The colonization of America by transatlantic peoples, it seems to us, did not depend upon the existence of a land bridge at a remote period, but could have been accomplished without the aid of the compass, either intentionally or accidentally, through the agency of the equatorial current and the trade-winds, two mighty forces perpetually tending toward the shores of the new world. The return current of the Gulf Stream which describes a semicircle in the east Atlantic washes in its sweep the Azores, the Madeira, the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, approaching in its southern course the shores of Portugal, Morocco, and the Sahara Desert, and finally uniting with the stronger equatorial current which rushes up the coast of Africa, crosses the Atlantic under the equator, and skirts the coast of South America until it reaches the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.[775] The north-east trade-winds blowing perpetually from the coast of Europe in a belt from eighteen to twenty degrees in width (or from 1245 to 1275 miles) reach the coasts of the American continent over an area which extends from the mouth of the Amazon to the northern boundary of Florida. Through the agency of these mild but almost unvarying forces Columbus was steadily borne on to the accomplishment of the greatest event of modern history. The companions of the Admiral were dismayed by the persistency with which they were wafted beyond the bounds of the known world, and ascribed the unceasing east wind, which they supposed offered them no hope of return to their homes, to a device of the devil. In one of the houses on the island of Guadaloupe Columbus on his second voyage saw the stern-post of a vessel, supposed to have been the fragment of some ship that had drifted across the Atlantic and been cast, together with the crew, upon unknown shores. How often and how long this same process had operated it is impossible to conjecture.[776] The accidental discovery of Brazil by Cabral furnishes an additional reason for believing that anciently vessels may have reached the new world. Pedro Alvarez de Cabral was dispatched by the Portuguese on the 9th of March 1500, with a fleet of thirteen vessels on a voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, to Calicut. After passing the Cape Verde Islands he bore away to the west, in order to avoid the calms prevailing on the Guinea coast. On the 25th of April, to his surprise he discovered what proved to be the South American continent, at a point which he named Porto Securo.[777] When we consider that the distance from the coast of Africa to Cape Frio, Brazil, is but 1530 miles, and realize that twelve centuries B. C. the Phœnicians and probably other maritime peoples of the Mediterranean visited Britain at the north and coasted Africa to the south, the probabilities are strong that, through the natural agency of the Atlantic currents and the trade-winds, some ancient mariners reached the American coast.[778]
Brasseur de Bourbourg, on the authority of Baron de Eckstein and his own researches, points to the fact that the Barbarians who are alluded to by Homer and Thucydides, are a race of ancient navigators and pirates called Cares or Carians, who occupied the islands of Greece and a part of the coast of the Peloponnesus, Arcanania and Illyria, before the Pelasgi. They ruled in Phrygia and other states of Asia Minor, antedating the Phœnicians in their sovereignty of the sea and the Indo-European peoples in their domination of the land. The same people extended their borders into Nubia and Libya and became the ancestors of the nations of the Barbary States. The Abbé, to all appearances, easily identifies them with Caracars or Caribs of the Antilles, the Caras or Cariari of Honduras, and even with the Gurani of South America. We submit the question for the investigation of the student, rather than with our endorsement.[779] Whether a great continent ever existed in the Pacific Ocean since man’s appearance on the earth, or whether the great area occupied by Oceanica and the Coral Islands of the Central Pacific was once a continent, are questions which cannot now be determined. It is certain, however, as Professor Dana has shown in his study of the atolls and barriers of the Pacific, that if not a continent, at least a great archipelago measuring 6000 miles in length by from 1000 to 2000 miles in breadth, has subsided to a depth ranging from 3000 to 6000 feet. Professor Dana states that two hundred islands have thus been lost.[780] Professor Le Conte estimates the loss of land to equal 20,000,000 square miles, and defines its boundaries by the Hawaiian and Feejee groups, north and south, and the Paumotu group and Pelews, east and west. He fixes the extreme subsidence at 1000 feet, since the average height of the high islands of the Pacific at present is not less than 9000 feet above the sea level, while some of them reach 14000 feet.[781] Professor Dana is of the opinion that this vast area has subsided since the Tertiary age. Whether such is the case or not is a matter of conjecture, but it is certain that much of it has been accomplished within the human era. That a higher civilization once prevailed throughout Polynesia we need only cite the remains found on Easter Island by Captain Cook, and refer to the Appendix of Mr. Baldwin’s work, where ruins of a high order are named as existing on Ascension, Marshall, Gilbert, Kingsmill, Ladrones, Swallow, Strong’s, Navigators and Hawaiian Islands. A quadrangular tower forty feet high and several stone-lined canals are to be seen at the harbor at Strong’s Island. On the adjoining isle of Lele, cyclopian walls forming large enclosures are overgrown by forests. “These walls are twelve feet thick, and within are vaults, artificial caverns, and secret passages.” “Not more than five hundred people now inhabit these islands; their tradition is that an ancient city formerly stood around this harbor, mostly on Lele, occupied by a powerful people whom they called ‘Anut,’ and who had large vessels, in which they made long voyages east and west, ‘many moons’ being required for these voyages.”