to summon back the wanderers to the ship. They re-embarked, intending to resume their investigations on the following day. Scarcely were they on board, however, when a whirlwind came rushing down the ravine with such violence as to drag the vessel from her anchor and hurry her out to sea, and they never saw any thing more of this hidden and inhospitable island.'

"Another testimony remains on record in a manuscript of one Abreu Galindo, but whether taken at this time does not appear. It was that of a French adventurer, who, many years before, making a voyage among the Canaries, was overtaken by a violent storm, which carried away his masts. At length the furious winds drove him to the shores of an unknown island covered with stately trees. Here he landed with part of his crew, and, choosing a tree proper for a mast, cut it down, and began to shape it for his purpose. The guardian power of the island, however, resented, as usual, this invasion of his forbidden shores. The heavens assumed a dark and threatening aspect; the night was approaching; and the mariners, fearing some impending evil, abandoned their labor, and returned on board. They were borne away, as usual, from the coast, and the next day arrived at the island of Palma.[209]

"The mass of testimony collected by official authority in 1570 seemed so satisfactory that another expedition was fitted out in the same year in the island of Palma. It was commanded by Fernando de Villalobos, regidor of the island, but was equally fruitless with the preceding. St. Borondon seemed disposed only to tantalize the world with distant and serene glimpses of his ideal paradise, or to reveal it amid storms to tempest-tossed mariners, but to hide it completely from the view of all who diligently sought it. Still, the people of Palma adhered to their favorite chimera. Thirty-four years afterward, in 1605, they sent another ship on the quest, commanded by Gaspar Perez de Acosta, an accomplished pilot, accompanied by the Padre Lorenzo Pinedo, a holy Franciscan friar, skilled in natural science. San Borondon, however, refused to reveal his island to either monk or mariner. After cruising about in every direction, sounding, observing the skies, the clouds, the winds, every thing that could furnish indications, they returned without having seen any thing to authorize a hope.

"Upward of a century now elapsed without any new attempt to seek this fairy island. Every now and then, it is true, the public mind was agitated by fresh reports of its having been seen. Lemons and other fruits, and the green branches of trees, which floated to the shores of Gomara and Ferro, were pronounced to be from the enchanted groves of San Borondon. At length, in 1721, the public infatuation again rose to such a height that a fourth expedition was sent, commanded by Don Gaspar Dominguez, a man of probity and talent. As this was an expedition of solemn and mysterious import, he had two holy friars as apostolical chaplains. They made sail from the island of Teneriffe toward the end of October, leaving the populace in an indescribable state of anxious curiosity. The ship, however, returned from its cruise as unsuccessful as all its predecessors.

"We have no account of any expedition being since undertaken, though the island still continued to be a subject of speculation, and occasionally to reveal its shadowy mountains to the eyes of favored individuals. In a letter written from the island of Gomara, 1759, by a Franciscan monk to one of his friends, he relates having seen it from the village of Alaxera, at six in the morning of the third of May. It appeared to consist of two lofty mountains, with a deep valley between, and on contemplating it with a telescope, the valley or ravine appeared to be filled with trees. He summoned the curate, Antonio Joseph Manrique, and upward of forty other persons, all of whom beheld it plainly.[210]

"Nor is this island delineated merely in ancient maps of the time of Columbus. It is laid down as one of the Canary Islands in a French map published in 1704; and Mons. Gautier, in a geographical chart annexed to his Observations on Natural History, published in 1759, places it five degrees to the west of the Island of Ferro, in the 29th degree of north latitude.[211]

"Such are the principal facts existing relative to the island of St. Brandan. Its reality was for a long time a matter of firm belief. It was in vain that repeated voyages and investigations proved its non-existence: the public, after trying all kinds of sophistry, took refuge in the supernatural to defend their favorite chimera. They maintained that it was rendered inaccessible to mortals by divine providence or by diabolical magic. Most inclined to the former. All kinds of extravagant fancies were indulged concerning it:[212] some confounded it with the fabled island of the Seven Cities, situated somewhere in the bosom of the ocean, where, in old times, seven bishops and their followers had taken refuge from the Moors. Some of the Portuguese imagined it to be the abode of their last king, Sebastian. The Spaniards pretended that Roderic, the last of their Gothic kings, had fled thither from the Moors after the disastrous battle of the Guadalete. Others suggested that it might be the seat of the terrestrial paradise--the place where Enoch and Eliiah remained in a slate of blessedness until the final day; and that it was made at times apparent to the eyes, but invisible to the search of mortals. Poetry, it is said, has owed to this popular belief one of its beautiful fictions; and the garden of Armida, where Rinaldo was detained enchanted, and which Tasso places in one of the Canary Islands, has been identified with the imaginary San Borondon.[213]

"The learned father Feyjoo[214] has given a philosophical solution to this geographical problem. He attributes all these appearances, which have been so numerous and so well authenticated as not to admit of doubt, to certain atmospherical deceptions, like that of the Fata Morgana, seen at times in the Straits of Messina, where the city of Reggio and its surrounding country is reflected in the air above the neighboring sea; a phenomenon which has likewise been witnessed in front of the city of Marseilles. As to the tales of the mariners who had landed on these forbidden shores, and been hurried from thence in whirlwinds and tempests, he considers them as mere fabrications.

