MYTHICAL MONSTERS.

THE FUNG WANG.
ACCORDING TO
FANG HENG.

MYTHICAL MONSTERS.

BY
CHARLES GOULD, B.A.,
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF TASMANIA; LATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEYOR
OF TASMANIA.

WITH NINETY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS.

LONDON:
W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE. S.W.
PUBLISHERS TO THE INDIA OFFICE.

1886.

(All rights reserved.)

LONDON:
PRINTED BY W H ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL S.W.

The Author has to express his great obligations to many gentlemen who have assisted him in the preparation of this volume, either by affording access to their libraries, or by furnishing or revising translations from the Chinese, &c.; and he must especially tender them to J. Haas, Esq., the Austro-Hungarian Vice-Consul at Shanghai, to Mr. Thomas Kingsmill and the Rev. W. Holt of Shanghai, to Mr. Falconer of Hong-Kong, and to Dr. N. B. Dennys of Singapore.

For the sake of uniformity, the author has endeavoured to reduce all the romanised representations of Chinese sounds to the system adopted by S. W. Williams, whose invaluable dictionary is the most available one for students. No alteration, however, has been made when quotations from eminent sinologues like Legge have been inserted.

Should the present volume prove sufficiently interesting to attract readers, a second one will be issued at a future date, in continuation of the subject.

June, 1884.

NOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS.

The Publishers think it right to state that, owing to the Author’s absence in China, the work has not had the advantage of his supervision in its passage through the press. It is also proper to mention that the MS. left the Author’s hands eighteen months ago.

13, Waterloo Place. S.W.
January, 1886.

CONTENTS.

[Pg 1]

MYTHICAL MONSTERS.

It would have been a bold step indeed for anyone, some thirty years ago, to have thought of treating the public to a collection of stories ordinarily reputed fabulous, and of claiming for them the consideration due to genuine realities, or to have advocated tales, time-honoured as fictions, as actual facts; and those of the nursery as being, in many instances, legends, more or less distorted, descriptive of real beings or events.

Now-a-days it is a less hazardous proceeding. The great era of advanced opinion, initiated by Darwin, which has seen, in the course of a few years, a larger progress in knowledge in all departments of science than decades of centuries preceding it, has, among other changes, worked a complete revolution in the estimation of the value of folk-lore; and speculations on it, which in the days of our boyhood would have been considered as puerile, are now admitted to be not merely interesting but necessary to those who endeavour to gather up the skeins of unwritten history, and to trace the antecedents and early migrations from parent sources of nations long since alienated from each other by customs, speech, and space.

[Pg 2]I have, therefore, but little hesitation in gravely proposing to submit that many of the so-called mythical animals, which throughout long ages and in all nations have been the fertile subjects of fiction and fable, come legitimately within the scope of plain matter-of-fact Natural History, and that they may be considered, not as the outcome of exuberant fancy, but as creatures which really once existed, and of which, unfortunately, only imperfect and inaccurate descriptions have filtered down to us, probably very much refracted, through the mists of time.

I propose to follow, for a certain distance only, the path which has been pursued in the treatment of myths by mythologists, so far only, in fact, as may be necessary to trace out the homes and origin of those stories which in their later dress are incredible; deviating from it to dwell upon the possibility of their having preserved to us, through the medium of unwritten Natural History, traditions of creatures once co-existing with man, some of which are so weird and terrible as to appear at first sight to be impossible. I propose stripping them of those supernatural characters with which a mysteriously implanted love of the wonderful has invested them, and to examine them, as at the present day we are fortunately able to do, by the lights of the modern sciences of Geology, Evolution, and Philology.

For me the major part of these creatures are not chimeras but objects of rational study. The dragon, in place of being a creature evolved out of the imagination of Aryan man by the contemplation of lightning flashing through the caverns which he tenanted, as is held by some mythologists, is an animal which once lived and dragged its ponderous coils, and perhaps flew; which devastated herds, and on occasions swallowed their shepherd; which, establishing its lair in some cavern overlooking the fertile plain, spread terror and destruction around, and, protected from assault by dread or superstitious feeling, may even have been subsidised by the[Pg 3] terror-stricken peasantry, who, failing the power to destroy it, may have preferred tethering offerings of cattle adjacent to its cavern to having it come down to seek supplies from amongst their midst.[1]

To me the specific existence of the unicorn seems not incredible, and, in fact, more probable than that theory which assigns its origin to a lunar myth.[2]

Again, believing as I do in the existence of some great undescribed inhabitant of the ocean depths, the much-derided sea-serpent, whose home seems especially to be adjacent to Norway, I recognise this monster as originating the myths of the midgard serpent which the Norse Elder Eddas have collected, this being the contrary view to that taken by mythologists, who invert the derivation, and suppose the stories current among the Norwegian fishermen to be modified versions of this important element of Norse mythology.[3]

[Pg 4]I must admit that, for my part, I doubt the general derivation of myths from “the contemplation of the visible workings of external nature.”[4] It seems to me easier to suppose that the palsy of time has enfeebled the utterance of these oft-told tales until their original appearance is almost unrecognisable, than that uncultured savages should possess powers of imagination and poetical invention far beyond those enjoyed by the most instructed nations of the present day; less hard to believe that these wonderful stories of gods and demigods, of giants and dwarfs, of dragons and monsters of all descriptions, are transformations than to believe them to be inventions.[5]

The author of Atlantis,[6] indeed, claims that the gods and goddesses of the ancient Greeks, the Phœnicians, the Hindoos, and the Scandinavians were simply the kings, queens, and heroes of Atlantis, and the acts attributed to them in mythology a confused recollection of real historical events. Without conceding the locus of the originals, which requires much greater examination than I am able to make at the[Pg 5] present time, I quite agree with him as to the principle. I believe that the mythological deities represent a confused chronology of far-distant times, and that the destruction of the Nemean lion, the Lernean hydra, and the Minotaur are simply the records of acts of unusual bravery in combating ferocious animals.

On the first landing of Pizarro the Mexicans entertained the opinion that man and horse were parts of one strange animal,[7] and we have thus a clue to the explanation of the origin of the belief in centaurs from a distant view of horsemen, a view possibly followed by the immediate flight of the observer, which rendered a solution of the extraordinary phenomenon impossible.

On the Credibility of Remarkable Stories.

Ferdinand Mendez Pinto quaintly observes, in one of his earlier chapters, “I will not speak of the Palace Royal, because I saw it but on the outside, howbeit the Chinese tell such wonders of it as would amaze a man; for it is my intent to relate nothing save what we beheld here with our own eyes, and that was so much as that I am afraid to write it; not that it would seem strange to those who have seen and read the marvels of the kingdom of China, but because I doubt that they which would compare those wondrous things that are in the countries they have not seen, with that little they have seen in their own, will make some question[Pg 6] of it, or, it may be, give no credit at all to these truths, because they are not conformable to their understanding and small experience.”[8]

[Pg 7]Now as some of the creatures whose existence I shall have to contend for in these volumes are objects of derision to a large proportion of mankind, and of reasonable doubt to another, I cannot help fortifying myself with some such outwork of reasoning as the pith of Pinto’s remarks affords, and supplementing it by adding that, while the balance between scepticism and credulity is undoubtedly always difficult to hold, yet, as Lord Bacon well remarks, “There is nothing makes a man suspect much more than to know little; and therefore men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more.”

Whately extends Bacon’s proposition by adding, “This is equally true of the suspicions that have reference to things as persons”; in other words, ignorance and suspicion go hand-in-hand, and so travellers’ tales, even when supported by good evidence, are mostly denied credence or accepted with repugnance, when they offend the experience of those who, remaining at home, are thus only partially educated. Hence it is, not to go too far back for examples, that we have seen Bruce, Mungo Park, Du Chaillu, Gordon Cumming, Schliemann,[9] and Stanley treated with the most ungenerous criticism and contemptuous disbelief by persons who, however well informed in many subjects, lacked the extended and appreciative views which can only be acquired by travel.

Nor is this incredulity limited to travellers’ tales about savage life. It is just as often displayed in reference to the[Pg 8] surroundings of uneventful life, provided they are different from those with which we are familiar.

Saladin rebuked the Knight of the Leopard for falsehood when the latter assured him that the waters of lakes in his own country became at times solidified, so that armed and mounted knights could cross them as if on dry land. And the wise Indian who was taken down to see the large American cities, with the expectation that, being convinced of the resources and irresistible power of civilization he would influence his tribe to submission on his return, to the surprise of the commissioners who had conveyed him, spoke in directly contrary terms to those expected of him, privately explaining in reply to their remonstrances, that had he told the truth to his tribe he would have been indelibly branded for the remainder of his life as an outrageous and contemptible liar. Chinese students, despatched for education in American or European capitals, are compelled on their return to make similar reservations, under pain of incurring a like penalty; and officials who, from contact with Europeans at the open ports, get their ideas expanded too quickly, are said to be liable to isolation in distant regions, where their advanced and fantastic opinions may do as little harm to right-thinking people as possible.[10]

Even scientific men are sometimes as crassly incredulous as the uncultured masses. On this point hear Mr. A. R. Wallace.[11] “Many now living remember the time (for it is[Pg 9] little more than twenty years ago) when the antiquity of man, as now understood, was universally discredited. Not only theologians, but even geologists taught us that man belonged to the existing state of things; that the extinct animals of the tertiary period had finally disappeared, and that the earth’s surface had assumed its present condition before the human race first came into existence. So prepossessed were scientific men with this idea, which yet rested on purely negative evidence, and could not be supported by any argument of scientific value, that numerous facts which had been presented at intervals for half a century, all tending to prove the existence of man at very remote epochs, were silently ignored, and, more than this, the detailed statements of three distinct and careful observers confirming each other were rejected by a great scientific society as too improbable for publication, only because they proved (if they were true) the co-existence of man with extinct animals.”[12]

The travels of that faithful historian, Marco Polo, were for a long time considered as fables, and the graphic descriptions of the Abbé Huc even still find detractors continuing the rôle of those who maintained that he had never even visited the countries which he described.

Gordon Cumming was disbelieved when he asserted that he had killed an antelope, out of a herd, with a rifle-shot at a distance of eight hundred yards.

Madame Merian[13] was accused of deliberate falsehood in reference to her description of a bird-eating spider nearly[Pg 10] two hundred years ago. But now-a-days Mr. Bates and other reliable observers have confirmed it in regard to South America, India, and elsewhere.

Audubon was similarly accused by botanists of having invented the yellow water-lily, which he figured in his Birds of the South under the name of Nymphæa lutea, and after having lain under the imputation for years, was confirmed at last by the discovery of the long-lost flower, in Florida, by Mrs. Mary Trent, in the summer of 1876;[14] and this encourages us to hope that some day or other a fortunate sportsman may rediscover the Haliætus Washingtonii, in regard to which Dr. Cover says: “That famous bird of Washington was a myth; either Audubon was mistaken, or else, as some do not hesitate to affirm, he lied about it.”

Fig. 1.—Fisherman attacked by Octopus.

(Facsimile from a drawing by Hokusai, a celebrated Japanese artist
who lived about the beginning of the present century.)

Victor Hugo was ridiculed for having exceeded the bounds of poetic license when he produced his marvellous word-painting of the devil-fish, and described a man as becoming its helpless victim. The thing was derided as a monstrous[Pg 11] impossibility; yet within a few years were discovered, on the shores of Newfoundland, cuttle-fishes with arms extending to thirty feet in length, and capable of dragging a good-sized boat beneath the surface; and their action has been reproduced for centuries past, as the representation of a well-known fact, in net sukes (ivory carvings) and illustrations by Japanese artists.[15]

[Pg 12]Before the days of Darwinism, what courage was requisite in a man who propounded any theory a little bit extravagant! Hark how, even less than twenty years ago, the ghost of the unfortunate Lord Monboddo had bricks of criticism pelted at it, half earnestly, half contemptuously, by one of our greatest thinkers, whose thought happened to run in grooves different from those travelled in by the mind of the unfortunate Scotchman.

“Lord Monboddo[16] had just finished his great work, by which he derives all mankind from a couple of apes, and all the dialects of the world from a language originally framed by some Egyptian gods, when the discovery of Sanskrit came on him like a thunderbolt. It must be said, however, to his credit, that he at once perceived the immense importance of the discovery. He could not be expected to sacrifice his primordial monkeys or his Egyptian idols, &c.”

And again: “It may be of interest to give one other extract in order to show how well, apart from his men with, and his monkeys without, tails, Lord Monboddo could sift and handle the evidence that was placed before him.”

Max Müller also furnishes us with an amazing example of scepticism on the part of Dugald Stewart. He says[17]: “However, if the facts about Sanskrit were true, Dugald Stewart was too wise not to see that the conclusions drawn from them were inevitable. He therefore denied the reality of such a language as Sanskrit altogether, and wrote his famous essay to prove that Sanskrit had been put together, after the model of Greek and Latin, by those archforgers and liars, the Brahmans, and that the whole of Sanskrit literature was an imposition.”

So Ctesias attacked Herodotus. The very existence of[Pg 13] Homer has been denied, and even the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays questioned.[18]

We are all familiar enough now with the black swan, but Ovid[19] considered it as so utterly impossible that he clinched, as it were, an affirmation by saying, “If I doubted, O Maximus, of thy approval of these words, I could believe that there are swans of the colour of Memnon” [i.e. black]; and even so late as the days of Sir Thomas Browne, we find them classed by him with flying horses, hydras, centaurs, harpies, and satyrs, as monstrosities, rarities, or else poetical fancies.[20]

Now that we have all seen the great hippopotamus disport himself in his tank in the gardens of the Zoological Society, we can smile at the grave arguments of the savant who, while admitting the existence of the animal, disputed the possibility of his walking about on the bed of a river, because his great bulk would prevent his rising again.[21] But I daresay[Pg 14] it passed muster in his days as a very sound and shrewd observation, just as, possibly, but for the inconvenient waggery of Peter Pindar, might have done the intelligent inquiry, which he records, after the seam in the apple-dumpling.

Poor Fray Gaspar de Jan Bernardine who, in 1611, undertook the journey by land from India to Portugal, was unfortunate enough to describe the mode in which the captain of the caravan communicated intelligence to Bagdad by carrier pigeon. “He had pigeons whose young and nests were at his house in that city, and every two days he let fly a pigeon with a letter tied to its foot containing the news of his journey. This account met with but little belief in Europe, and was treated there as a matter of merriment.”[22]

The discredit under which this traveller fell is the more surprising because the same custom had already been noted by Sir John Mandeville, who, in speaking of Syria and adjacent countries, says: “In that contree, and other contrees beyond, thei have custom, whan thei schulle usen warre, and when men holden sege abouten Cytee or Castelle, and thei withinen dur not senden messagers with lettres frō Lord to Lord for to ask Sokour, thei maken here Lettres and bynden hem to the Nekke of a Colver and leten the Colver flee, and the Colveren ben so taughte, that thei flun with the Lettres to the very place that men wolde send hem to. For the Colveres[Pg 15] ben norrysscht in the Places Where thei been sent to, and thei senden them there, for to beren here Lettres, and the Colveres retournen agen, where as thei ben norrischt, and so thei dou commonly.”

While, long before, Pliny had referred to it in his Natural History[23] as follows: “In addition to this, pigeons have acted as messengers in affairs of importance. During the siege of Mutina, Decimus Brutus, who was in the town, sent despatches to the camp of the Consuls, fastened to pigeons’ feet. Of what use to Antony, then, were his entrenchments? and all the vigilance of the besieging army? his nets, too, which he had spread in the river, while the messenger of the besieged was cleaving the air?”

The pace of railways; steam communication across the Atlantic; the Suez Canal[24]; were not all these considered in former days to be impossible? With these examples of failure of judgment before us, it may be fairly asked whether, in applying our minds to the investigation of the reality of creatures apparently monstrous, we duly reflect upon the extraordinary, almost miraculous, events which incessantly occur in the course of the short existence of all animated nature? Supposing the history of insects were unknown to us, could the wildest imagination conceive such a marvellous transformation as that which takes place continually around us in the passage from the larva through the chrysalis to the butterfly? or human ingenuity invent one so bizarre as that recorded by Steenstrup in his theory of the alternation of generation?

We accept as nothing marvellous, only because we see them daily, the organization and the polity of a community[Pg 16] of ants; their collaboration, their wars, and their slaveries have been so often stated that they cease to astonish. The same may be said of the marvellous architecture of birds, their construction of houses to live in, of bowers to play in, and even of gardens to gratify their sense of beauty.[25]

We admire the ingenious imagination of Swift, and essayists dwell upon his happy conceits and upon the ability with which, in his celebrated work, he has ordered all things to harmonise in dimensions with the enlarged and reduced scales on which he has conceived the men and animals of Brobdignag and Lilliput. So much even has this quaint idea been appreciated, that his story has achieved a small immortality, and proved one of the numerous springs from which new words have been imported into our language. Yet the peculiar and essential singularities of the story are quite equalled, or even surpassed, by creatures which are, or have been, found in nature. The imaginary diminutive cows which Gulliver brought back from Lilliput, and placed in the meadows at Dulwich, are not one bit more remarkable, in respect to relative size, than the pigmy elephant (E. Falconeri) whose remains have been found in the cave-deposits of Malta, associated with those of pigmy hippopotami, and which was only two feet six inches high; or the still existing Hippopotamus (Chæropsis) liberiensis, which M. Milne Edwardes[26] figures as little more than two feet in height.

The lilliputian forests from which the royal navy was constructed contained even large trees in comparison with the dwarf oaks of Mexico,[27] or with the allied, even smaller[Pg 17] species, which crawls like heather about the hill-slopes of China and Japan, and still more so in comparison with that singular pine, the most diminutive known (Dacrydium taxifolium), fruiting specimens of which, according to Kirk, are sometimes only two inches high, while the average height is only six to ten inches; while even among the forests of Brobdignag, a very respectable position could be held by the mammoth trees of California (Sequoia gigantea), or by the loftier white gums of Australia (Eucalyptus amygdalina), which occasionally reach, according to Von Mueller,[28] the enormous height of 480 feet. Nor could more adequate tenants (in point of size) be found to occupy them than the gigantic reptilian forms lately discovered by Marsh among the deposits of Colorado and Texas.

Surely a profound acquaintance with the different branches of natural history should render a man credulous rather than incredulous, for there is hardly conceivable a creature so monstrous that it may not be paralleled by existing ones in every-day life.[29]

 [Pg 18]

Fig. 2.—Pterodactylus. (After Figuier.)

Fig. 3.—Rhamphorynchus. (From “Nature.”)

Are the composite creatures of Chaldæan mythology so very much more wonderful than the marsupial kangaroo, the duck-billed platypus, and the flying lizard of Malaysia which are, or the pterodactylus, rhamphorynchus, and archæopteryx which have been? Does not geological science, day by day, trace one formation by easy gradation to another, bridge over the gaps which formerly separated them, carry the proofs of the existence of man constantly further and further back into remote time, and disclose the previous existence of [Pg 19]intermediate types (satisfying the requirements of the Darwinian theory) connecting the great divisions of the animal kingdom, of reptile-like birds and bird-like reptiles? Can we suppose that we have at all exhausted the great museum of nature? Have we, in fact, penetrated yet beyond its ante-chambers?

Fig. 4.—Archæopteryx.

Does the written history of man, comprising a few thousand years, embrace the whole course of his intelligent existence? or have we in the long mythical eras, extending over hundreds of thousands of years and recorded in the chronologies of Chaldæa and of China, shadowy mementoes of pre-historic man, handed down by tradition, and perhaps transported by a few survivors to existing lands from others which, like the fabled (?) Atlantis of Plato, may have been submerged, or the scene of some great catastrophe which destroyed them with all their civilization.

The six or eight thousand years which the various interpreters of the Biblical record assign for the creation of the world and the duration of man upon the earth, allow little enough space for the development of his civilization—a civilization which documental evidence carries almost to the verge of the limit—for the expansion and divergence of stocks, or the obliteration of the branches connecting them.