[782] It is altogether probable that not only a higher civilization once prevailed in Polynesia, but that within the history of man, the greater extent of land, now submerged, made the passage to America comparatively easy. If we turn to the North Pacific, all doubts vanish in the presence of the most favorable conditions for a migration from our continent to the other. With Latham, we believe that if America had first been discovered from the west, and Alaska and the north-west coast been as well known as our Atlantic coast, North-eastern Asia would have naturally passed for the fatherland of North-western America.[783] It is scarcely necessary to occupy space in pointing out the facilities which the Aleutian Islands offer for a migration even in inferior boats, and at all seasons of the year. The climate, though cool, is not severe, owing to the proximity of the warm current of the Kuro-suvo, and it only requires an inspection of the map to convince the most conservative. Col. Barclay Kennon, formerly of the United States North Pacific Surveying Expedition, after referring to the conspicuousness of the volcano Petropaulski on the shores of Kamtschatka, says: “Proceeding along this coast to Cape Kronotski, which lies north of Petropaulski, the distance to Behring’s Island is about one hundred and fifty miles—course east. Fifteen miles only from it is Copper Island, and about one hundred and fifty miles south-west of it is Attou Island, the most westerly of the Aleutian group, which is an almost unbroken chain, connecting the American continent to the peninsula of Alaska.”[784] It is evident that the voyage from the Asiatic to the American coast can be made as far south as the Aleutian Islands without losing sight of land but a few hours at a time—a matter of no consequence to the intrepid navigators found everywhere among the aborigines upon the islands and coast.[785] The Kuro-suvo or Japan current sweeps along the Asiatic coast, bears away to the east, and describing a semicircle, bends its course southward to the shores of California and Mexico, until it reaches about the tenth parallel of north latitude, when it returns to the Japanese coast.
This Gulf Stream of the Pacific, which nearly every season casts wrecks of Japanese junks upon our shores, no doubt has been an active agent in giving character to our ancient population.[786] Added to these twofold facilities for communication—of currents and an almost continuous chain of islands—we have a third in the narrow channel at Behring’s Straits. These straits, according to Sir John F. Herschel, are now “only thirty miles broad where narrowest, and only twenty-five fathoms in their greatest depth.”[787] Sir Charles Lyell, in alluding to the above fact, remarks: “Behring’s Straits happen to agree singularly in width and depth with the Straits of Dover, the difference in depth not being more than three or four feet.”[788] With this statement before us while standing upon the deck of a vessel midway between Calais and Dover, with the shores of France and England in full view, we felt, as never before, how absurd is the opinion which has been advanced more than once, that no general migration was likely to take place across Behring’s Straits. As well say that no general migration was likely to take place across the Straits of Dover; yet we learn that Britain was known to be inhabited as early as the twelfth century B. C.[789] The weather at Behring’s Straits, though cold even in summer, is not nearly as cold as the winters of Japan.[790] In winter the waters of the straits are frozen over generally as late as April, furnishing a continuous connection between the continents, while in summer the communication at present between the aborigines inhabiting opposite shores is continuous.[791] Frederick von Hellwald furnishes an argument for the naturalness of a migration to the American shores the fact that, “while the Asiatic projection near Behring’s Straits is almost a sterile rocky waste, the opposite coast presents a much more inviting appearance, abounding in trees and shrubs. Moreover, the climate when we pass southward of the peninsula of Alaska, is of a genial character, the temperature continuing nearly the same as far down as Oregon.”[792] The difference in the two shores is owing to the fact that the cold current from the Arctic Ocean passes southward along the Asiatic coast, while a portion of the water of the warm current passes up the American shore.[793] It is impossible to approximate the period of the world’s history in which the migration must have taken place. No doubt it was in a remote age, before the old world peoples had developed their present or even historic peculiarities and types of civilization. If this be true, the futility of all old world comparisons, and the unceasing search for analogies which has been going on since the discovery of the continent, is at once apparent.[794]
Prof. Grote thinks the first migration may have taken place in the Tertiary period in Pliocene time, and that the subsequent advent of the ice period cutting off all communication with the old world until recent times, produced a modification in the race, and that man retired with the glacier on its return to the north, where we see his descendants in the Eskimo.[795] If Prof. Croll’s theory of climatic change resulting from the maximum eccentricity of the earth’s orbit be true, or even if the ordinary time at which the American glacial period is supposed to have occurred be taken into consideration, we hardly think the evidences of man’s pre-glacial residence on this continent are sufficient on which to base a safe hypothesis.[796] Of course Prof. Grote would assign a comparatively recent migration to the civilized nations. Whether a continuous land communication ever existed between the continents at the Aleutian Islands[797] or at Behring’s Straits cannot be determined, though the probabilities seem to favor the view that they were once united.[798]
