6 Adventures of Hatim Tai, p. 36, note.
7 Whewell, Hist. Inductive Sciences, vol. i. book iv. ch. i. sect. 7.
8 Wilford, Essays on the Sacred Isles, In Asiatic Researches, vols. viii. xi.
Indian, sinking in battle or the chase, caught glimpses of happier Hunting Grounds, whose woods trooped with game, and where the arrows of the braves never missed, and there was no winter. There was a pretty myth received among some of the ancient Britons, locating their paradise in a spot surrounded by tempests, far in the Western Ocean, and named Flath Innis, or Noble Island.9 The following legend is illustrative. An old man sat thoughtful on a rock beside the sea. A cloud, under whose squally skirts the waters foamed, rushed down; and from its dark womb issued a boat, with white sails bent to the wind, and hung round with moving oars. Destitute of mariners, itself seemed to live and move. A voice said, "Arise, behold the boat of heroes: embark, and see the Green Isle of those who have passed away!" Seven days and seven nights he voyaged, when a thousand tongues called out, "The Isle! the Isle!" The black billows opened before him, and the calm land of the departed rushed in light on his eyes. We are reminded by this of what Procopius says concerning the conveyal of the soul of the barbarian to his paradise. At midnight there is a knocking at the door, and indistinct voices call him to come. Mysteriously impelled, he goes to the sea coast, and there finds a frail, empty wherry awaiting him. He embarks, and a spirit crew row him to his destination.10
"He finds with ghosts His boat deep freighted, sinking to the edge Of the dark flood, and voices hears, yet sees No substance; but, arrived where once again His skiff floats free, hears friends to friends Give lamentable welcome. The unseen Shore faint resounds, and all the mystic air Breathes forth the names of parent, brother, wife."
During that period of poetic credulity while the face of the earth remained to a great extent concealed from knowledge, wherever the Hebrew Scriptures were known went the cherished traditions of the Garden of Eden from which our first parents were driven for their sin. Speculation naturally strove to settle the locality of this lost paradise. Sometimes it was situated in the mysterious bosom of India; sometimes in the flowery vales of Georgia, where roses and spices perfumed the gales; sometimes in the guarded recesses of Mesopotamia. Now it was the Grand Oasis in the Arabian desert, flashing on the wilted pilgrim, over the blasted and blazing wastes, with the verdure of palms, the play of waters, the smell and flavor of perennial fruits. Again it was at the equator, where the torrid zone stretched around it as a fiery sword waving every way so that no mortal could enter. In the "Imago Mundi," a Latin treatise on cosmography written early in the twelfth century, we read, "Paradise is the extreme eastern part of Asia, and is made inaccessible by a wall of fire surrounding it and rising unto heaven." At a later time the Canaries were thought to be the ancient Elysium, and were accordingly named the Fortunate Isles. Indeed, among the motives that animated
9 Macpherson, Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, pp. 180-186.
10 Procopius, Gothica, lib. iv.
Columbus on his adventurous voyage no inferior place must be assigned to the hope of finding the primeval seat of Paradise.11 The curious traveller, exploring these visionary spots one by one, found them lying in the light of common day no nearer heaven than his own natal home; and at last all faith in them died out when the whole surface of the globe had been surveyed, no nook left wherein romance and superstition might any longer play at hide and seek.
Continuing our search after the local abode of the departed, we now leave the surface of the earth and descend beneath it. The first haunted region we reach is the realm of the Fairies, which, as every one acquainted with the magic lore of old Germany or England knows, was situated just under the external ground, and was clothed with every charm poets could imagine or the heart dream. There was supposed to be an entrance to this enchanted domain at the Peak Cavern in Derbyshire, and at several other places. Sir Walter Scott has collected some of the best legends illustrative of this belief in his "History of Demonology." Sir Gawaine, a famous knight of the Round Table, was once admitted to dine, above ground, in the edge of the forest, with the King of the Fairies: