Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8) / Aboriginal America

by Unknown

Without admitting the harsh judgment of Aelian, who brands Theopompus as a “coyner of lyes and a forger of fond fables,” it is clear that we are dealing here with literature, not with history, and that the identification of the land of the Meropes, or, as Strabo calls it, Meropis, with Atlantis or with America is arbitrary and valueless.[304]

The same remark applies to the account of the great Saturnian continent that closes the curious and interesting dialogue “On the Face appearing in the Orb of the Moon,” attributed to Plutarch, and printed with his Morals:

“‘An isle, Ogygia, lies in Ocean’s arms,’” says the narrator, “about five days’ sail west from Britain; and before it are three others, of equal distance from one another, and also from that, bearing northwest, where the sun sets in summer. In one of these the barbarians feign that Saturn is detained in prison by Zeus.” The adjacent sea is termed the Saturnian, and the continent by which the great sea is circularly environed is distant from Ogygia about five thousand stadia, but from the other islands not so far. A bay of this continent, in the latitude of the Caspian Sea, is inhabited by Greeks. These, who had been visited by Heracles, and revived by his followers, esteemed themselves inhabitants of the firm land, calling all others islanders, as dwelling in land encompassed by the sea. Every thirty years these people send forth certain of their number, who minister to the imprisoned Saturn for thirty years. One of the men thus sent forth, at the end of his service, paid a visit to the great island, as they called Europe. From him the narrator learned many things about the state of men after death, which he unfolds at length, the conclusion being that the souls of men ultimately arrive at the moon, wherein lie the Elysian Fields of Homer. “And you, O Lamprias,” he adds, “may take my relation in such part as you please.” After which hint there is, I think, but little doubt as to the way in which it should be taken by us.[305]

That Plato, Theopompus, and Plutarch, covering a range of nearly five centuries, should each have made use of the conception of a continent beyond the Atlantic, is noteworthy; but it is more naturally accounted for by supposing that all three had in mind the continental hypothesis of land distribution, than by assuming for them an acquaintance with the great western island, America. From this point of view, the result of our search into the geographical knowledge and mythical tales of the ancients is purely negative. We find, indeed, well-developed theories of physical geography, one of which accords remarkably well with the truth; but we also find that these theories rest solely on logical deductions from the mathematical doctrine of the sphere, and on an aesthetic satisfaction with symmetry and analogy. This conclusion could be invalidated were it shown that exploration had already revealed the secrets of the west, and we must now consider this branch of the subject.

The history of maritime discovery begins among the Phœnicians. The civilization of Egypt, as self-centred as that of China, accepted only the commerce that was brought to its gates; but the men of Sidon and Tyre, with their keen devotion to material interests, their almost modern ingenuity, had early appropriated the carrying trade of the east and the west. As they looked adventurously seaward from their narrow domain, the dim outline of Cyprus beckoned them down a long lane of island stations to the rich shores of Spain. Even their religion betrayed their bent: El and Cronos, their oldest deities, were wanderers, and vanished in the west; on their traces Melkarth led a motley swarm of colonists to the Atlantic. These legends, filtering through Cyprus, Crete, or Rhodes, or borne by rash adventurers from distant Gades, appeared anew in Grecian mythology, the deeds of Melkarth mingling with the labors of Hercules. We do not know when the Phœnicians first reached the Atlantic, nor what were the limits of their ocean voyages. Gades, the present Cadiz, just outside the Straits of Gibraltar, was founded a few years before 1100 b.c., but not, it is probable, without previous knowledge of the commercial importance of the location. There were numerous other settlements along the adjacent coast, and the gold, silver, and tin of these distant regions grew familiar in the markets of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India. The trade with Tartessus, the El Dorado of antiquity, gave the Phœnician merchant vessels a name among the Jews, as well in the tenth century, when Solomon shared the adventures of Hiram, as in the sixth, when Ezekiel depicted the glories of Tyrian commerce. The Phœnician seamanship was wide-famed; their vessels were unmatched in speed,[306] and their furniture and discipline excited the outspoken admiration of Xenophon. Beside the large Tarshish ships, they possessed light merchant vessels and ships of war, provided with both sails and oars, and these, somewhat akin to steamships in their independence of wind, were well adapted for exploration. Thus urged and thus provided, it is improbable that the Phœnicians shunned the great ocean. The evidence is still strong in favor of their direct trade with Britain for tin, despite what has been urged as to tin mines in Spain and the prehistoric existence of the trade by land across Gaul.[307]

Whether the Tyrians discovered any of the Atlantic islands is unknown; the adventures and discoveries attributed to Hercules, who in this aspect is but Melkarth in Grecian raiment, points toward an early knowledge of western islands, but these myths alone are not conclusive proof. Diodorus Siculus attributes to the Phœnicians the discovery, by accident, of a large island, with navigable rivers and a delightful climate, many days’ sail westward from Africa. In the compilation De Mirabilibus Auscultationibus, printed with the works of Aristotle, the discovery is attributed to Carthaginians. Both versions descend from one original, now lost, and it is impossible to give a date to the event, or to identify the locality.[308] Those who find America in the island of Diodorus make improbabilities supply the lack of evidence. Stories seldom lose in the telling, and while it is not impossible that a Phœnician ship might have reached America, and even made her way back, it is not likely that the voyage would have been tamely described as of many days’ duration.

When Carthage succeeded Tyre as mistress of the Mediterranean commerce, interest in the West revived. In the middle of the fifth century b.c., two expeditions of importance were dispatched into these waters. A large fleet under Hanno sailed to colonize, or re-colonize, the western coast of Africa, and succeeded in reaching the latitude of Sierra Leone. Himilko, voyaging in the opposite direction, spent several months in exploring the ocean and tracing the western shores of Europe. He appears to have run into the Sargasso Sea, but beyond this little is known of his adventures.[309]

Ultimately the Carthaginians discovered and colonized the Canary Islands, and perhaps the Madeira and Cape Verde groups; the evidence of ethnology, the presence of Semitic inscriptions, and the occurrence in the descriptions of Pliny, Mela, and Ptolemy of some of the modern names of the separate islands, establishes this beyond a doubt for the Canaries.[310] There is no evidence that the Phœnicians or Carthaginians penetrated much beyond the coast islands, or that they reached any part of America, or even the Azores.

The achievements of the Greeks and Romans were still more limited. A certain Colaeus visited Gades towards the middle of the seventh century B.C., and was, according to Herodotus, the first Greek who passed outside of the columns of Hercules. His example could not have been widely followed, for we find Pindar and his successors referring to the Pillars as the limit of navigation. In 600 b.c., Massilia was founded, and soon became a rival of Carthage in the western Mediterranean. In the fourth century we have evidence of an attempt to search out the secrets of the ocean after the manner of Hanno and Himilko. In that century, Pytheas made his famous voyage to the lands of tin and amber, discovering the still mysterious Thule; while at the same time his countryman Euthymenes sailed southward to the Senegal. With these exceptions we hear of no Grecian or Roman explorations in the Atlantic, and meet with no indication that they were aware of any other lands beyond the sea than the Fortunate Isles or the Hesperides of the early poets.[311]