"As the populace, however, reluctantly give up any thing that partakes of the marvelous and mysterious, and as the same atmospherical phenomena which first gave birth to the illusion may still continue, it is not improbable that a belief in the island of St. Brandan may still exist among the ignorant and credulous of the Canaries, and that they at times behold its fairy mountains rising above the distant horizon of the Atlantic."--Washington Irving, _Life of Columbus_.

[Footnote 199: Feyjoo, _Theatro Critico_, tom. iv., ch. x., s. xx.]

[Footnote 200: Lib. iv. de la Chancelaria del Rey Don Juan II., fol. 101.]

[Footnote 201: Torre di Tombo, _Lib. das Yihas_, fol. 119.]

[Footnote 202: Fr. Gregorio Garcia, _Origen de los Indios_, lib. i., cap. ix.]

[Footnote 203: Sigeberto, _Epist. ad Fritmar Abbat._]

[Footnote 204: Nunez de la Pena, _Conquist. de la Gran Canaria_.]

[Footnote 205: Ptolemy, tom. iv., lib. iv.]

[Footnote 206: Fr. D. Philipo, lib. viii., fol. 25.]

[Footnote 207: _Hist. Isl. Can._, lib. i., cap. xxviii.]

[Footnote 208: Nunez de la Pena, lib. i., cap. i.; Viera, _Hist. Isl. Can._, tom. i., cap. xxviii.]

[Footnote 209: Nunez, _Conquist. de la Gran Canaria_; Viera, _Hist. Isl. Can._]

[Footnote 210: Viera, _Hist. Isl. Can._, lib. i., cap. xxvi.]

[Footnote 211: Id. ib., tom. i., cap. xxviii.]

[Footnote 212: Id. ib.]

[Footnote 213: Viera, _Hist. Isl. Can._]

[Footnote 214: _Theatro Critico_, tom. lv., d. x.]

No. III.

The following lines in Pulci's "Morgante Maggiore" afford probably the most circumstantial prediction that is to be found of the existence of a Western World. The devil, alluding to the vulgar superstition respecting the Pillars of Hercules, thus addresses Rinaldo:

"Know that this theory is false; his bark The daring mariner shall urge far o'er The western wave, a smooth and level plain, Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel. Man was in ancient days of grosser mold, And Hercules might blush to learn how far Beyond the limits he had vainly set, The dullest sea-bird soon shall wing her way. Men shall descry another hemisphere, Since to one common center all things tend. So earth, by curious mystery divine, Well-balanced hangs amid the starry spheres. At our antipodes are cities, states, And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore. But see, the sun speeds on his western path, To glad the nations with expected light."

_Canto_ xxv., st. 229, 230.

Dante, two centuries before, had indicated more vaguely his belief in an undiscovered quarter of the globe:

"De' vostri sensi, ch'e del rimanente Non vogliate negar l'esperienza Diretro al sol, del mondo senza gente."

_Inferno, Canto_ xxvi., st. 115.

The prophetic lines of Seneca are well known:

"Nil, qua fuerat sede, reliquit Pervius orbis. Indus gelidum potat Araxem, Albim Persae, Rhenumque bibunt Venient annis saecula seris Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus, Tethysque novos detegat orbes, Nec sit terris ultima Thule."

_Medea_, Act II., v. 371, _et seq._ _Chorus in Fine._ Ed. Bip.

On which the learned Acosta remarks:

"Sed utrum divinarit Seneca, an fortuito ac temere cecinerit, quaeri potest. Mihi vero divinasse videtur, sed eo genere divinationis, quod prudentes viri familiare habent."

Acosta further on writes thus:

"Scribit Hieronymus in epistolam ad Ephesios--'Quaerirmus quoque quid sit. In quibus aliquando ambulastis secundum saeculum sit mundi hujus utrumnam et aliud quod non pertineat ad mundum istum, sed ad mundos alios, de quibus et Clemens in epistola sua scribit, oceanus et mundi qui transipsum sunt.'"--J. Acosta, Societatis Jesu, _De Natura Novi Orbis_, lib. i., cap. xi.

