From Berlin to Bagdad and Babylon

by J. A. Zahm

Beauteous is all the plain,

With delight blessed,

With the sweetest

Of earth’s odors.

From the time of Indicopleustes, who flourished in the sixth century, to our own, travelers and explorers have sought for the Garden of Eden, and geographers have indicated on their maps the places they imagined it should occupy. Some were satisfied with a conjectural location, but others, basing their speculations on the data given in the second chapter of Genesis, were minded that the problem was so simple that it could be answered off-hand. They were quite like Hudibras who

Knew the seat of Paradise,

Could tell in what degree it lies,

And as he was disposed could prove it

Above the moon or below it.

In a letter purporting to have been written to the Emperor Manual Comnenus, the mythical king Prester John declares that Paradise is situated within three days’ journey of his own empire, but whether this empire is in Asia or Africa is not made clear.