“Said Râ to Noun: ‘Thou, the eldest of the gods, of whom I am sprung, and you, ancient gods, behold the men who have been begotten by me. They speak words against me. Tell me what you would do in this crisis. Behold, I have waited, and I have not destroyed them before having heard your counsel.’”[33]
Singular as the fact may seem, the state, polity, and genius of the people of the western hemisphere described in the records of Egypt reappear in the strange features of the civilization of Mexico, and in the vestiges of its aborigines, which amazed the Spaniards who accompanied Hernando Cortes into the interior of the country, in the early part of the sixteenth century. The remarkable accounts given by Bernal Diaz and other contemporary writers respecting the people, the kings, the cities, the palaces, the temples, and the public works seen by the Spanish invaders, verify, in many ways, the declarations of the Egyptian priests concerning the Atlantic race.[34]
For centuries after the disappearance of the islands lying in the ocean west of the Pillars of Hercules, the wide expanse of water, dashing its foaming surges on the shores of the continents of the two hemispheres, was not only unexplored but was deemed impassable. Superstition filled its misty distances with frightful chimeras and geographical absurdities. About the beginning of the Middle Ages the vikings of Northern Europe were venturing across the North Sea in their single-masted, many-oared galleys. Until this time the superstitious seamen of Scandinavia had not attempted to sail beyond the sight of land to any great distance. Their first lessons in navigating the narrow expanse of the North Sea were taken when their boats were unexpectedly carried away from the rugged coast of Norway by tempestuous winds to the Hetland[35] and Fer öe[36] (Far islands). Whatever fears of permanent exile on these unexplored islands may at first have alarmed the deported Northmen, these were dispelled by the cheering suggestion that when the wind blew from the west they could return to their own country. As soon as the wind blew eastwardly they put to sea. Using their sails and oars they safely reached the western shore of Scandinavia. Frequent experiences of this kind in time emboldened the Norwegian seamen to undertake voyages to the westward islands in search of booty. Having no compass to guide their galleys thither, they carried with them hawks or ravens, and when uncertain respecting the course of their vessels, they let loose a cast of these birds, which instinctively flew to the nearest land. Thitherward they steered, and finding that it was their destination or not, they secured whatever plunder they could and departed. Not unfrequently the vessels of the Norse sea-kings were lost in storms on the wild waters of the Atlantic, or wrecked on the inhospitable shores of remote islands. It is said that Naddoddr, a Norwegian pirate, was drifted in his ship by an adverse wind, in 860, to Iceland, which he called Sneeland (Snowland).[37] It is also related that when the famous viking, Floki, was lost in his vessel in stormy weather, between the islands of Faroe and Sneeland, in 865, he let fly three ravens, one of which flew back to the Faroe islands, the second returned to the ship, and the third winged its way toward the more northerly island which the perplexed Northman was seeking. This sturdy seaman described the new country as volcanic and sterile, glacial and cold, and appropriately called it Island (Iceland). His companions, however, reported that they had found it to have a delightful climate and a fertile soil. One, wishing to describe its general fruitfulness in a more attractive way, averred that “milk dropped from every plant and butter from every twig.”[38] In a short time a course to Iceland was marked out by the early rovers of the North Sea, who, before the close of the ninth century, planted a colony on the bleak coast of this icy island, the most westerly land hitherto discovered by the fearless seamen of Scandinavia.[39]
SIGURDI STEPHANII TERRARUM HYPERBOREARUM DELINEATIO, ANNO 1570.
Delineation of the Hyperborean Regions, by Sigurd Stephanus in the year 1570. (Size of the original, 6¾ inches square.)