"Lorsq' Alfonso V. permit en 1461 a Dom Henry de peupler les iles Acores, on trouva en celle de Cuervo une statue representant un cavalier qui, de la main gauche, tenoit la bride de son cheval, et de la droite montroit l'occident, precisement du cote d'Amerique--on voyoit sur le roc une inscription en caracteres inconnus, dont il seroit a souhaiter qu'on eut pris soin d'aporter l'empreinte en Europe; mais ces premiers navigateurs cherchoient des tresors et non des nouvelles lumieres."--_Histoire de France_, par M. de Villaret, vol. xvi., p. 376.

No. IV.

The fable of Welsh Indians is of very old date. In the time of Sir Walter Raleigh, a confused report was spread over England that on the coast of Virginia the Welsh salutation had been heard; has, honi, iach. Owen Chapelain relates that in 1669, by pronouncing some Celtic words, he saved himself from the hands of the Indians of Tuscarora, by whom he was on the point of being scalped. The same thing, it is pretended, happened to Benjamin Beatty, in going from Virginia to Carolina. This Beatty asserts that he found a whole Welsh tribe, who preserved the tradition of the voyage of Madoc ap Owen, which took place in 1170. John Filson, in his "History of Kentucky," has revived these tales of the first travelers. According to him, Captain Abraham Chaplain saw Indians arrive at the post of Kaskasky, and converse in the Welsh language with some soldiers, who were natives of Wales. Captain Isaac Stewart asserts that on the Red River of Natchitoches, at the distance of 700 miles above its mouth, in the Mississippi, he discovered Indians with a fair skin and red hair, who conversed in Welsh, and possessed the titles of their origin. "They produced, in proof of what they said of their arrival on the eastern coast, rolls of parchment, carefully wrapped up in otter skins, and on which great characters were written in blue, which neither Stewart, nor his fellow-traveler, Davey, a native of Wales, could decipher." We may observe, first, that all these testimonies are extremely vague for the indication of places. The last letter of Mr. Owen, repeated in the journals of Europe (of the 11th February, 1819), places the posts of the Welsh Indians on the Madwaga, and divides them into two tribes, the Brydones and the Chadogians. "They speak Welsh with greater purity than it is spoken in the principality of Wales(!), since it is exempt from Anglicisms; they profess Christianity, strongly mixed with Druidism." We can not read such assertions without recollecting that all those fabulous stories which flatter the imagination are renewed periodically under new forms. The learned and judicious geographer of the United States, Mr. Warden, inquires justly, why all the traces of Welsh colonies and the Celtic tongue have disappeared, since less credulous travelers, and who, in some sort, control one another, have visited the country situated between the Ohio and the Rocky Mountains. Mackenzie, Barton, Clarke, Lewis, Pike, Drake, Mitchill, and the editors of the "New Archaeologia Americana," have found nothing, absolutely nothing, which denotes the remains of European colonies of the 12th century.--Humboldt's _Personal Narrative_, vol. vi., p. 326. See Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 1; Powell's _History of Wales_, p. 196, &c.

Lord Lyttleton, in his notes to the 5th book of his "History of Henry II.," p. 371, has invalidated the story of Madoc's discoveries by arguments of great weight; and Mr. Pennant, in "Philosophical Transactions," vol. lviii., p. 91, has overthrown many of the arguments upon which the existence of a Welsh settlement among the Indians was founded. General Bowles, the Cherokee, was questioned when in England as to the locality of the supposed descendants of Madoc: he laid his finger on one of the branches of the Missouri. Pike's "Travels" had lessened the probability of finding such a tribe; and Lewis and Clarke's "Travels to the Source of the Missouri" have entirely destroyed it, as acknowledged by Mr. Southey in his "Madoc."--See note to the Preface of _Madoc_.

"It is much to be wished, that in our days, when a healthy tone of criticism is very much in use, without assuming a scornful character, the ancient inquiries of Powell ('Powell's History of Wales,' p. 196) and Richard Hakluyt ('Voyages and Navigations,' vol. iii., p. 4) might again be taken up in England. I do not participate in the notion of rejecting inquiries, by which the traditions of nations are frequently observed; I prefer much to hold the firm conviction that, with more diligence and perseverance, many of the historical problems which have hitherto remained unknown to us will one day be cleared up by actual discoveries."--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 456.