[Pg 20]But, fortunately, we are no more compelled to fetter our belief within such limits as regards man than to suppose that his appearance on the globe was coeval with or immediately successive to its own creation at that late date. For while geological science, on the one hand, carries back the creation of the world and the appearance of life upon its surface to a period so remote that it is impossible to estimate it, and difficult even to faintly approximate to it, so, upon the other, the researches of palæontologists have successively traced back the existence of man to periods variously estimated at from thirty thousand to one million years—to periods when he co-existed with animals which have long since become extinct, and which even excelled in magnitude and ferocity most of those which in savage countries dispute his empire at the present day. Is it not reasonable to suppose that his combats with these would form the most important topic of conversation, of tradition, and of primitive song, and that graphic accounts of such struggles, and of the terrible nature of the foes encountered, would be handed down from father to son, with a fidelity of description and an accuracy of memory unsuspected by us, who, being acquainted with reading and writing, are led to depend upon their artificial assistance, and thus in a measure fail to cultivate a faculty which, in common with those of keenness of vision and hearing, are essential to the existence of man in a savage or semi-savage condition?[30]

The illiterate backwoodsman or trapper (and hence by inference the savage or semi-civilized man), whose mind is[Pg 21] occupied merely by his surroundings, and whose range of thought, in place of being diffused over an illimitable horizon, is confined within very moderate limits, develops remarkable powers of observation and an accuracy of memory in regard to localities, and the details of his daily life, surprising to the scholar who has mentally to travel over so much more ground, and, receiving daily so many and so far more complex ideas, can naturally grasp each less firmly, and is apt to lose them entirely in the haze of a period of time which would still leave those of the uneducated man distinguishable or even prominent landmarks.[31] Variations in traditions must, of course, occur in time, and the same histories, radiating in all directions from centres, vary from the original ones by increments dependent on proportionately altered phases of temperament and character, induced by change of climate, associations and conditions of life; so that the early written history of every country reproduces under its own garb, and with a claim to originality, attenuated, enriched, or deformed versions of traditions common in their origin to many or all.[32]

[Pg 22]Stories of divine progenitors, demigods, heroes, mighty hunters, slayers of monsters, giants, dwarfs, gigantic serpents, dragons, frightful beasts of prey, supernatural beings, and myths of all kinds, appear to have been carried into all corners of the world with as much fidelity as the sacred Ark of the Israelites, acquiring a moulding—graceful, weird or uncouth—according to the genius of the people or their capacity for superstitious belief; and these would appear to have been materially affected by the varied nature of their respective countries. For example, the long-continuing dwellers in the open plains of a semi-tropical region, relieved to a great extent from the cares of watchfulness, and nurtured in the grateful rays of a genial but not oppressive sun, must have a more buoyant disposition and more open temperament than those inhabiting vast forests, the matted overgrowth of which rarely allows the passage of a single ray, bathes all in gloom, and leaves on every side undiscovered depths, filled with shapeless shadows, objects of vigilant dread, from which some ferocious monster may emerge at any moment. Again, on the one hand, the nomad roaming in isolation over vast solitudes, having much leisure for contemplative reflection, and on the other, the hardy dwellers on storm-beaten coasts, by turns fishermen, mariners, and pirates, must equally develop traits which affect their religion, polity, and customs, and stamp their influences on mythology and tradition.

The Greek, the Celt, and the Viking, descended from the same Aryan ancestors, though all drawing from the same sources their inspirations of religious belief and tradition, quickly diverged, and respectively settled into a generous martial race—martial in support of their independence rather than from any lust of conquest—polite, skilled, and learned; one brave but irritable, suspicious, haughty, impatient of control; and the last, the berserker, with a ruling passion for maritime adventure, piracy, and hand-to-hand heroic[Pg 23] struggles, to be terminated in due course by a hero’s death and a welcome to the banqueting halls of Odin in Walhalla.

The beautiful mythology of the Greek nation, comprising a pantheon of gods and demigods, benign for the most part, and often interesting themselves directly in the welfare of individual men, was surely due to, or at least greatly induced by, the plastic influences of a delicious climate, a semi-insular position in a sea comparatively free from stormy weather, and an open mountainous country, moderately fertile. Again, the gloomy and sanguinary religion of the Druids was doubtless moulded by the depressing influences of the seclusion, twilight haze, and dangers of the dense forests in which they hid themselves—forests which, as we know from Cæsar, spread over the greater part of Gaul, Britain, and Spain; while the Viking, having from the chance or choice of his ancestors, inherited a rugged seaboard, lashed by tempestuous waves and swept by howling winds, a seaboard with only a rugged country shrouded with unsubdued forests at its back, exposed during the major portion of the year to great severity of climate, and yielding at the best but a niggard and precarious harvest, became perforce a bold and skilful mariner, and, translating his belief into a language symbolic of his new surroundings, believed that he saw and heard Thor in the midst of the howling tempests, revealed majestic and terrible through rents in the storm-cloud. Pursuing our consideration of the effects produced by climatic conditions, may we not assume, for example, that some at least of the Chaldæans, inhabiting a pastoral country, and being descended from ancestors who had pursued, for hundreds or thousands of years, a nomadic existence in the vast open steppes in the highlands of Central Asia, were indebted to those circumstances for the advance which they are credited with having made in astronomy and kindred sciences. Is it not possible that their acquaintance with climatology was as exact or even more so than our own? The habit of solitude[Pg 24] would induce reflection, the subject of which would naturally be the causes influencing the vicissitudes of weather. The possibilities of rain or sunshine, wind or storm, would be with them a prominent object of solicitude; and the necessity, in an unfenced country, of extending their watch over their flocks and herds throughout the night, would perforce more or less rivet their attention upon the glorious constellations of the heavens above, and lead to habits of observation which, systematized and long continued by the priesthood, might have produced deductions accurate in the result even if faulty in the process.

The vast treasures of ancient knowledge tombed in the ruins of Babylon and Assyria, of which the recovery and deciphering is as yet only initiated, may, to our surprise, reveal that certain secrets of philosophy were known to the ancients equally with ourselves, but lost through intervening ages by the destruction of the empire, and the fact of their conservancy having been entrusted to a privileged and limited order, with which it perished.[33]

[Pg 25]We hail as a new discovery the knowledge of the existence of the so-called spots upon the surface of the sun, and scientists, from long-continued observations, profess to distinguish a connection between the character of these and atmospheric phenomena; they even venture to predict floods and droughts, and that for some years in anticipation; while pestilences or some great disturbance are supposed to be likely to follow the period when three or four planets attain their apogee within one year, a supposition based on the observations extended over numerous years, that similar events had accompanied the occurrence of even one only of those positions at previous periods.

May we not speculate on the possibility of similar or parallel knowledge having been possessed by the old Chaldæan and Egyptian priesthood; and may not Joseph have been able, by superior ability in its exercise, to have anticipated the seven years’ drought, or Noah, from an acquaintance with meteorological science, to have made an accurate forecast of the great disturbances which resulted in the Deluge and the destruction of a large portion of mankind?[34]

[Pg 26]Without further digression in a path which opens the most pleasing speculations, and could be pursued into endless ramifications, I will merely, in conclusion, suggest that the same influences which, as I have shown above, affect so largely the very nature of a people, must similarly affect its traditions and myths, and that due consideration will have to be given to such influences, in the case of some at least of the remarkable animals which I propose to discuss in this and future volumes.

[Pg 27]

Chronological List of some Authors writing on, and Works relating to Natural History, to which References are made in the present Volume; extracted to a great extent, as to the Western Authors, from Knight’s “Cyclopædia of Biography.”

The Shan Hai King—According to the commentator Kwoh P’oh (A.D. 276-324), this work was compiled three thousand years before this time, or at seven dynasties’ distance. Yang Sun of the Ming dynasty (commencing A.D. 1368), states that it was compiled by Kung Chia (and Chung Ku?) from engravings on nine urns made by the Emperor Yü, B.C. 2255. Chung Ku was an historiographer, and at the time of the last Emperor of the Hia dynasty (B.C. 1818), fearing that the Emperor might destroy the books treating of the ancient and present time, carried them in flight to Yin.

The ’Rh Ya—Initiated according to tradition, by Chow Kung; uncle of Wu Wang, the first Emperor of the Chow dynasty, B.C. 1122. Ascribed also to Tsze Hea, the disciple of Confucius.

The Bamboo Books—Containing the Ancient Annals of China, said to have been found A.D. 279, on opening the grave of King Seang of Wei [died B.C. 295]. Age prior to last date, undetermined. Authenticity disputed, favoured by Legge.

[Pg 28]

Confucius—Author of Spring and Autumn Classics, &c., B.C. (551-479).

Ctesias—Historian, physician to Artaxerxes, B.C. 401.

Herodotus—B.C. 484.

Aristotle—B.C. 384.

Megasthenes—About B.C. 300. In time of Seleucus Nicator. His work entitled Indica is only known by extracts in those of Strabo, Arrian, and Ælian.

Eratosthenes—Born B.C. 276. Mathematician, Astronomer, and Geographer.

Posidonius—Born about B.C. 140. Besides philosophical treatises, wrote works on geography, history, and astronomy, fragments of which are preserved in the works of Cicero, Strabo, and others.

Nicander—About B.C. 135. Wrote the Theriaca, a poem of 1,000 lines, in hexameter, on the wounds caused by venomous animals, and the treatment. Is followed in many of his errors by Pliny. Plutarch says the Theriaca cannot be called a poem, because there is in it nothing of fable or falsehood.

Strabo—Just before the Christian era. Geographer.

Cicero—Born B.C. 106.

Propertius (Sextus Aurelius)—Born probably about B.C. 56.

Diodorus Siculus—Wrote the Bibliotheca Historica (in Greek), after the death of Julius Cæsar (B.C. 44). Of the 40 books composing it only 15 remain, viz. Books 1 to 5 and 11 to 20.

Juba—Died A.D. 17. Son of Juba I., King of Numidia. Wrote on Natural History.

Pliny—Born A.D. 23.

Lucan—A.D. 38. The only work of his extant is the Pharsalia, a poem on the civil war between Cæsar and Pompey.

[Pg 29]

Ignatius—Either an early Patriarch, A.D. 50, or Patriarch of Constantinople, 799.

Isidorus—Isidorus of Charaux lived probably in the first century of our era. He wrote an account of the Parthian empire.

Arrian—Born about A.D. 100. His work on the Natural History, &c. of India is founded on the authority of Eratosthenes and Megasthenes.

Pausanias—Author of the Description or Itinerary of Greece. In the 2nd century.

Philostratus—Born about A.D. 182.

Solinus, Caius Julius—Did not write in the Augustan age, for his work entitled Polyhistor is merely a compilation from Pliny’s Natural History. According to Salmasius, he lived about two hundred years after Pliny.

Ælian—Probably middle of the 3rd century A.D. De Naturâ Animalium. In Greek.

Ammianus Marcellinus—Lived in 4th century.

Cardan, Jerome A.—About the end of 4th century A.D.

Printing invented in China, according to Du Halde, A.D. 924. Block-printing used in A.D. 593.

Marco Polo—Reached the Court of Kublai Khan in A.D. 1275.

Mandeville, Sir John de—Travelled for thirty-three years in Asia dating from A.D. 1327. As he resided for three years in Peking, it is probable that many of his fables are derived from Chinese sources.

Printing invented in Europe by John Koster of Haarlem, A.D. 1438.

Scaliger, Julius Cæsar—Born April 23rd, 1484. Wrote Aristotelis Hist. Anim. liber decimus cum vers. et comment. 8vo. Lyon, 1584, &c.

[Pg 30]

Gesner—Born 1516. Historiæ Animalium, &c.

Ambrose Paré—Born 1517. Surgeon.

Belon, Pierre—Born 1518. Zoologist, Geographer, &c.

Aldrovandus—Born 1552. Naturalist.

Tavernier, J. B.—Born 1605.

Păn Ts’ao Kang Muh—By Li Shê-chin of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368-1628).

Yuen Kien Léi Han—A.D. 1718.

[Pg 31]

ON SOME REMARKABLE ANIMAL FORMS.

The reasoning upon the question whether dragons, winged snakes, sea-serpents, unicorns, and other so-called fabulous monsters have in reality existed, and at dates coeval with man, diverges in several independent directions.

We have to consider:—

1.—Whether the characters attributed to these creatures are or are not so abnormal in comparison with those of known types, as to render a belief in their existence impossible or the reverse.

2.—Whether it is rational to suppose that creatures so formidable, and apparently so capable of self-protection, should disappear entirely, while much more defenceless species continue to survive them.

3.—The myths, traditions, and historical allusions from which their reality may be inferred require to be classified and annotated, and full weight given to the evidence which has accumulated of the presence of man upon the earth during ages long prior to the historic period, and which may have been ages of slowly progressive civilization, or perhaps cycles of alternate light and darkness, of knowledge and barbarism.

4.—Lastly, some inquiry may be made into the geographical conditions obtaining at the time of their possible existence.

[Pg 32]It is immaterial which of these investigations is first entered upon, and it will, in fact, be more convenient to defer a portion of them until we arrive at the sections of this volume treating specifically of the different objects to which it is devoted, and to confine our attention for the present to those subjects which, from their nature, are common and in a sense prefatory to the whole subject.

I shall therefore commence with a short examination of some of the most remarkable reptilian forms which are known to have existed, and for that purpose, and to show their general relations, annex the accompanying tables, compiled from the anatomy of vertebrated animals by Professor Huxley:—

REPTILES CLASSIFIED BY HUXLEY.

The most bird-like of reptiles, the Pterosauria, appear to have possessed true powers of flight; they were provided with wings formed by an expansion of the integument, and supported by an enormous elongation of the ulnar finger of the[Pg 34] anterior limb. The generic differences are based upon the comparative lengths of the tail, and upon the dentition. In Pterodactylus (see Fig. 2, p. 18), the tail is very short, and the jaws strong, pointed, and toothed to their anterior extremities. In Rhamphorynchus (see Fig. 8, p. 18), the tail is very long and the teeth are not continuous to the extremities of the jaws, which are produced into toothless beaks. The majority of the species are small, and they are generally considered to have been inoffensive creatures, having much the habits and insectivorous mode of living of bats. One British species, however, from the white chalk of Maidstone, measures more than sixteen feet across the outstretched wings; and other forms recently discovered by Professor Marsh in the Upper Cretaceous deposits of Kansas, attain the gigantic proportions of nearly twenty-five feet for the same measurements; and although these were devoid of teeth (thus approaching the class Aves still more closely), they could hardly fail, from their magnitude and powers of flight, to have been formidable, and must, with their weird aspects, and long outstretched necks and pointed heads, have been at least sufficiently alarming.

We need go no farther than these in search of creatures which would realise the popular notion of the winged dragon.

The harmless little flying lizards, belonging to the genus Draco, abounding in the East Indian archipelago, which have many of their posterior ribs prolonged into an expansion of the integument, unconnected with the limbs, and have a limited and parachute-like flight, need only the element of size, to render them also sufficiently to be dreaded, and capable of rivalling the Pterodactyls in suggesting the general idea of the same monster.

It is, however, when we pass to some of the other groups, that we find ourselves in the presence of forms so vast and terrible, as to more than realise the most exaggerated [Pg 35]impression of reptilian power and ferocity which the florid imagination of man can conceive.

We have long been acquainted with numerous gigantic terrestrial Saurians, ranging throughout the whole of the Mesozoic formations, such as Iguanodon (characteristic of the Wealden), Megalosaurus (Great Saurian), and Hylæosaurus (Forest Saurian), huge bulky creatures, the last of which, at least, was protected by dermal armour partially produced into prodigious spines; as well as with remarkable forms essentially marine, such as Icthyosaurus (Fish-like Saurian), Plesiosaurus, &c., adapted to an oceanic existence and propelling themselves by means of paddles. The latter, it may be remarked, was furnished with a long slender swan-like neck, which, carried above the surface of the water, would present the appearance of the anterior portion of a serpent.

To the related land forms the collective term Dinosauria (from δεινός “terrible”) has been applied, in signification of the power which their structure and magnitude imply that they possessed; and to the others that of Enaliosauria, as expressive of their adaptation to a maritime existence. Yet, wonderful to relate, those creatures which have for so many years commanded our admiration fade into insignificance in comparison with others which are proved, by the discoveries of the last few years, to have existed abundantly upon, or near to, the American continent during the Cretaceous and Jurassic periods, by which they are surpassed, in point of magnitude, as much as they themselves exceed the mass of the larger Vertebrata.

Take, for example, those referred to by Professor Marsh in the course of an address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1877, in the following terms:—“The reptiles most characteristic of our American cretaceous strata are the Mososauria, a group with very few representatives in other parts of the world. In our cretaceous seas[Pg 36] they rule supreme, as their numbers, size, and carnivorous habits enabled them to easily vanquish all rivals. Some were at least sixty feet in length, and the smallest ten or twelve. In the inland cretaceous sea from which the Rocky Mountains were beginning to emerge, these ancient ‘sea-serpents’ abounded, and many were entombed in its muddy bottom; on one occasion, as I rode through a valley washed out of this old ocean-bed, I saw no less than seven different skeletons of these monsters in sight at once. The Mososauria were essentially swimming lizards with four well-developed paddles, and they had little affinity with modern serpents, to which they have been compared.”

Or, again, notice the specimens of the genus Cidastes, which are also described as veritable sea-serpents of those ancient seas, whose huge bones and almost incredible number of vertebræ show them to have attained a length of nearly two hundred feet. The remains of no less than ten of these monsters were seen by Professor Mudge, while riding through the Mauvaise Terres of Colorado, strewn upon the plains, their whitened bones bleached in the suns of centuries, and their gaping jaws armed with ferocious teeth, telling a wonderful tale of their power when alive.

The same deposits have been equally fertile in the remains of terrestrial animals of gigantic size. The Titanosaurus montanus, believed to have been herbivorous, is estimated to have reached fifty or sixty feet in length; while other Dinosaurians of still more gigantic proportions, from the Jurassic beds of the Rocky Mountains, have been described by Professor Marsh. Among the discovered remains of Atlantosaurus immanis is a femur over six feet in length, and it is estimated from a comparison of this specimen with the same bone in living reptiles that this species, if similar in proportions to the crocodile, would have been over one hundred feet in length.

But even yet the limit has not been reached, and we hear[Pg 37] of the discovery of the remains of another form, of such Titanic proportions as to possess a thigh-bone over twelve feet in length.

Fig. 5.—Monster bones of extinct gigantic Saurians
from Colorado, showing relative proportions
to corresponding bone in the Crocodile (A).
(From the “Scientific American.”)

[Pg 38]From these considerations it is evident that, on account of the dimensions usually assigned to them, no discredit can be attached to the existence of the fabulous monsters of which we shall speak hereafter; for these, in the various myths, rarely or never equal in size creatures which science shows to have existed in a comparatively recent geological age, while the quaintest conception could hardly equal the reality of yet another of the American Dinosaurs, Stegosaurus, which appears to have been herbivorous, and more or less aquatic in habit, adapted for sitting upon its hinder extremities, and protected by bony plate and numerous spines. It reached thirty feet in length. Professor Marsh considers that this, when alive, must have presented the strangest appearance of all the Dinosaurs yet discovered.

The affinities of birds and reptiles have been so clearly demonstrated of late years, as to cause Professor Huxley and many other comparative anatomists to bridge over the wide gap which was formerly considered to divide the two classes, and to bracket them together in one class, to which the name Sauropsidæ has been given.[35]

There are, indeed, not a few remarkable forms, as to the class position of which, whether they should be assigned to[Pg 39] birds or reptiles, opinion was for a long time, and is in a few instances still, divided. It is, for example, only of late years that the fossil form Archæopteryx[36] (Fig. 4, p. 19) from the Solenhofen slates, has been definitely relegated to the former, but arguments against this disposal of it have been based upon the beak or jaws being furnished with true teeth, and the feather of the tail attached to a series of vertebræ, instead of a single flattened one as in birds. It appears to have been entirely plumed, and to have had a moderate power of flight.

Fig. 6.—Sivatherium (restored), from the Upper Miocene
deposits of the Siwalik Hills. (After Figuier.)

On the other hand, the Ornithopterus is only provisionally[Pg 40] classed with reptiles, while the connection between the two classes is drawn still closer by the copious discovery of the birds from the Cretaceous formations of America, for which we are indebted to Professor Marsh.

The Lepidosiren, also, is placed mid-way between reptiles and fishes. Professor Owen and other eminent physiologists consider it a fish; Professor Bischoff and others, an amphibian reptile. It has a two-fold apparatus for respiration, partly aquatic, consisting of gills, and partly aerial, of true lungs.

So far, then, as abnormality of type is concerned, we have here instances quite as remarkable as those presented by most of the strange monsters with the creation of which mythological fancy has been credited.

Fig. 7.—Skeleton of Megatherium. (After Figuier.)

Among mammals I shall only refer to the Megatherium, which appears to have been created to burrow in the earth and to feed upon the roots of trees and shrubs, for which purpose every organ of its heavy frame was adapted. This[Pg 41] Hercules among animals was as large as an elephant or rhinoceros of the largest species, and might well, as it has existed until a late date, have originated the myths, current among the Indians of South America, of a gigantic tunnelling or burrowing creature, incapable of supporting the light of day.[37]

[Pg 42]

EXTINCTION OF SPECIES.