Prof. Asa Gray has satisfactorily shown the intimate relationship between the North American and Asiatic vegetation, while many of our fauna are clearly of Asiatic origin.[799] However, it is of little moment in this discussion whether the land bridge ever existed; the conditions for migration from one continent to the other are now, and no doubt ever have been favorable, and that different peoples at different times have availed themselves of those conditions is equally certain. We have already alluded to the climatic conditions south of Alaska which would naturally allure a migrating tribe down the coast to Oregon and the Columbian region. Once there, however, a tribe of considerable numbers and enterprise would soon be stimulated to push farther, because of the demands for a more ample support than could be found on the Pacific coast in the region of the Columbia and Frazier Rivers. Still, progress to the south is practically cut off, since the dryness and sterility of the Californian coast, the ice-capped mountains intervening between the north and the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and the desert highlands which rise with bleak and forbidding aspect between the Sierra Nevada and the eastern Rocky Mountains, combine in forming a barrier sufficient to turn the course of a migration.[800] Add to this the fact that the country south of Oregon rises over 2000 feet above the head of the waters of the Columbia and Missouri rivers, and it is apparent that an outlet must be sought in another direction. Nature has provided the highway. Alluding to this fact and to the unbroken line of mounds from the north and west down the Missouri valley, Mr. Becker remarks: “On the head of (canoe) navigation we have what is known as ‘portages.’ These are depressions in the continuous range of the Rocky Mountains of such a nature that they fairly invite a travelling tribe to cross from the river system of the upper Columbia, emptying into the Pacific Ocean to that of the Missouri, on which a canoe need but be floated in order to arrive in the far distant Gulf of Mexico. Canoes can easily be carried from one river system to the other. Nothing like it exists in the whole mountain range southward, until we arrive at Nicaragua Lake in Central America.”[801] It will not require long for the matter of fact reader, who comprehends the well-nigh insurmountable difficulties which lie in the way of populating America in tropical or southern latitudes, and compares with them the facilities which the proximity of the continents and the topography of our country afford, to determine from what quarter America received the greater part of its inhabitants.
CHAPTER XII.
CONCLUSION.
THE dim uncertainty which envelopes the most ancient period of American antiquity, like that which obscures the beginnings of Egyptian, Assyrian and Trojan history, to say nothing of the origin of the venerable Asiatic civilizations, renders much of the effort in this field unsatisfactory. Still the results are of surpassing interest. A new cosmogony, mythology and traditional history full of weird poetic inspiration, an inspiration such as is begotten in contemplating the struggles of nature’s children after a higher development, is added to the fund of human knowledge. The poetry of the Quiché cosmogony must some day find expression in verse of Miltonic grandeur. The fall of Xibalba will no doubt afford the materials for a heroic poem which will stand in the same relation to America that the Iliad does to Greece. The doctrines of the benign and saintly Quetzalcoatl or Cukulcan must be classed among the great faiths of mankind, and their author, alone of all the great teachers of morals except Christ himself, inculcating a positive morality, must be granted a precedence of most of the great teachers of Chinese and Hindoo antiquity. It is the custom of many Europeans to regard America as having no heroic or legendary period, no heroes like Achilles, Æneas, Sigfried, Beowolf, Arthur and the Cid; but who will review the romance of American antiquity and longer entertain this view? A few years ago, writers dated North American history from the discoveries made by Columbus and his immediate successors. Now they go back to the Northmen for a starting-point. May not the beginning be pushed even farther back, and the ancient history of America receive the attention of the historiographer?
The origin of the North American population cannot be positively settled at present, though the probabilities are that new facts will be brought to light establishing the relationship of the ancestors of the Nahuas with some ancient Asiatic race, as the Eskimo have clearly been proven to belong to the Arctic race which encircles the globe near the North pole.[802] We have seen that groups of facts unquestionably point to Northern Asia as the ancient home of a large share of the tribes of North America, civilized and savage. The autochthonic hypothesis which had its first great advocate in Dr. Morton, receives no support from his mistaken argument for the unity of the American race. We think we have shown, as did Prof. Wilson before us, that no such fact as ethnic unity exists in America. Dr. Morton’s own measurements of crania which we have classified, and the recent measurements of mound skulls, disprove the argument which he sought to establish. The autochthonic hypothesis owed much of its popularity to the support which it received from Prof. Agassiz’s doctrine of the separate creations of races of men, a hypothesis which has rapidly lost ground since the decease of its eminent advocate. It is impossible to determine whether the people of the mounds of the United States were preceded in this country by any other people. Certainly they had intercourse with some race having a cranial type quite different from their own, as several low-type skulls taken from the mounds testify. If the rude weapons found in New Jersey are as old as Dr. Abbott supposes[803]—belonging to the inter-glacial age—the question of man’s antiquity on this continent may have to be viewed in a different light from that in which it has hitherto appeared. It is conjectured that this supposed inter-glacial race were the ancestors of the Eskimo of to-day, and retired or were driven to the Arctic regions, where their racial characteristics became permanent. The traditional history of both Mayas and Nahuas seem to indicate an old world origin. The former people clearly claim an origin which, if their traditions are worth anything, must be assigned to some Mediterranean country. While, on the contrary, the Nahuas persistently state that they came from the north or north-west. It is certain that many of their cosmological traditions closely resemble those of Central and Western Asiatic peoples. Why should the traditions of the ancient Americans be less reliable than those of the most ancient Egyptians, Greeks, or Hindoos?[804]