The pillars of Hercules

by David Urquhart

The representative of Muley Idris has been here several times: the last time he came alone, and said his servants and baggage were waiting for him at Salee, where he was going to join them, but that he had come first to bid me “good-bye.” I offered him a trifling present—a microscope; he said he could neither eat it nor wear it, and rejected it with disdain. I said I had nothing less unworthy of his acceptance; on which he said, “Then, give me money.” I was aware that saints cannot ask for coin. He next cast his eyes round the room, and said, “I will take away with me that loaf of sugar.” I intimated to him that he should do nothing of the sort: he instantly dropped the saint and the madman, and we parted in the civilest manner.

I was consulted as to sending some children to be educated at Paris: it was some time before I could believe they were in earnest. On my dissuading them, I was answered, “We want physicians, chemists, astronomers, mechanics, miners, makers of arms, and instructed men. We had all these formerly, and gave these sciences to Europe: why should we not take them back again?” I endeavoured to represent to them the distinction between science and the manners of the people who might, in any particular age, be scientific; that, if they could take the science of Europe naked, and without the plague-garments in which it was at present dressed, viz. our ideas, morals, and manners, it would be well. But they were not men to discriminate, and, certainly, it was not by children that the separation could be effected. They told me that the Moorish envoy, who was recently at Paris, had seen an Algerine boy highly commended by his French instructors, who, nevertheless, nourished in his heart almost a detestation of the French; and said that he was striving to acquire the knowledge they possessed to be able to drive them out of Africa. I pointed out the difference between a captive taken in war and children voluntarily sent for instruction, who could not come back to their primitive life but to look with contempt on their fathers.

Some remarks ensued, which showed that I was suspected of jealousy of France, so I had to argue the point. I told them, that if I coveted their land for a country, I should be glad to see France there, or even conquering it, for it would fall out as in India and America. France doing everything by her Government, as they said in Algiers, she always had awakened and ever must arouse such an amount of animosity against her, as to render untenable every conquest effected by her arms. In India, France had opened the way; had established a system of native government, and created the whole of those implements through which we obtained possession of India, and at this moment retain it. The English Government itself had nothing to do with India. A company of merchants managed it, and thereby succeeded the French. In America, the same thing had happened twice over. We had lost our colonies, which France could not take, and got hers, which she could not keep. The New World presented the great warnings, which I turned to account, instancing the numerous population, the magnificent cities, the industrious and polished races, the highly cultivated lands, the works of irrigation, and, in some cases, the admirable laws which existed until the European came with his light, and science, and philanthropy—and decay followed his steps: his rule was a curse, and race after race has been exterminated.

To primitive races, national genealogy is above all things attractive; and the question was raised as to the possible blood relationship between themselves and the Mexicans, through the Phœnicians. I will not rehearse the conversation, but cannot at once dismiss the subject.

That Western world may have had its beginning, its progress, its multifarious phases, its great existencies, its long life, and its decay in the same way that we have had ours, without there being a necessary connexion, although there be infinite points of resemblance with the numerous forms and accidents of Egypt and Etruria, of India and Chaldea. Still, the objection to intercourse, on the score of insuperable obstacles in the navigation of the oceans on either side, appears to me to be, in a philosophic age, the most strange of hallucinations. Every dot upon the surface of the water has been found occupied by the human race, and there have been indubitable crossings, both of the Pacific and Atlantic, by large vessels and junks, and by small boats and canoes. The tradition of the Atlantic Islands seems an indubitable, though indistinct trace, amongst the Greeks, of a Phœnician discovery. If, as I believe, I have almost succeeded in showing the magnetic needle was possessed by that people, the obstacles to the crossing the Atlantic, and to continuous intercourse, are still further removed. It was not, however, until I entered the room which I here occupy, that I perceived direct proof of this connexion. There hangs up an ornamented Table of the Law, such as is common in the houses of the Jews—that mysterious open hand on the one side; on the other, a diagram, which occupies a prominent place in the symbols of Masonry, the double triangle. It is also a cabalistic and astrological figure. It forms five points, and is, I believe (not the six-pointed one), the proper “Solomon’s seal.” They could give no explanation of its meaning or origin, and only said, “It has been always so.” I find this same sign is on the signet of the Sultan, and on his coin. The Moors have adopted it as their arms. They, no more than the Jews, can tell what it means. It is lost in the mists of their common antiquity. The very same symbol is found in Mexico.

Roads, worthy of being compared to, and alone rivalling (by the confession of Humboldt) those of the Romans; pottery, equalling, and resembling, that of the Etruscans; resemblances of costume, as with the head-dress of the Etruscans; instruments of music, the double flute of the Curians—do not go so far to indicate a connexion, as the adoption of a symbol such as this; but when you have an exact correspondence in a peculiar and arbitrary figure, then other resemblances may be admitted, as furnishing corroborative proof of a common matrix, if not for the races, at least for their arts.

There are, however, other resemblances, which it would require a vigorous imagination to explain by the doctrine of coincidence. Gladiators contending with the Retiarius, derived by the Latins from the Etruscans;—tombs, like the Etruscan, constructed of enormous heaps of earth, upon a basement of masonry; mortar, that most remarkable discovery of the Phœnicians; tapia, or the mixture of mortar and clay;—papyrus, prepared crosswise, like that of Egypt; and tesselated pavements. Again, the Mexican year, coinciding with the Etruscan, the Mexican being three hundred and sixty-five days, five hours, and fifty minutes; the Etruscan, three hundred and sixty-five days, five hours, and forty minutes. There are traces of unknown characters reported, so that some people who used letters must have set foot upon that continent. The buildings are almost all turned to the cardinal points. Mention, in two instances, is made of glass and of enamel.

The Mexicans had baths. However magnificent their public monuments, these were not on that scale which corresponded with the Roman and the Greek Thermæ, but such as are found in almost every house in Morocco—a small apartment, seven feet square, with a cupola roof, five to six feet, and a slightly convex floor, under one side of which there is a fire, and a small, low door to creep in by.

If Phœnicians found their way across the Atlantic, they would have taught, amongst the first things, the bath and the points of the compass, trinkets of glass, the art of dyeing, &c.; and these things are there, with that peculiar mark and stamp of the people who have specially preserved the usages of the ancient world. Putting together these things, with the fact that the Phœnicians were the navigators exclusively to the West and to the East, I cannot help looking upon America as within the range of their enterprise, and many of its works as the record of their passage.

Dec. 18th.