In reviewing the past succession of different forms of ancient life upon the globe, we are reminded of a series of dissolving views, in which each species evolves itself by an imperceptible gradation from some pre-existing one, arrives at its maximum of individuality, and then slowly fades away, while another type, either higher or lower, evolved in turn from it, emerges from obscurity, and succeeds it on the field of view.

Specific individuality has in all cases a natural term, dependent on physical causes, but that term is in many cases abruptly anticipated by a combination of unfavourable conditions.

Alteration of climate, isolation by geological changes, such as the submergence of continents and islands, and the competition of other species, are among the causes which have at all times operated towards its destruction; while, since the evolution of man, his agency, so far as we can judge by what we know of his later history, has been especially active in the same direction.

The limited distribution of many species, even when not enforced by insular conditions, is remarkable, and, of course, highly favourable to their destruction. A multiplicity of examples are familiar to naturalists, and possibly not a few may have attracted the attention of the ordinary observer.

[Pg 43]For instance, it is probably generally known, that in our own island, the red grouse (which, by the way, is a species peculiar to Great Britain) is confined to certain moorlands, the ruffs and reeves to fen districts, and the nightingale,[38] chough, and other species to a few counties; while Ireland is devoid of almost all the species of reptiles common to Great Britain. In the former cases, the need of or predilection for certain foods probably determines the favourite locality, and there are few countries which would not furnish similar examples. In the latter, the explanation depends on biological conditions dating prior to the separation of Ireland from the main continent. Among birds, it might fairly be presumed that the power of flight would produce unlimited territorial expansion, but in many instances the reverse is found to be the case: a remarkable example being afforded by the island of Tasmania, a portion of which is called the unsettled waste lands, or Western Country. This district, which comprises about one-third of the island upon the western side, and is mainly composed of mountain chains of granites, quartzite, and mica schists, is entirely devoid of the numerous species of garrulous and gay-plumaged birds, such as the Mynah mocking-bird, white cockatoo, wattle bird, and Rosella parrot, though these abundantly enliven the eastern districts, which are fertilized by rich soils due to the presence of ranges of basalt, greenstone, and other trappean rocks.

Another equally striking instance is given by my late father, Mr. J. Gould, in his work on the humming-birds. Of two species, inhabiting respectively the adjacent [Pg 44]mountains of Pichincha and Chimborazo at certain elevations, each is strictly confined to its own mountain; and, if my memory serves me correctly, he mentions similar instances of species peculiar to different peaks of the Andes.

Limitation by insular isolation is intelligible, especially in the case of mammals and reptiles, and of birds possessing but small power of flight; and we are, therefore, not surprised to find Mr. Gosse indicating, among other examples, that even the smallest of the Antilles has each a fauna of its own, while the humming-birds, some of the parrots, cuckoos, and pigeons, and many of the smaller birds are peculiar to Jamaica. He states still further, that in the latter instance many of the animals are not distributed over the whole island, but confined to a single small district.

Continental limitation is effected by mountain barriers. Thus, according to Mr. Wallace, almost all the mammalia, birds, and insects on one side of the Andes and Rocky Mountains are distinct in species from those on the other; while a similar difference, but smaller in degree, exists with reference to regions adjacent to the Alps and Pyrenees.

Climate, broad rivers, seas, oceans, forests, and even large desert wastes, like the Sahara or the great desert of Gobi, also act more or less effectively as girdles which confine species within certain limits.

Dependence on each other or on supplies of appropriate food also form minor yet practical factors in the sum of limitation; and a curious example of the first is given by Dr. Van Lennep with reference to the small migratory birds that are unable to perform the flight of three hundred and fifty miles across the Mediterranean. He states that these are carried across on the backs of cranes.[39]

The question of food-supply is involved in the more extended subject of geological structure, as controlling the flora and the insect life dependent on it. As an example we may cite the disappearance of the capercailzie from Denmark with the decay of the pine forests abundant during late Tertiary periods.

Collision, direct or indirect, with inimical species often has a fatal ending. Thus the dodo was exterminated by the swine which the early visitors introduced to the Mauritius and permitted to run wild there; while the indigenous insects, mollusca, and perhaps some of the birds of St. Helena, disappeared as soon as the introduction of goats caused the destruction of the whole flora of forest trees.

The Tsetse fly extirpates all horses, dogs, and cattle, from certain districts of South Africa, and a representative species in Paraguay is equally fatal to new-born cattle and horses.

Mr. Darwin[40] shows that the struggle is more severe between species of the same genus, when they come into competition with each other, than between species of distinct genera. Thus one species of swallow has recently expelled another from part of the United States; and the missel-thrush has driven the song-thrush from part of Scotland. In Australia the imported hive-bee is rapidly exterminating the small stingless native bee, and similar cases might be found in any number.

Mr. Wallace, in quoting Mr. Darwin as to these facts, points the conclusion that “any slight change, therefore,[Pg 46] of physical geography or of climate, which allows allied species hitherto inhabiting distinct areas to come into contact, will often lead to the extermination of one of them.”

It is the province of the palæontologist to enumerate the many remarkable forms which have passed away since man’s first appearance upon the globe, and to trace their fluctuations over both hemispheres as determined by the advance and retreat of glacial conditions, and by the protean forms assumed by past and existing continents under oscillations of elevation and depression. Many interesting points, such as the dates of the successive separation of Ireland and Great Britain from the main continent, can be determined with accuracy from the record furnished by the fossil remains of animals of those times; and many interesting associations of animals with man at various dates, in our present island home and in other countries, have been traced by the discovery of their remains in connection with his, in bone deposits in caverns and elsewhere.

Conversely, most valuable deductions are drawn by the zoologist from the review which he is enabled to take, through the connected labours of his colleagues in all departments, of the distinct life regions now mapped out upon the face of the globe. These, after the application of the necessary corrections for various disturbing or controlling influences referred to above, afford proof reaching far back into past periods, of successive alterations in the disposition of continents and oceans, and of connections long since obliterated between distant lands.

The palæontologist reasons from the past to the present, the zoologist from the present to the past; and their mutual labours explain the evolution of existing forms, and the causes of the disparity or connection between those at present characterizing the different portions of the surface of the globe.

The palæontologist, for example, traces the descent of the[Pg 47] horse, which, until its reintroduction by the Spaniards was unknown in the New World, through a variety of intermediate forms, to the genus Orohippus occurring in Eocene deposits in Utah and Wyoming. This animal was no larger than a fox, and possessed four separated toes in front, and three behind. Domestic cattle he refers to the Bos primigenius, and many existing Carnivora to Tertiary forms such as the cave-bear, cave-lion, sabre-tiger, and the like.

The zoologist groups the existing fauna into distinct provinces, and demands, in explanation of the anomalies which these exhibit, the reconstruction of large areas, of which only small outlying districts remain at the present date, in many instances widely separated by oceans, though once forming parts of the same continent; and so, for the simile readily suggests itself, the workers in another branch of science, Philology, argue from words and roots scattered like fossils through the various dialects of very distant countries, a mutual descent from a common Aryan language: the language of a race of which no historical record exists, though in regard to its habits, customs, and distribution much may be affirmed from the large collection of word specimens stored in philological museums.

Thus Mr. Sclater, on zoological grounds, claims the late existence of a continent which he calls Lemuria, extending from Madagascar to Ceylon and Sumatra; and for similar reasons Mr. Wallace extends the Australia of Tertiary periods to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and perhaps to Fiji, and from its marsupial types infers a connection with the northern continent during the Secondary period.

Again, the connection of Europe with North Africa during a late geological period is inferred by many zoologists from the number of identical species of mammalia inhabiting the opposite sides of the Mediterranean, and palæontologists confirm this by the discovery of the remains of elephants in cave-deposits in Malta, and of hippopotami in[Pg 48] Gibraltar; while hydrographers furnish the supplemental suggestive evidence that an elevation of only fifteen hundred feet would be sufficient to establish two broad connections between the two continents—so as to unite Italy with Tripoli and Spain with Morocco, and to convert the Mediterranean Sea into two great lakes, which appears, in fact, to have been its condition during the Pliocene and Post Pliocene periods.

It was by means of these causeways that the large pachyderms entered Britain, then united to the continent; and it was over them they retreated when driven back by glacial conditions, their migration northward being effectually prevented by the destruction of the connecting arms of land.

Some difference of opinion exists among naturalists as to the extent to which zoological regions should be subdivided, and as to their respective limitations.

But Mr. A. R. Wallace, who has most recently written on the subject, is of opinion that the original division proposed by Mr. Sclater in 1857 is the most tenable, and he therefore adopts it in the very exhaustive work upon the geographical distribution of animals which he has recently issued. Mr. Sclater’s Six Regions are as follows:—

[Pg 49]This arrangement is based upon a detailed examination of the chief genera and families of birds, and also very nearly represents the distribution of mammals and of reptiles. Its regions are not, as in other subsequently proposed and more artificial systems, controlled by climate; for they range, in some instances, from the pole to the tropics. It probably approaches more nearly than any other yet proposed to that desideratum, a division of the earth into regions, founded on a collation of the groups of forms indigenous to or typical of them, and upon a selection of those peculiar to them; with a disregard of, or only admitting with caution, any which, though common to and apparently establishing connection between two or more regions, may have in fact but little value for the purpose of such comparison; from the fact of its being possible to account for their extended range by their capability of easy transport from one region to another by common natural agencies.[41]

Such an arrangement should be consistent with the retrospective information afforded by palæontology; and, taking an extended view of the subject, be not merely a catalogue[Pg 50] of the present, but also an index of the past. It should afford an illustration of an existing phase of the distribution of animal life, considered as the last of a long series of similar phases which have successively resulted from changes in the disposition of land and water, and from other controlling agencies, throughout all time. A reconstruction of the areas respectively occupied by the sea and the land at different geological periods will be possible, or at least greatly facilitated, when a complete system of similar groupings, illustrative of each successive period, has been compiled.

It is obvious that any great cosmical change, affecting to a wide extent any of the regions, might determine a destruction of specific existence; and this on a large scale, in comparison with the change which is always progressing in a smaller degree in the different and isolated divisions.

