DISCOVERIES OF AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

THE oldest scriptures, sacred and profane, attest the antiquity of the red race.' As early as the antediluvian period this division of the human family had taken possession of the islands and continent of the western hemisphere, where it founded an empire, the most famous and formidable of primeval times. Great in political power, its commercial, agricultural, and other economical interests were commensurably vast and unparalleled. The skill of its architects and engineers was exhibited in large and imposing edifices and in extraordinary and extensive public works. Aggressively belligerent, its armies overran parts of Europe and Africa, exacting tribute, deposing and substituting rulers.

When the Spaniards, in the sixteenth century, began to explore the interior of the continent of America for gold, silver, and precious stones, they found populated provinces, great cities, temples, palaces, aqueducts, canals, bridges, and causeways. The astonished adventurers also discovered the vestiges of an aboriginal people, among which were many massive tablets of stone covered with columns of strange hieroglyphics and antique images, picturing a past civilization for 1 The Hebrew for man is derived from the verb (D7N), to be red.

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the rise and growth of which modern archæologists have not yet satisfactorily determined dates.

In the early ages of the world the Egyptians recorded whatever they deemed important and worthy of preservation concerning the principal inhabitants of the globe. These inquisitive chroniclers of antediluvian traditions placed in their archives some remarkable information respecting the original people of the western hemisphere. The historical value of this information is enhanced by the fact that those parts of it which seem to be the most improbable are supported by similar statements in the Bible, while the less astounding are verified by the discovery, on the continent of the so-called New World, of such remains as those which are said to have existed in the country west of the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea.

About five hundred and seventy years before the Christian era, Solon, the celebrated legislator of Greece, visited Egypt, and while there became acquainted with some of the erudite priests of the country. When the latter communicated to him what they had learned from the records concerning the ancient peoples of the earth, the sage of Greece was so deeply impressed with the unquestionable value of this strange informa

'Solon, one of the seven sages of Greece, was born about the year B. C. 639, and died about the year B. C. 558.

Herodotus, the Greek historian, writing in the fifth century before the Christian era, says. "When these were subdued, and Croesus had joined them to the Lydians, all the learned men at that time, especially those of Greece, resorted to Sardis, which had then reached a high degree of eminence. Among them was Solon, an Athenian, who, having made a code of laws for the Athenians at their request, absented himself for ten years, having sailed away under pretense of seeing the world, that he might not be compelled to abrogate any of the laws he had established: for the Athenians could not do it themselves, as they were bound by the most solemn oaths to preserve inviolate, for ten years, the institutions of Solon. Therefore, having gone abroad for these reasons, as well as to see the world, Solon had visited Amasis, in Egypt, and went from there to Croesus, at Sardis."-Herodotus: Clio xxix, xxx.

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tion that he committed it to writing, intending to use it in an historical poem which he had undertaken to compose. On his return to Athens he was not permitted the leisure that was needed to complete his agreeable task. After his death, the compilations he had made in Egypt were, for a long time, preserved by his descendants, and at last became the property of Plato, the Greek philosopher. The latter, when a boy, had studiously perused his eminent ancestor's manuscript, and when he had reached the last years of his scholarly life he could not disengage his thoughts from the conviction that it was his personal duty to publish its rare information. In order, there

fore, to give publicity to Solon's valuable compilations, Plato, a short time before his own death, wrote that part of the unfinished dialogue entitled "Critias, or the Atlantic," in which appears the earliest known account of the ancient people of the western hemisphere.s

"When Solon interrogated the priests, who were the most distinguished for their antiquarian knowledge, he became aware that neither he nor any of the Greeks knew much concerning the history of the first ages of the world. On one occasion, for the purpose

'Plutarch, the Greek biographer, says that Psenophis, the Heliopolitan, and Senchis, the Saite, the most learned of the Egyptian priests, were the persons who gave Solon this information.-Parallel Lives: Solon.

.་་ If Solon * had not considered the writing of poetry a recreation, but had made it, as others do, an actual employment, and had completed the history which he had brought from Egypt; and had not been forced to relinquish it by seditions and many other troubles in which he found his country involved, I do not think that either Hesiod, Homer, or any other poet would have acquired more extensive fame."-Plato: Timæus, or Concerning Nature. 'Plato was born about the year B. C. 430 and died about the year B. C. 348. He traced his descent from Solon through his mother.

***These very writings, indeed, were in the possession of my grandfather, and are now in mine, having been made the subject of much study during my boyhood."-Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic,

'Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.

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for

DISCOVERIES OF AMERICA.

of inducing the priests to relate some of their ancient traditions he began to narrate the early history of his own country. * Thereupon one of the eldest priests exclaimed: Solon, Solon, you Greeks are but children, and an aged Greek there is none!' Solon, hearing this, asked, 'What do you mean?' The priest replied: You are all youths in intelligence, you have no old beliefs transmitted by tradition, nor any science hoary with age. From the olden time we have chronicled whatever has happened in your country or in ours, or in any other region known to us, any action, noble or great or in any other way remarkable,—and these records are preserved in our temples, whereas you and other nations have but lately been provided with letters and different things required by states.

'Many and great exploits of your state, therefore, are here recorded, and call forth our admiration; nevertheless, there is one in particular, which in magnitude and heroism surpasses them all. For these records relate that your state once checked the advance of a mighty force which threatened all Europe and Asia, moving upon them from the Atlantic Ocean. For at that time this ocean was navigable; and beyond the strait [that of Gibraltar], which you in your language call the Pillars of Hercules, was an island larger than Libya [Africa] and Asia put together. At that time sea-faring men could pass from it to the other islands, and from them to the opposite continent, which ex

'The so-called Pillars of Hercules were the two mountains, Calpe and Abyla, on the opposite sides of the Strait of Gibraltar.

"I wonder, therefore, at those," says Herodotus, "who have described the limits of and divided Libya, Asia, and Europe, for the difference between them is trifling for in length Europe extends along both of them, but respecting width, it is evidently not to be compared. Libya shows itself to be sur rounded by water, except so much of it as borders Asia,"-Herodotus: Melpomene xlii.

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For the sea [the Medi

tended along the real ocean. terranean] inside the strait, which we have already mentioned, is like a bay with a narrow entrance, but the other sea is rightly called an ocean, and the land, which entirely surrounds it, may truly and correctly be called a continent. In this large Atlantic island a mighty and wonderful confederacy of kings was formed, which subdued the whole island and many other islands and parts of the continent. Besides this it extended its rule, on our side, over Libya as far as Egypt, and over Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. At that time the united forces of this power undertook to crush at one blow both your country and ours, and all the other countries lying within the strait. '"*

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"In the beginning the gods divided the whole earth, here and there, into large and small portions, that they might obtain temples and sacrifices. In this way Poseidon received as his portion the Atlantic island, and begat children by a mortal woman (ex Dvηtñs yuvainos), and placed them on a part of the island which we are about to describe.'"

Incredible as this information concerning the residence of a person possessing a divine nature on the earth and his matrimonial relationship with a woman seems to be, there are some remarkable statements in the traditions of the ancients respecting celestial beings dwelling among men, and, by marriage with their daughters, being the progenitors of an illustrious offspring. The Hebrew patriarchs, it is said, had personal communications with angels, at different times and places. It is related that three, in human form, partook of food given them by Abraham, under a

'Tyrrhenia or Umbria, in Italy, now Tuscany.

*Plato: Timæus, or Concerning Nature.

Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.