By some antiquarians traces have been supposed to have been found of the discovery of America by the Irish before the year 1000. The Esquimaux related to the Normans who were settled in Winland, that further southward, on the other side of Chesapeake Bay, there dwelt "white men, who walked about in long white clothes, before them sticks to which white cloths were attached, and crying with a loud voice." This account was interpreted by the Christian Normans to signify processions, in which they carried flags and sang hymns. In the oldest traditions, and in the historical narrative of Thorfinn Karlsefue, and the Iceland Landnama Book, these southern coasts, between Virginia and Florida, are indicated by the name of "Whiteman's Land." They were, in the country itself, certainly called "Great Ireland" (Irland it Mikla), and it was supposed that they were peopled by the Irish. According to testimony extending as far back as the year 1064, before Leif discovered Winland, Ari Marsson, of the powerful Iceland race of Ulf, on a voyage southward from Iceland, was driven by a storm upon the coasts of "Great Ireland," and there baptized as a Christian, and not being allowed to go away, was subsequently recognized there by people from the Orkneys and Iceland. It is the present opinion of some northern antiquarians that Iceland was not peopled immediately from Europe, but from Virginia and Carolina (that is, from Great Ireland), by the Irish, who had early migrated to America.... The assiduous attempt to diffuse religious doctrines paved the way, at one time, for warlike undertakings, at another for the spread of peaceful ideas and commercial intercourse. The zeal which is so peculiar to the religions systems of India, Palestine, and Arabia, and which is altogether free from the indifference of Grecian and Roman polytheism, kept alive the study of geography in the first half of the Middle Ages. Letronne, the commentator of the Irish monk Dicuil, has proved, in an acute way, that after the Irish missionaries were driven out of the Faeroee Islands by the Normans, they began to visit Iceland about the year 795. The Normans, when they came to Iceland, found there Irish books, bells for ringing for mass, and other objects, which former strangers, who were called Papar, had left behind. These Papae (fathers) were the Clerici of Dicuil. Now if, as we must suppose from his testimony, those objects belonged to the Irish monks, who came from the Faeroee Islands, the question is, why are the monks (Papar) called in their native traditions "Westmen"--men who have come from the west over the sea? Respecting the connection of Prince Madoc's voyage to a great western country in 1170, with the "Great Ireland" of the Iceland traditions, all accounts are enveloped in deep obscurity. Compare the inquiries in _Rafn Antiq. Amer._, p. 203, 206, 446, 451; and Wilhelmi upon Iceland, _Hvitramannaland_, the Land of White Men, p. 75, 81; Letronne, _Recherches Geog. et Crit. sur le Livre de Mensura Orbis Terrae, compose en Irelande par Dicuil_, 1814, p. 129, 146.

The celebrated stone of Taunton River may date its hieroglyphics from the time that Norwegian navigators visited the shores of "Great Ireland." "Anglo-American antiquaries have made known an inscription, supposed to be Phoenician, and which is engraved on the rocks of Dighton, near the banks of Taunton River, twelve leagues south of Boston.... The natives who inhabited these countries at the time of the first European settlements preserved an ancient tradition, according to which strangers in wooden houses had sailed up Taunton River, formerly called Assoonet. These strangers, having conquered the red men, had engraved marks on the rock, which is now covered by the waters of the river. Count de Gebelin does not hesitate, with the learned Dr. Stiles, to regard these marks as a Carthaginian inscription. He says, with that enthusiasm which is natural to him, but which is highly injurious in discussions of this kind, that this inscription comes happily at the moment from the New World to confirm his ideas on the origin of nations, and that it is clearly demonstrated to be a Phoenician monument, a picture which in the foreground represents an alliance between the American people and the foreign nation, coming by the winds of the north from a rich and industrious country. I have carefully examined the four drawings of the celebrated stone of Taunton River, which M. Loot published in England in the Memoirs of the Antiquarian Society." (_Archaeologia_, vol. viii., p. 296.) "Far from recognizing a symmetrical arrangement of simple letters and syllabic characters, I discover a drawing scarcely traced, like those that have been found on the rocks of Norway, and in almost all the countries inhabited by the Scandinavian nations." (Suhm, _Samlinger til ten Danske Historic_, b. ii., p. 215.) "In the sketch we distinguish, from the form of the heads, five human figures surrounding an animal with horns, much higher in the fore than in the hind part of the body."--Humboldt's _Researches in America_, vol. i., p. 153.

No. V.

"The great and splendid work of Marco Polo (Il Milione di Messer Marco Polo), as we see in the corrected edition of Count Baldelli, is wrongly called a book of travels: it is chiefly a descriptive, and, we may add, a statistical work, in which it is difficult to distinguish what the traveler himself saw and what he derived from others, or gathered from the topographical descriptions which are so plenty in Chinese literature, and which he had an opportunity of attaining through his Persian interpreter. The striking similarity of the report of the travels of Hinan-tschang, the Buddhist pilgrim of the seventh century, with that of Marco Polo, of the Pamir Highlands, in 1277, early attracted my attention.... However much the more recent travelers have been inclined to enter into an account of their own personal adventures, Marco Polo, on the other hand, endeavors to mix up his own observations with the official accounts communicated to him, which were probably numerous, as he held the post of governor of the town of Zangui. The plan of compiling adopted by the famous traveler renders it intelligible how he was able to dictate his book to his fellow-prisoner and friend, Messer Rustigielo, of Pisa, from the documents before him, while in prison in Genoa in 1295."--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 400.