The brief remarks which I have made on this subject are intended to suggest, rather than to demonstrate—which could only be done by a lengthy series of examples—the causes influencing specific existence and its in many cases extreme frailty of tenure. And I shall now conclude by citing from the works of Lyell and Wallace a short list of notable species, now extinct, whose remains have been collected from late Tertiary, and Post Tertiary deposits—that is to say, at a time subsequent to the appearance of man. From other authors I have extracted an enumeration of species which have become locally or entirely extinct within the historic period.

These instances will, I think, be sufficient to show that, as similar destructive causes must have been in action during pre-historic times, it is probable that, besides those remarkable animals of which remains have been discovered, many others which then existed may have perished without leaving any trace of their existence. There is, consequently, a possibility that some at least of the so-called myths respecting extraordinary creatures, hitherto considered fabulous,[Pg 51] may merely be distorted accounts—traditions—of species as yet unrecognised by Science, which have actually existed, and that not remotely, as man’s congener.

Extinct Post Tertiary Mammalia.

The Mammoth.—Among other remarkable forms whose remains have been discovered in those later deposits, in which geologists are generally agreed that remains of man or traces of his handicraft have also been recognised, there is one which stands out prominently both for its magnitude and extensive range in time and space. Although the animal itself is now entirely extinct, delineations by the hand of Palæolithic man have been preserved, and even frozen carcases, with the flesh uncorrupted and fit for food, have been occasionally discovered.

Fig. 9.—The Mammoth. (After Jukes.)

This is the mammoth, the Elephas primigenius of Blumenbach, a gigantic elephant nearly a third taller than the largest modern species, and twice its weight. Its body was[Pg 52] protected from the severity of the semi-arctic conditions under which it flourished by a dense covering of reddish wool, and long black hair, and its head was armed or ornamented with tusks exceeding twelve feet in length, and curiously curved into three parts of a circle. Its ivory has long been, and still is, a valuable article of commerce, more especially in North-eastern Asia, and in Eschscholtz Bay in North America, near Behring’s straits, where entire skeletons are occasionally discovered, and where even the nature of its food has been ascertained from the undigested contents of its stomach.

There is a well-known case recorded of a specimen found (1799), frozen and encased in ice, at the mouth of the Lena. It was sixteen feet long, and the flesh was so well preserved that the Yakuts used it as food for their dogs. But similar instances occurred previously, for we find the illustrious savant and Emperor Kang Hi [A.D. 1662 to 1723] penning the following note[42] upon what could only have been this species:—

“The cold is extreme, and nearly continuous on the coasts of the northern sea beyond Tai-Tong-Kiang. It is on this coast that the animal called Fen Chou is found, the form of which resembles that of a rat, but which equals an elephant in size. It lives in obscure caverns, and flies from the light. There is obtained from it an ivory as white as that of the elephant, but easier to work, and which will not split. Its flesh is very cold and excellent for refreshing the blood. The ancient work Chin-y-king speaks of this animal in these terms: ‘There is in the depths of the north a rat which weighs as much as a thousand pounds; its flesh is very good for those who are heated.’ The Tsée-Chou calls it Tai-Chou and speaks of another species which is not so large. It[Pg 53] says that this is as big as a buffalo, buries itself like a mole, flies the light, and remains nearly always under ground; it is said that it would die if it saw the light of the sun or even that of the moon.”

Fig. 10.—Tooth of the Mammoth. (After Figuier.)

It seems probable that discoveries of mammoth tusks formed in part the basis for the story which Pliny tells in reference to fossil ivory. He says[43]:—“These animals [elephants] are well aware that the only spoil that we are anxious to procure of them is the part which forms their weapon of defence, by Juba called their horns, but by Herodotus, a much older writer, as well as by general usage, and more appropriately, their teeth. Hence it is that, when these tusks have fallen off, either from accident or old age, they bury them in the earth.”

Nordenskjöld[44] states that the savages with whom he came in contact frequently offered to him very fine mammoth tusks, and tools made of mammoth ivory. He computes that since the conquest of Siberia, useful tusks from more than twenty thousand animals have been collected.

Mr. Boyd Dawkins,[45] in a very exhaustive memoir on this animal, quotes an interesting notice of its fossil ivory having[Pg 54] been brought for sale to Khiva. He derives[46] this account from an Arabian traveller, Abou-el-Cassim, who lived in the middle of the tenth century.

Figuier[47] says: “New Siberia and the Isle of Lachon are for the most part only an agglomeration of sand, of ice, and of elephants’ teeth. At every tempest the sea casts ashore new quantities of mammoth’s tusks, and the inhabitants of New Siberia carry on a profitable commerce in this fossil ivory. Every year during the summer innumerable fishermen’s barks direct their course to this isle of bones, and during winter immense caravans take the same route, all the convoys drawn by dogs, returning charged with the tusks of the mammoth, weighing each from one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds. The fossil ivory thus withdrawn from the frozen north is imported into China and Europe.”

In addition to its elimination by the thawing of the frozen grounds of the north, remains of the mammoth are procured from bogs, alluvial deposits, and from the destruction of submarine beds.[48] They are also found in cave deposits, associated with the remains of other mammals, and with[Pg 55] flint implements. This creature appears to have been an object of the chase with Palæolithic man.

Mr. Dawkins, reviewing all the discoveries, considers that its range, at various periods, extended over the whole of Northern Europe, and as far south as Spain; over Northern Asia, and North America down to the Isthmus of Darien. Dr. Falconer believes it to have had an elastic constitution, which enabled it to adapt itself to great change of climate.

Murchison, De Verneuil, and Keyserling believed that this species, as well as the woolly rhinoceros, belonged to the Tertiary fauna of Northern Asia, though not appearing until the Quaternary period in Europe.

Mr. Dawkins shows it to have been pre-glacial, glacial, and post-glacial in Britain and in Europe, and, from its relation to the intermediate species Elephas armeniacus, accepts it as the ancestor of the existing Indian elephant. Its disappearance was rapid, but not in the opinion of most geologists cataclysmic, as suggested by Mr. Howorth.

Another widely distributed species was the Rhinoceros tichorhinus—the smooth-skinned rhinoceros—also called the woolly rhinoceros and the Siberian rhinoceros, which had two horns, and, like the mammoth, was covered with woolly hair. It attained a great size; a specimen, the carcase of which was found by Pallas imbedded in frozen soil near Wilui, in Siberia (1772), was eleven and a half feet in length. Its horns are considered by some of the native tribes of northern Asia to have been the talons of gigantic birds; and Ermann and Middendorf suppose that their discovery may have originated the accounts by Herodotus of the gold-bearing griffons and the arimaspi.

Its food, ascertained by Von Brandt, and others, from portions remaining in the hollows of its teeth, consisted of leaves and needles of trees still existing in Siberia. The range of this species northwards was as extensive as that of[Pg 56] the mammoth, but its remains have not yet been discovered south of the Alps and Pyrenees.

The investigation,[49] made by M. E. Lartet in 1860, of the contents of the Grotto of Aurignac, in the department of the Haute Garonne, from which numerous human skeletons had been previously removed in 1852, shows that this animal was included among the species used as ordinary articles of food, or as exceptional items at the funeral feasts of the Palæolithic troglodytes. In the layers of charcoal and ashes immediately outside the entrance to the grotto, and surrounding what is supposed to have been the hearth, the bones of a young Rhinoceros tichorhinus were found, which had been split open for the extraction of the marrow. Numerous other species had been dealt with in the same manner; and all these having received this treatment, and showing marks of the action of fire, had evidently been carried to the cave for banqueting purposes. The remains of Herbivora associated with those of this rhinoceros, consisted of bones of the mammoth, the horse (Equus caballus), stag (Cervus elaphus), elk (Megaceros hibernicus), roebuck (C. capreolus), reindeer (C. tarandus), auroch (Bison europæus). Among carnivora were found remains of Ursus spelæus (cave-bear), Ursus arctos? (brown bear), Meles taxus (badger), Putorius vulgaris (polecat), Hyæna spelæa (cave-hyæna), Felis spelæa (cave-lion), Felis catus ferus (wild cat), Canis lupus (wolf), Canis vulpis (fox). Within the grotto were also found remains of Felis spelæa (cave-lion) and Sus scrofa (pig). The cave-bear, the fox, and indeed most of these, probably also formed articles of diet, but the hyæna seems to have been a post attendant at the feast, and to have rooted out and gnawed off the spongy parts of the thrown-away bones after the departure of the company.

In the Pleistocene deposits at Würzburg, in Franconia,[Pg 57] a human finger-bone occurs with bones of this species, and also of other large mammalia, such as the mammoth, cave-bear, and the like.

And flint implements, and pointed javelin-heads made of reindeer horn, are found associated with it in the vicinity of the old hearths established by Palæolithic man in the cave called the Trou du Sureau, on the river Malignée in Belgium.

In the cavern of Goyet, also in Belgium, there are five bone layers, alternating with six beds of alluvial deposits, showing that the cave had been inhabited by different species at various periods. The lion was succeeded by the cave-bear, and this by hyænas; then Palæolithic man became a tenant and has left his bones there, together with flint implements and remains of numerous species, including those already enumerated as his contemporaries.

The Sabre-toothed Tiger or Lion.—This species, Machairodus[50] latifrons of Owen, was remarkable for having long sabre-shaped canines. It belongs to an extinct genus, of which four other species are known, characterised by the possession of serrated teeth. The genus is known to be represented in the Auvergne beds between the Eocene and Miocene, in the Miocene of Greece and India, in the Pliocene of South America and Europe, and in the Pleistocene. Mr. Dawkins believes that this species survived to post-glacial times. It is one of the numerous animals whose remains have been found with traces of man and flint implements in cave deposits at Kent’s Hole, near Torquay, and elsewhere.

The Cave-Bear, Ursus spelæus, of Rosenmüller.—The appearance of this species has been preserved to us in the drawing by Palæolithic man found in the cave of Massat (Arieze).

[Pg 58]It occurs in the Cromer Forest Bed, a deposit referred by Mr. Boyd Dawkins to the early part of the Glacial period, and generally regarded as transitional between the Pliocene and Quaternary. It is also found in the caves of Perigaud, which are considered to belong to the reindeer era of M. Lartet or the opening part of the Recent period, and numerous discoveries of its remains at dates intermediate to these have been made in Britain and in Europe. Carl Vogt, indeed, is of opinion that this species is the progenitor of our living brown bear, Ursus arctos, and Mr. Boyd Dawkins also says that those “who have compared the French, German, and British specimens, gradually realize the fact that the fossil remains of the bears form a graduated series, in which all the variations that at first sight appear specific vanish away.”