But Iceland did not long remain the most remote part of the western world known to the people of Europe. Gunnbjörn, a Norwegian, driven westward in his ship beyond Iceland, in a storm, in 876, descried land looming up along the western horizon. In the latter part of the tenth century, Eric the Red, whom the public assembly of Iceland had declared an outlaw, determined to go in search of the land seen by Gunnbjörn. He sailed from Iceland about the year 981, and came in sight of the coast of Greenland, at a place called Midjökul.[40] He then steered southward to see whether the country were habitable. He passed the first winter near the middle of the site of the eastern settlement (eystri bygd).[41] In the following summer he reached the western uninhabited region (vestri ubygd),[42] and gave names to many places. As soon as the ice disappeared, at the close of the second winter, and the sea was again navigable, he returned to Iceland, and called the country which he had explored Graenland (Greenland), “because” he said, “people will be influenced to immigrate to it, if the land bears an attractive name.” Among those whom Eric induced to return with him as colonists to Greenland was a Norwegian, named Herjulf. Thirty-five ships (skipa) filled with emigrants set sail from Iceland for the newly explored country, but only fourteen of the vessels reached the places where the colonists were to dwell. Eric the Red settled at Brattahlid, and Herjulf erected his house on a cape called Herjulfsnes (Herjulf’s nose, or promontory).[43] “This was fifteen winters before Christianity was established by law in Iceland.”[44]
Among the traditions preserved of the voyages of the Northmen in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, there are several that have caused considerable controversy respecting the historical and geographical value of the information contained in them; for a number of eminent writers have made use of this information to show that the Northmen were the first discoverers of America and the explorers of a large part of the eastern coast of the continent.[45] Although these sagas or legends of Iceland were unrecorded for several centuries, the manuscripts which now contain them are assumed to have been written in a manner so precise that translations of their text are presented to prove that the Norse vikings not only made frequent voyages to America, but that they have left definite and reliable information respecting the parts of the coast visited by them. Other distinguished writers consider these traditions as too mythical and vague to be deemed valuable, either historically or geographically, and argue that what is thought to describe the physical features and productions of parts of the present territory of the eastern coast of the United States describes the topography and fruits of Greenland. A brief narration of the most important particulars of the voyages of several of the Northmen who have been regarded, as the first discoverers of parts of the continent of America, will suffice to show the grounds upon which rest many of the arguments that have been advanced to support the opinion that these persons had landed upon its shores and explored a great extent of its Atlantic coast.
It is said in the saga of Eric the Red and of the Greenlanders,[46] that when Herjulf sailed, in the spring of 985, from Iceland to Greenland, his son Bjarni was in Norway. When the latter, in the following summer returned to Iceland, and learned that his father had emigrated to the country recently explored by Eric the Red, he determined to sail to it and pass the winter with his father, as had been his custom for many years. He evidently had some misgivings respecting the success of the contemplated voyage, for he said to his companions: “Our going there will be devoid of common-sense, since not one of us has traversed the Greenland Sea.” “Nevertheless,” as the tradition runs, “as soon as they had fitted for the voyage, they intrusted themselves to the ocean, and made sail three days, until the land passed out of their sight from the water. But then the bearing winds ceased to blow, and northern breezes and a fog succeeded. Then they were drifted about for many days and nights, not knowing whither they tended. After this the light of the sun was seen, and they were able to survey the regions of the sky. Now they carried sail, and steered this day before they beheld land.” They sailed near to it, and “soon saw that the country was not mountainous, but covered with trees and diversified with little hills. They left the land on their larboard side, and let the stern turn from the shore. Then they sailed two days before they saw another land [or region].... They then approached it, and saw that it was level and covered with trees. Then, the favorable wind having ceased blowing, the sailors said that it seemed to them that it would be well to land there, but Bjarni was unwilling to do so.... He bade them make sail, which was done. They turned the prow from the land, and sailed out into the open sea, where for three days they had a favorable south-southwest wind. They saw a third land [or region], but it was high and mountainous and covered with glaciers.... They did not lower sail, but holding their course along the shore, they found it to be an island. Again they turned the stern against the land, and made sail for the high sea, having the same wind, which gradually increasing, Bjarni ordered the sails to be shortened, forbidding the use of more canvas than the ship and her outfit could conveniently bear. Thus they sailed for four days, when they saw a fourth land” [or region], which was Greenland, where Bjarni found his father.[47]
Bjarni’s discoveries, it is said, were often the subject of conversation among the Northmen. It is further related that Leif, the son of Eric the Red, purchased Bjarni’s ship and set sail in it with thirty-five men from Brattahlid about the year 1000 to seek new lands. Nothing is told in the tradition concerning the direction in which these Northmen sailed, only that “they first came to the land [or region] last seen by Bjarni. They steered toward the shore, cast anchor, put out the boat, and went on land, where they saw no herbage. The whole country was filled with high icy mountains, and from the sea all the way to the icy mountains was a plain of flat stones.” Leif called the region Helluland.[48]