Humboldt elsewhere says, that "it has frequently been supposed, and declared with remarkable decision, that the truthful Marco Polo had a great influence upon Columbus, and even that he was in possession of a copy of Marco Polo's work upon his first voyage of discovery."--Navarrete, _Collecion de los Viajos y Descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Espanoles_, vol. i., p. 261.

Marco Polo is called by Malte Brun "the creator of modern Oriental geography--the Humboldt of the thirteenth century."

"The work of Marco Polo is stated by some to have been originally written in Latin, though the most probable opinion is that it was written in Italian. Copies of it in manuscript were multiplied, and rapidly circulated; translations were made into various languages, until the invention of printing enabled it to be widely diffused throughout Europe. In the course of these translations and successive editions, the original text, according to Purchas, has been much vitiated, and it is probable many extravagances in numbers and measurements with which Marco Polo is charged may be the errors of translators and printers. Francis Pepin, author of the Brandenburgh version, styles Polo a man commendable for his devoutness, prudence, and fidelity. Athanasius Kircher, in his account of China, says that none of the ancients have described the kingdoms of the remote parts of the East with more exactness. Various other learned men have borne testimony to his character, and most of the substantial points of his work have been authenticated by subsequent travelers. It is manifest, however, that he dealt much in exaggeration. The historical part of his work is full of errors and fables. He confuses the names of places, is very inexact as to distances, and gives no latitude of the places he visited."--Washington Irving's _Columbus_, vol. iv., p. 294.

Marco Polo returned from Tartary to his native city, Venice, in 1295, having pursued his mercantile peregrinations in Asia upward of twenty-six years.

No. VI.

"Sir John Mandeville was born in the town of St. Alban's. He was devoted to study from his earliest childhood, and, after finishing his general education, applied himself to medicine. He left England in 1332, and, according to his own account, visited Turkey, Armenia, Egypt, Upper and Lower Libya, Syria, Persia, Chaldea, Ethiopia, Tartary, Amazonia, and the Indies, residing in their principal cities. He wrote a history of his travels in three languages, English, French, and Latin. The descriptions given by Mandeville of the Grand Khan, of the province of Cathay, and the city of Camhalee, are scarcely less extravagant than those of Marco Polo. The royal palace was more than two leagues in circumference; the grand hall had twenty-four columns of copper and gold; there were more than 300,000 men occupied, and living in and about the palace, of which more than 100,000 were employed in taking care of the elephants, of which there were 10,000, &c., &c.

"Mandeville has become proverbial for indulging in a traveler's exaggerations; yet his accounts of the countries which he visited have been found far more veracious than had been imagined. His descriptions of Cathay and the wealthy province of Mangi, agreeing with those of Marco Polo, had great authority with Columbus."--Washington Irving's _Columbus_, vol. iv., p. 308.

No. VII.

"The Western nations, the Greeks, and the Romans, knew that magnetism could be communicated for a length of time to iron ('sola haec materia ferri vires a magneti lapide accipit, retinetque longo tempore.'--Plin., xxxiv., 14). The great discovery of the terrestrial directive force, therefore, depended alone on this, that no one in the West happened to observe that a longish piece of magnetic iron ore, or a magnetized iron rod, floated at liberty upon water by means of a piece of wood, or balanced and suspended freely in the air by means of a thread. But a thousand years and more before the commencement of our era, in the dark epoch of Codru, and the return of the Heraclidae to the Peloponnesus, the Chinese had already magnetic cars, upon which the movable arm of a human figure pointed invariably to the south, as a means of finding the way through the boundless grassy plains of Tartary. In the third century, indeed, of the Christian era, at least 700 years, therefore, before the introduction of the ship's compass upon European seas, Chinese craft were sailing the Indian Ocean under the guidance of magnetic southern indication. This early knowledge and application of the magnetic needle gave the Chinese geographers great advantages over those of early Greece and Rome, to whom, for example, the true course of the Apennines and Pyrenees was never known.

"Magnetism is one of the numerous forms in which electricity manifests itself. The ancient suspicion of the identity of electrical and magnetical attraction has been demonstrated in the present age. 'If electrum (amber),' says Pliny, in the sense of the Ionic natural philosophy of Thales, 'becomes inspired by friction and warmth, it attracts bark and dried leaves, exactly like the magnetic iron stone.'[215] The same words occur in the discourse laudatory of the magnet of the Chinese natural philosopher Kuopho, who lived in the fourth century. It was not without surprise that I myself observed, among the children at play on the woody banks of the Orinoco, the offspring of native tribes in the lowest grade of civilization, that the excitement of electricity by friction was known. The boys rubbed the dry, flat, and shining seeds of a creeping leguminous plant (probably a negretia) until they attracted fibers of cotton wool and chips of the bamboo. This amusement of these coppery children is calculated to leave a deep and solemn impression behind it. What a chasm lies between the electrical play of these savages and the discovery of the lightning conductor, of the chemically decompounding pile, of the light-evoking mechanical apparatus! In such gulfs, millenniums in the history of the intellectual progress of mankind lie buried."--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. i., p. 180; Klaproth, _Lettre a M.A. de Humboldt, sur l'Invention de la Boussole_, p. 125. 1834.