It has been identified by Mr. Busk among the associated mammalian bones of the Brixham cave. Its remains are very abundant in the bone deposit of the Trou de Sureau in Belgium, and in the cavern of Goyet, which it tenanted alternately with the lion and hyæna, and, like them, appears to have preyed on man and the larger mammalia.

Mr. Prestwich has obtained it in low-level deposits of river gravels in the valleys of the north of France and south of England, and it has been obtained from the Löss, a loamy, usually unstratified deposit, which is extensively distributed over central Europe, in the valleys of the Rhine, Rhone, Danube, and other great rivers. This deposit is considered by Mr. Prestwich to be equivalent to other high-level gravels of the Pleistocene period.

The Mastodon.—The generic title Mastodon has been applied to a number of species allied to the elephants, but distinguished from them by a peculiar structure of the molar teeth; these are rectangular, and in their upper surfaces exhibit a number of great conical tuberosities with rounded points disposed in pairs, to the number of four or five,[Pg 59] according to the species; whereas in the elephants they are broad and uniform, and regularly marked with furrows of large curvature. The mastodons, in addition to large tusks in the premaxillæ, like those of the elephant, had also in most instances, a pair of shorter ones in the mandible.

Fig. 11.—Mastodon’s Tooth (worn). (After Figuier.)

Cuvier established the name Mastodon,[51] or teat-like toothed animals, for the gigantic species from America which Buffon had already described under the name of the animal or elephant of the Ohio.

Fig. 12.—Mastodon’s Tooth. (After Figuier.)

The form first appears in the Upper Miocene of Europe, five species being known, two of them from Pikermi, near Athens, and one, M. angustidens, from the Miocene beds of[Pg 60] Malta. Mastodon remains have also been found in the beds of the Sivalik hills, and four species of mastodon in all are known to have ranged over India during those periods.

In Pliocene deposits we have abundant remains of M. arvernensis, and M. longirostris from the Val d’Arno in Italy, and the M. Borsoni from central France.

The M. arvernensis may be considered as a characteristic Pliocene species in Italy, France, and Europe generally. In Britain it occurs in the Norwich Crag and the Red Crag of Suffolk.

Species of mastodon occur in the Pliocene of La Plata, and of the temperate regions of South America; on the Pampas, and in the Andes of Chili.

The Mastodon mirificus of Leidy is the earliest known species in America; this occurs in Pliocene deposits on the Niobrara and the Loup fork, west of the Mississippi.

The remains of the Mastodon americanus of Cuvier occur abundantly in the Post Pliocene deposits throughout the United States, but more especially in the northern half; they are also found in Canada and Nova Scotia.

Fig. 13.—The Mastodon.

Perfect skeletons are occasionally procured from marshes, where the animals had become mired. In life this species appears to have measured from twelve to thirteen feet in[Pg 61] height and twenty-four to twenty-five feet in length, including seven feet for the tusks. Undigested food found with its remains show that it lived partly on spruce and fir-trees. A distinct species characterised the Quaternary deposits of South America.

The Irish Elk.—The species (Megaceros hibernicus), commonly but erroneously called the Irish Elk, was, as professor Owen[52] has pointed out, a true deer, whose place is between the fallow and reindeer.

Though now extinct, it survived the Palæolithic period, and may possibly have existed down to historic times. Mr. Gosse adduces some very strong testimony on this point, and is of opinion that its extinction cannot have taken place more than a thousand years ago.

It had a flattened and expanded form of antler, with peculiarities unknown among existing deer, and was, in comparison with these, of gigantic size; the height to the summit of the antlers being from ten to eleven feet in the largest individuals, and the span of the antlers, in one case, over twelve feet.

Although its remains have been found most abundantly in Ireland, it was widely distributed over Britain and middle Europe. It has been found in peat swamps, lacustrine marls, bone caverns, fen deposits, and the Cornish gravels. It has been obtained from the cavern of Goyet in Belgium, and from the burial-place at Aurignac, in the department of the Haute Garonne. Its known range in time is from the early part of the Glacial period down to, possibly, historic periods.

The Cave-Hyæna.—Hyæna spelæa of Goldfuss—is, like the cave-bear, characteristic of Europe during the Palæolithic age. It has been found in numerous caves in Britain, such as Kent’s Hole, the Brixham cave, and one near Wells in[Pg 62] Somersetshire, explored by Dawkins in 1859; in all of these the remains are associated with those of man, or with his implements. This species is closely related to the H. crocuta of Zimm, at present existing in South Africa, and is by some geologists considered identical with it. It is, however, larger.

It appears to have to some extent replaced the cave-bear in Britain; we are also, doubtless, greatly indebted to it for some of the extensive collections of bones in caverns, resulting from the carcases which it had dragged thither, and imperfectly destroyed.

In a cave at Kirkdale, in the vale of Pickering, the bones of about three hundred individuals—hyænas—were found mingled with the remains of the mammoth, bear, rhinoceros, deer, cave-lion, brown bear, horse, hare, and other species. Mr. Dawkins,[53] in describing it, says: “The pack of hyænas fell upon reindeer in the winter, and at other times on horses and bisons, and were able to master the hippopotamus, the lion, the slender-nosed rhinoceros, or the straight-tusked elephant, and to carry their bones to their den, where they were found by Dr. Buckland. The hyænas also inhabiting the ‘Dukeries,’ dragged back to their dens fragments of lion.”

Notable Quaternary forms (now extinct) on the American continent are the gigantic sloth-like animals Megatherium, which reached eighteen feet in length, and Mylodon, one species of which (M. robustus) was eleven feet in length; Armadillos, such as Glyptodon, with a total length of nine feet; Chlamydotherium, as big as a rhinoceros; and Pachytherium, equalling an ox.

In Australia we find marsupial forms as at the present day; but they were gigantic in comparison with the latter. As for example, the Diprotodon, which equalled in size a hippopotamus, and the Nototherium, as large as a bullock.

[Pg 63]I may mention a few other species, the remains of which are associated with some of those commented on in the last few pages; but which, as they have undoubtedly continued in existence down to the present period, are external to the present portion of my argument, and are either treated of elsewhere, or need only to be referred to in a few words.

Fig. 14.—Mylodon robustus. (After Figuier.)

It must also be borne in mind that the linking together of species by the discovery of intermediate graduated forms, is daily proceeding; so that some even of those spoken of in greater detail may shortly be generally recognised, as at present they are held by a few, to be identical with existing forms.

The Hippopotamus.—The Hippopotamus major, now considered identical with the larger of the two African species—H. amphibia, has been found associated with E. antiquus and R. hemitæchus of Falc in Durdham Down and Kirkdale caves,[Pg 64] and in those at Kent’s Hole and Ravenscliff. It has also been found in river gravels at Grays, Ilford, and elsewhere, in the lower part of the river-border deposits of Amiens with flint implements, and in Quaternary deposits on the continent of Europe.

The Cave-Lion—Felis spelæa—is now considered to be merely a variety of the African lion (Felis leo), although of larger size; it had a very wide range over Britain and Europe during the Post Pliocene period, as also did the leopard (F. pardus) and probably the lynx (Lyncus).

The Reindeer or Cariboo—Cervus tarandus—which still exists, both domesticated and wild, in northern Europe and America, is adapted for northern latitudes. It formerly extended over Europe, and in the British Isles probably survived in the north of Scotland until the twelfth century.

Its remains have been found in Pleistocene deposits in numerous localities, but most abundantly in those which M. Lartet has assigned to the period which he calls the Reindeer age.

Other Pleistocene mammals still existing, but whose range is much restricted, are the musk ox (Ovibos moschatus), familiar to us, from the accounts of arctic expeditions, as occurring in the circumpolar regions of North America; the glutton (Gulo luscus), the auroch (Bison europæus), the wild horse (E. fossilis), the arctic fox (Canis lagopus), the bison (Bison priscus), the elk or moose (Alces malchis), found in Norway and North America, the lemming, the lagomys or tail-less hare, &c.

As examples of total extinction in late years, we may mention the dodo, the solitaire, and species allied to them, in the islands of Mauritius, Bourbon, and Reunion; the moa in New Zealand; the Æpiornis in Madagascar; the great auk, Alca impennis, in northern seas, and the Rhytina Stelleri, common once in the latitude of Behring’s Straits, and described by Steller in 1742.

 [Pg 65]

Fig. 15.—Skeleton of Rhytina Stelleri. (From “The Voyage of the ‘Vega.’”)

The Dodo, a native of the island of Mauritius, was about 50 lbs. in weight, and covered with loose downy plumage, it[Pg 66] was unable to rise from the ground in consequence of the imperfect development of its wings; it was minutely described by Sir Thomas Herbert in 1634, and specimens of the living bird and of its skin were brought to Europe. Its unwieldiness led to its speedy destruction by the early voyagers.

Fig. 16.—Rhytina Stelleri. (From “The Voyage of the ‘Vega.’”)

The Solitaire was confined to the island of Mascaregue or Bourbon. It is fully described by Francis Leguat, who, having fled from France into Holland in 1689, to escape religious persecution consequent on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, engaged under the Marquis de Quesne in an expedition for the purpose of settlement on that island. This bird also speedily became extinct.

The Moa (Dinornis giganteus, Owen) reached from twelve to fourteen feet in height, and survived for a long period after the migration of the Maories to New Zealand. Bones of it have been found along with charred wood, showing that it had been killed and eaten by the natives; and its memory is preserved in many of their traditions, which also record the existence of a much larger bird, a species of eagle or hawk, which used to prey upon it.[54]

[Pg 67]Rapidly approaching total extinction are the several species of Apteryx in the same country—remarkable birds with merely rudimentary wings: as also the Notornis, a large Rail—at first, and for a long time, only known in the fossil state, but of which a living specimen was secured by Mr. Walter Mantell in 1849: and the Kapapo (Strigops habroptilus) of G. R. Gray—a strange owl-faced nocturnal ground-parrot.

The Æpyornis maximus was almost as large as the Moa; of this numerous fossil bones and a few eggs have been discovered, but there are not, I believe, any traditions extant among the natives of Madagascar of its having survived to a late period.

The Great Auk (Alca impennis) is now believed to be extinct. It formerly occurred in the British Isles, but more abundantly in high latitudes; and its remains occur in great numbers on the shores of Iceland, Greenland, and Denmark, as also of Labrador and Newfoundland.

