Beginning with Peleg, whose name signifies division, when Noah divided the earth between his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, there is found a basis for the repeopling of the earth. Africa was assigned to Ham, the temperate zones to Shem, and the frigid zones to Japheth. Heathen altars and the mounds of early Scripture are taken as the original types of the earthen monumental remains of America. At the dispersion on the plains of Shinar, and after the confusion of tongues, "the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth." It was the opinion of Ogilby, cosmographer to the English king in 1671, that men and animals came soon after the flood from Armenia to Tartary, and thence, by continuous land-route by way of the present Behring Straits, to America.
The Atlantis of Homer, Solon, Plato, and Hesiod, which was supposed to unite the continents of Africa and America, or which was a great island situated between them, seems to lose, by time, more of its mythical character, and to be brought to the plane of a historic fact. It certainly cannot be treated as a pure fiction. The story that Solon brought from Egypt to Greece of the Atlantic island was not new there; for a great festival was held in Greece, accompanied with symbols, to show what advantage the Athenians had in their wars with the Atlantes.
Diodorus Siculus (book v. chap. ii.) seems to refer to America in the following: "Over-against Africa lies a very great island in the vast ocean, many days' sail from Libya westward. The soil is very fruitful. It is diversified with mountains and pleasant vales, and the towns are adorned with stately buildings." He then alludes to the Phœnicians sailing along the Atlantic coast of Africa. The theory that the land forming the bed of the Atlantic Ocean between Brazil and Africa is a vast sunken tract is hardly defensible. The remnants of Cape Verd and Ascension Islands, and the numerous rock-formations and sand-banks surveyed with great accuracy by Bauche, have been submitted in its favor. Traditions exist that a people on the Mediterranean, sailing through the Straits of Gibraltar, the ancient Calpe, were driven westward by a storm, and were heard of no more. It is thought they reached the American coast. Some time since, at a meeting of the Mexican Geographical Society, it was stated that some brass tablets had been discovered in the northern part of Brazil, covered with Phœnician inscriptions, which tell of the discovery of America five centuries B.C. They are now in the museum of Rio Janeiro. They state that a Sidonian fleet left a port of the Red Sea, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, and following the southeast trade-winds until the northeast trade-winds prevented farther progress north, and they were driven across the Atlantic. The number of the vessels, the number of the crews, the name of Sidon as their home, and many other particulars, are given.
It is given as veritable history that a farmer near Montevideo, South America, discovered in one of his fields, in 1827, a flat stone which bore strange and unknown characters; and beneath this stone was a vault made of masonry, in which were deposited two ancient swords, a helmet, and a shield. The stone and the deposits were brought to Montevideo, and most of the inscriptions of the former were sufficiently legible to be deciphered. They ran as follows:
"During the dominion of Alexander, the son of
Philip, King of Macedon, in the sixty-third
Olympiad, Ptolemais."
On the handle of one of the swords was a man's portrait, supposed to represent Alexander. The helmet had on it fine sculptured work, representing Achilles dragging the corpse of Hector around the walls of Troy. This would seem to point to an early Grecian discovery of America.
Humboldt cites a passage of Plutarch, in which he thinks that both the Antilles and the great continent itself are described.
In "Varia Historia," book iii. chap, xviii., Ælian tells how one Theopompus relates the particulars of an interview between Midas, King of Phrygia, and Silenus, in which the latter reported the existence of a great continent beyond the Atlantic, "larger than Asia, Europe, and Libya together."
In 1761, Deguignes, a French scholar, made known to the world that the Chinese discovered America in the fifth century. He derived his knowledge from Chinese official annals. He affirmed that in the year 499 A.D., Hoei Shin (Universal Compassion), a Chinese Buddhist priest, returned to Singan, the capital of China, and declared that he had been to Tahan (Kamtschatka), and from thence on to a country about twenty thousand li (short Chinese miles), or about seven thousand English miles. The measurements are taken to be about the distance between China and California, or Mexico. He called the country Fusang, from the name of an abundant plant,—the Mexican "maguey," or American aloe.
He described the gold, silver, copper, and other ores which abounded; also the customs, rites, and cycles of time; and these are made to agree with what has been known of the American aborigines. Oriental scholars, like Klaproth and Bretschneider, have handled these pretensions with keen severity; while there have not been wanting others who allege that the Japanese and Chinese do not record myths. There is a description of Fusang in the Japanese Encyclopædia,—Wa-kan-san-taï-dzon-yé.