"The application of the magnetic needle's direction toward the north and south, that is, the use of the mariner's compass in Europe, is probably due to the Arabs, who have to thank the Chinese for their knowledge of it. The Arabic words 'Zohron' and 'Aphron,' meaning north and south, like the numerous Arabic names of the stars in use at the present day, testify the route through which the West became acquainted with it. In European Christendom, the use of the magnetic needle is spoken of as something well known, first in a political and satirical poem, entitled 'La Bible,' written by Guyot of Provence in 1190, and in the description of Palestine, by Jacob of Vitry, bishop of Ptolemais, between the years 1204 and 1215. Also Dante (_Paradiso_, xii., 29) mentions in a simile the needle (ajo) 'which points southward.' The discovery of the mariner's compass was for a long time attributed to Flavius Gioja: he probably made some improvements in the apparatus for managing it in 1302. A much earlier employment of the compass in the European seas is seen in a naval work by Raymundus Lullus of Majorca, a wonderfully talented and scientific man. In his book, entitled 'Fenix de las Maravillas del Orbe,' published in 1286, Lullus says that the mariners of his times made use of the magnetic needle. Navarrete, in his 'Discurso Historico sobre los Progressos del Arte de Navegar en Espana,' p. 28, 1802, records a remarkable passage in the Leyes de las Partidas of the middle of the thirteenth century: 'The needle which guides the mariner in the dark night, and shows him in good and bad weather the direction which he must take, is the mediatrix (medianera) between the magnetic stone (la piedra) and the north star."--Humboldt's _Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 291, 462.

[Footnote 215: Plin., lib. xxxvii., p. 3; Plato, in _Timao_, p. 80; Martin, _Etudes sur le Timee_, tom. II., p. 343-346; Strabo, lib. xv., p. 703, Casaub.; Clemens Alex., _Strom._, li., p. 370. When Thales, in Aristot., _De Anima_, lib. i., p. 2, and Hippias, in _Diag. Laertio_, lib. i., p. 24, attribute a soul to the magnet and to amber, this animation only refers to a moving principle.]

No. VIII.

"In the fifteenth century almost all the mercantile nations sought for slaves at the Canary Islands, as we seek them at present on the Coast of Guinea. Every individual made prisoner before he received the rite of baptism was a slave. At this period no attempt had yet been made to prove that the blacks were an intermediary race between men and animals. The swarthy Guanche and the African negro were sold simultaneously in the market of Seville, without a question whether slavery ought to weigh only on men with a black skin and frizzled hair. The archipelago of the Canaries was divided into several small states hostile to each other. The trading nations kept up intestine warfare; one Guanche then became the property of another, who sold him to the Europeans; several, who preferred death to slavery, killed themselves and their children. What remained of the Guanches perished mostly in 1494, in the terrible pestilence called the _modorra_, which was attributed to the quantity of dead bodies left exposed to the air by the Spaniards after the battle of La Laguna. The nation of the Guanches was therefore extinct at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is very certain that no native of pure race exists in the whole island; and some travelers, who may otherwise be relied upon, are mistaken when they assert that their guides to the Peak were some of those slender and nimble-footed Guanches. (It is asserted that they could seize the rabbit or wild goat in its course.) It is true that a few Canarian families boast of their relationship to the last shepherd king of Guimar; but these pretensions do not rest on very solid foundations, and are renewed from time to time, when some Canarian of a more dusky hue than his countrymen is prompted to solicit a commission in the service of the King of Spain.

"The Guanches, famed for their tall stature, were the Patagonians of the Old World. I never saw Guanche mummies but in the cabinets of Europe. A considerable number, however, might be found, if miners were employed to open the sepulchral caverns which are cut in the rock on the eastern slope of the Peak. These mummies are in a state of desiccation so singular, that whole bodies with their integuments, frequently do not weigh above six or seven pounds, or a third less than the skeleton of an individual of the same size recently stripped of the muscular flesh. The conformation of the skull has some slight resemblance to that of the white race of the ancient Egyptians.... The only monument that can throw some light on the origin of the Guanches is their language; but, unhappily, there are not above 150 words remaining. It has long been imagined that the language of the Guanches had no analogy with the living tongues; but since the travels of Hornemann, and the ingenious researches of Marsden and Venturi, have drawn the attention of the learned to the Berbers, who, like the Sarmatic tribes, occupy an immense extent of country in the north of Africa, we find that several Guanche words have common roots with words of the Chilha and Gebali dialects. This is at least an indication of the ancient connection between the Guanches and Berbers, a tribe of mountaineers, in which the Numidians, the Getuli, and the Garamanti are confounded, and who extend themselves from the eastern extremity of Atlas by Harutsch and Fezzan, as far as the Oasis of Siwah and Angela. The description which Scylax gives in his 'Periplus' of the inhabitants of Cerne, a shepherd people of a tall stature and long hair, reminds us of the features which characterize the Canary Guanches.... The people who succeeded the Guanches descended from the Spaniards, and in a less degree from the Normans. Though these two races have been exposed during three centuries past to the same climate, the latter is distinguished by a whiter skin. The descendants of the Normans inhabit the Valley of the Teganana. The names of Grandville and Dampierre are still pretty common in this district. The whole archipelago does not contain 160,000 inhabitants, and the Islennos are perhaps more numerous in the Spanish settlements of America than in their own country."--Humboldt's _Personal Narrative_, vol. i., p. 280.

No. IX.

"Pomponius Mela, qui vivoit a une epoque assez rapprochee du temps de Cornelius Nepos, raconte, et Pline repete que Metellus Celer, tandis qu'il etoit proconsul dans les Gaules, avoit recu en cadeau, d'un roi des Boii (Pline le nomme roi des Sueves) quelques Indiens qui, chasses des mers de l'Inde par des tempetes, avoient aborde sur les cotes de la Germanie...... Il ne peut rester aucun doute que Pomponius Mela n'ait cru que les Indiens etoient arrives sur les cotes nord-est de l'Allemagne par la circumnavigation de l'Asie orientale et boreale. Il dit, 'Vi tempestatum ex Indieis aequoribus abrepti.'..... Comme il est reconnu que malgre le grand perfectionnement de la navigation moderne, l'accumulation des glaces s'oppose a toute navigation par le detroit de Behring le long des iles de la Nouvelle Zemble on a souleve la question de savoir de quelle race peuvent avoir ete les hommes de couleur que le proconsul Metellus Celer a pris pour des Indiens. Gomara dit que, 'Les Indiens de Quintus Metellus Celer etoient peut-etre de la Terre du Laboureur, et l'on se trompe (sur leur vraie origine) a cause de leur couleur.'...... Il paraissoit peu probable que des Eskimaux fussent venus aux cotes d'Allemagne; et tandis que Vossius, le savant commentateur de Mela, ne voyait dans les Indiens de Cornelius Nepos que des Bretons, dont le corps etoit farde de pastel, d'autres commentateurs adoptant l'explication de Gomara et de Wytfleet, substituoient au Suevorum Rex, un prince Scandinave qui avoit recueille des naufrages sur les cotes de Norwege. L'analogie du fait non conteste de l'arrivee d'Eskimaux aux iles Orcades, semble jeter une vive lumiere sur le fait que nous examinons ici; et quand on considere les nombreux exemples d'individus tombes entre les mains des barbares et traines comme captifs de nation a nation loin du lieu du naufrage, on trouve moins surprenant que des etrangers aient ete conduits dans les Gaules, en passant des iles Britanniques en Batavie et on Germanie: mais ce qui est bien etrange, c'est que dans des evenemens semblables et egalement enigmatiques, du moyen-age, il ne soit toujours questions que de cotes Germaniques. Ces evenemens sont rapportes aux regnes des Othons et de Frederic Barberousse; ils sont, par consequent, du dixieme et du douzieme siecle. 'Nos apud Othonem legimus,' dit le pape AEneas Sylvius, 'sub imperatoribus teutonicis indicam navem et negotiatores Indos in _Germanico littore_ fuisse deprehensos.' Et dans Gomara, on lit, 'On assure aussi que, du temps de l'empereur Frederic Barberousse on amena a Lubec certains Indiens dans un canot.' Sir Humphrey Gilbert apres avoir discuti prolixement en trois chapitres le passage de Cornelius Nepos, ajoute 'L'an 1160, quelques Indiens arriverent, sous le regne de Frederic Barberousse, _upon the coast of Germanie_.' J'ai perdu beaucoup de temps dans de vaines recherches sur la premiere source de ces faits curieux. D'ou Gomara, historien generalement tres exact, a-t-il su que, 'Les Indiens ont ete amenes a Lubec?' Comment les continuateurs des Annales d'Othon de Freising, et le Franciscain Ditmar, auteur de l'excellente Chronique de Lubec, n'ont ils rien sur de ces pretendus Indiens?... a la maison ou se reunit la corporation des marins de Lubec on conserve un canot groenlandois dans lequel se trouve une figure d'Eskimau en bois. Le canot a ete repare plusieurs fois; la premiere inscription ne porte que l'annee 1607; mais d'apres une tradition tres vague, un navire de Lubec doit avoir capture ce pecheur Eskimau, il y a trois cent ans, dans les mers de l'ouest. On agrandit la pensee, en renaissant, sous un pointe de vue general, les preuves de ces communications lointaines, favorisees par le hazard; on voit comment les mouvemens de l'ocean et de l'atmosphere ont pu, des les epoques les plus reculees, contribuer a repandre les differentes races d'hommes sur la surface du globe; on comprend avec Colomb (sida del Almirante, cap. viii.) comme un continent a pu ses reveler a l'autre."--Humboldt's _Examen Critique du Geographie du Nouveau Continent_, vol. ii., p. 278.

No. X.

Herodotus relates that a Phoenician fleet, fitted out by Necho, king of Egypt, took its departure about six hundred and four years before the Christian era, from a port in the Red Sea, doubled the southern promontory of Africa, and, after a voyage of three years, returned by the Straits of Gades to the mouth of the Nile. Eudoxus of Cyzicus is said to have held the same course, and to have accomplished the same arduous undertaking.--Herod., lib. iv., cap. xlii.; Plin., _Nat. Hist._, lib. ii., cap. lxvii.

These voyages, if performed in the manner narrated, may justly be reckoned the greatest efforts of navigation in the ancient world; and if we attend to the imperfect state of the art at that time, it is difficult to determine whether we should most admire the courage and sagacity with which the design was formed, or the conduct and good fortune with which it was executed. But, unfortunately, all the original and authentic accounts of the Phoenician and Carthaginian voyages, whether undertaken by public authority or in prosecution of their private, have perished. Whatever acquaintance with the remote regions of the earth the Carthaginians or Phoenicians may have acquired, was concealed from the rest of mankind with a mercantile jealousy. Every thing relating to the course of their navigation was not only a mystery of trade, but a secret of state. Extraordinary facts are recorded concerning their solicitude to prevent other nations from penetrating into what they wished should remain undivulged (_Strab., Geogr._, lib. iii., p. 265; lib. xviii., p. 1154). Many of their discoveries seem accordingly to have been scarcely known beyond the precincts of their own states. The navigation round Africa, in particular, is recorded by the Greek and Roman writers rather as a strange, amusing tale, which they either did not comprehend or did not believe, than as a real transaction which enlarged their knowledge and influenced their opinion. As neither the progress of the Phoenician and Carthaginian discoveries, nor the extent of their navigation, were communicated to the rest of mankind, all memorials of their extraordinary skill in naval affairs seem, in a great measure, to have perished when the maritime power of the former was annihilated by Alexander's conquest of Tyre, and the empire of the latter was overturned by the Roman arms. The Periplus Hannonis is the only authentic monument of the Carthaginian skill in naval affairs, and one of the most curious fragments transmitted to us by antiquity. Montesquieu and De Bougainville have established its authenticity by arguments that appear to me unanswerable. Hanno sailed from Gades to the island of Cerne in twelve days. This is probably what is known to the moderns by the name of the island of Arguim. His furthest advance was to a promontory, which he named the South Horn, manifestly Cape de Tres Puntas, about five degrees north of the line.--Robertson's _America_, vol. i., p. 9-250.

No. XI.

The importance of this discovery, and of the European settlements consequent upon it, is chiefly interesting with regard to the intellectual and moral effects produced by the sudden increase in the stock of ideas upon the improvement and the social condition of mankind. Since that grand era, a new and active state of the intellect and feelings, bold wishes and hopes scarcely to be restrained, have gradually penetrated into the whole of civil society; the scanty population of a hemisphere, especially the coasts opposite Europe, favored the settlement of colonies, which, in rendering themselves extensive and independent in position, have overturned unlimited states by their choice of a free form of government; and, lastly, the Reformation, a forerunner of vast political revolutions, had to pass through different phases of its development in one country which had become the place of refuge for all religious opinions, and for the most varied ideas of divinity. The boldness of the Genoese mariner is the first link in the immeasurable chain of these pregnant events.... We might be induced to suppose that the value of these great discoveries, and of the double victory in the physical and intellectual world, was first acknowledged in our times, since the history of the civilization of the human race has been treated in a philosophical way. Such a supposition is refuted by Columbus's cotemporaries. The most talented of them anticipated the influence which the events of the latter years of the fifteenth century would exercise upon mankind. "Each day," says Peter Martyr, in his letters of the years 1493 and 1494, "bring us new wonders from a new world, from the Western antipodes, which a certain Genoese traveler has discovered.... Our friend Pomponius Laetus could scarcely restrain his tears of joy when I communicated to him the first accounts of so unexpected an event.... What aliment more delicious than such tidings can be set before an ingenious mind.... It is like an accession of wealth to a miser. Our minds, soiled with vices, become meliorated by contemplating such glorious events."