Fig. 17.—Rhytina Stelleri. (After J. Fr. Brandt.)

Steller’s Sea-cow (Rhytina Stelleri of Cuvier) was a mammal allied to the Manatees and Dugongs; it was discovered by Behring in 1768 on a small island lying off the Kamtchatkan coast. It measured as much as from twenty-eight to thirty-five feet in length, and was soon nearly exterminated by Behring’s party and other voyagers who visited the island. The last one of which there is any record was killed in 1854.[55]

[Pg 68]To the above may be added the Didunculus, a species of ground-pigeon peculiar to the Samoa Islands, and the Nestor productus, a parrot of Norfolk Island. An extended list might be prepared, from fossil evidences, of other species which were at one time associated with those I have enumerated.

Fig. 18.—Rhytina Stelleri. (From “The Voyage of the ‘Vega.’”)

In conclusion, I may point out that that excellent naturalist Pliny[56] records the disappearance, in his days, of certain species formerly known. He mentions the Incendiary, the Clivia, and the Subis (species of birds), and states that there were many other birds mentioned in the Etruscan ritual, which were no longer to be found in his time. He also says that there had been a bird in Sardinia resembling the crane, and called the Gromphæna, which was no longer known even by the people of the country.

Local Extinction.

Of local extinction we may note in our own island the cases of the beaver, the bear, the wolf, the wild cattle, the elk, the wild boar, the bustard, and the capercailzie; of these the beaver survived in Wales and Scotland until the time of Giraldus Cambrensis in 1188, and Pennant notes indications of its former existence in the names of several streams and lakes in Wales. It was not uncommon throughout the greater part of Europe down to the Middle Ages.

[Pg 69]The bear, still common in Norway and the Pyrenees, is alluded to, as Mr. Gosse points out, in the Welsh Triads,[57] which are supposed to have been compiled in the seventh century. They say that “the Kymri, a Celtic tribe, first inhabited Britain; before them were no men here, but only bears, wolves, beavers, and oxen with high prominences.” Mr. Gosse adds, “The Roman poets knew of its existence here. Martial speaks of the robber Laureolis being exposed on the cross to the fangs of the Caledonian bear; and Claudian alludes to British bears. The Emperor Claudius, on his return to Rome after the conquest of this island, exhibited, as trophies, combats of British bears in the Arena. In the Penitential of Archbishop Egbert, said to have been compiled about A.D. 750, bears are mentioned as inhabiting the English forests, and the city of Norwich is said to have been required to furnish a bear annually to Edward the Confessor, together with six dogs, no doubt for baiting him.”

The wolf, though greatly reduced in numbers during the Heptarchy, when Edgar laid an annual tribute of three hundred wolf-skins upon the Welsh, still occurred in formidable numbers in England in 1281, and not unfrequently until the reign of Henry VII. The last wolf was killed in Scotland in the year 1743, and in Ireland in 1770.[58]

The wild cattle are now only represented by the small herds in Chartley Castle, Chillingham, and Cadgow parks; the spare survivors probably of the species referred to by Herodotus when he speaks of “large ferocious and fleet white bulls” which abounded in the country south of Thrace, and continued in Poland, Lithuania, and Muscovy until the fifteenth century, or perhaps of the Urus described by Cæsar as little inferior to the elephant in size, and inhabiting the[Pg 70] Hercynian forest, and believed to be identical with the Bos primigenius found in a fossil state in Britain.

The wild boar was once abundant in Scotland and England. The family of Baird derives its heraldic crest from a grant of David I. of Scotland, in recognition of his being saved from an infuriated boar which had turned on him. In England only nobles and gentry were allowed to hunt it, and the slaughter of one by an unauthorized person within the demesnes of William the Conqueror was punished by the loss of both eyes.[59]

The bustard, once abundant, is now extinct in Britain, so far as the indigenous race is concerned. Occasionally a chance visitant from the continent is seen; but there, also, its numbers have been greatly diminished. It was common in Buffon’s time in the plains of Poitou and Champagne, though now extremely rare, and is still common in Eastern Asia.

The capercailzie, or cock of the woods, after complete extinction, has been reintroduced from Norway, and, under protection, is moderately abundant in parts of Scotland.

In America, the process of extermination marches with the settlement of the various states. W. J. J. Allen records the absolute disappearance of the walrus from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and of the moose, the elk, and the Virginian deer, from many of the states in which they formerly abounded. This also is true, to some extent, of the bear, the beaver, the grey wolf, the panther, and the lynx.

The buffalo (Bos americanus) is being destroyed at the rate of two hundred and fifty thousand annually, and it is estimated that the number slain by hunters for their hides during the last forty years amounts to four millions. It has disappeared in the eastern part of the continent from many extensive tracts which it formerly inhabited.

Among the ocean whales, both the right and the sperm[Pg 71] have only been preserved from extinction by the fortunate discovery of petroleum, which has reduced the value of their oil, and thus lessened considerably the number of vessels equipped for the whale fishery.

In South Africa, elephants and all other large game are being steadily exterminated within the several colonies.

In Australia, we find that the seals which thronged the islands of Bass’s Straits in countless thousands, at the period when Bass made his explorations there, have utterly disappeared. The bulk of them were destroyed by seal-hunters from Sydney within a few years after his discovery. The lamentable records of the Sydney Gazette of that period show this, for they detail the return to port, after a short cruise, of schooners laden with from twelve to sixteen thousand skins each. The result of this has been that for many years past the number of seals has been limited to a few individuals, to be found on one or two isolated rocks off Clarke’s Island, and on Hogan’s group.

The great sea-elephant, which, in Peron’s time, still migrated for breeding purposes from antarctic regions to the shores of King’s Island, where it is described by him as lining the long sandy beaches by hundreds, has been almost unseen there since the date of his visit, and its memory is only preserved in the names of Sea-Elephant Bay, Elephant Rock, &c. which are still inscribed on our charts.

The introduction of the Dingo, by the Australian blacks in their southward migration, is supposed to have caused the extinction of the Thylacinus (T. cynocephalus), or striped Australian wolf, on the main land of Australia, where it was once abundant; it is now only to be found in the remote portions of the island of Tasmania. This destruction of one species by another is paralleled in our own country by the approaching extinction of the indigenous and now very rare black rat, which has been almost entirely displaced by the fierce grey rat from Norway.

[Pg 72]We learn from incidental passages in the Bamboo Books[60] that the rhinoceros, which is now unknown in China, formerly extended throughout that country. We read of King Ch’aou, named Hĕa (B.C. 980), that “in his sixteenth year [of reign] the king attacked Ts’oo, and in crossing the river Han met with a large rhinoceros.” And, again, of King E, named Sëĕ (B.C. 860), that “in his sixth year, when hunting in the forest of Shay, he captured a rhinoceros and carried it home.” There is also mention made—though this is less conclusive—that in the time of King Yiu, named Yeu (B.C. 313), the King of Yueh sent Kung-sze Yu with a present of three hundred boats, five million arrows, together with rhinoceros’ horns and elephants’ teeth.

Elephants are now unknown in China except in a domesticated state, but they probably disputed its thick forest and jungly plains with the Miaotsz, Lolos, and other tribes which held the country before its present occupants. This may be inferred from the incidental references to them in the Shan Hai King, a work reputed to be of great antiquity, of which more mention will be made hereafter, and from evidence contained in other ancient Chinese works which has been summarized by Mr. Kingsmill[61] as follows:—

“The rhinoceros and elephant certainly lived in Honan B.C. 600. The Tso-chuen, commenting on the C‘hun T‘siu of the second year of the Duke Siuen (B.C. 605), describes the former as being in sufficient abundance to supply skins for armour. The want, according to the popular saying, was not of rhinoceroses to supply skins, but of courage to animate the wearers. From the same authority (Duke Hi XIII., B.C. 636) we learn that while T‘soo (Hukwang) produced ivory and rhinoceros’ skins in abundance, Tsin, lying[Pg 73] north of the Yellow River, on the most elevated part of the Loess, was dependent on the other for its supplies of those commodities. The Tribute of Yu tells the same tale. Yang-chow and King (Kiangpeh and Hukwang), we are told, sent tribute of ivory and rhinoceros’ hide, while Liang (Shensi) sent the skins of foxes and bears. Going back to mythical times, we find Mencius (III. ii. 9) telling how Chow Kung expelled from Lu (Shantung) the elephants and rhinoceroses, the tigers and leopards.”

Mr. Kingsmill even suggests that the species referred to were the mammoth and the Siberian rhinoceros (R. tichorhinus).

M. Chabas[62] publishes an Egyptian inscription showing that the elephant existed in a feral state in the Euphrates Valley in the time of Thothmes III. (16th century B.C.). The inscription records a great hunting of elephants in the neighbourhood of Nineveh.

Tigers still abound in Manchuria and Corea, their skins forming a regular article of commerce in Vladivostock, Newchwang, and Seoul. They are said to attain larger dimensions in these northern latitudes than their southern congener, the better-known Bengal tiger. They are generally extinct in China Proper; but Père David states that he has seen them in the neighbourhood of Pekin, in Mongolia, and at Moupin, and they are reported to have been seen near Amoy. Within the last few years[63] a large specimen was killed by Chinese soldiery within a few miles of the city of Ningpo; and it is probable that at no distant date they ranged over the whole country from Hindostan to Eastern Siberia, as they are incidentally referred to in various Chinese works—the Urh Yah specially recording the capture of a white tiger[Pg 74] in the time of the Emperor Süen of the Han dynasty, and of a black one, in the fourth year of the reign of Yung Kia, in a netted surround in Kien Ping Fu in the district of Tsz Kwei.

The tailed deer or Mi-lu (Cervus Davidianus of Milne Edwardes), which Chinese literature[64] indicates as having once been of common occurrence throughout China, is now only to be found in the Imperial hunting grounds south of Peking, where it is restricted to an enclosure of fifty miles in circumference. It is believed to exist no longer in a wild state, as no trace of it has been found in any of the recent explorations of Asia. The Ch‘un ts‘iu (B.C. 676) states that this species appeared in the winter of that year, in such numbers that it was chronicled in the records of Lu (Shantung), and that in the following autumn it was followed by an inroad of “Yih,” which Mr. Kingsmill believes to be the wolf.

There also appears reason to suppose that the ostrich had a much more extended range than at present; for we find references in the Shi-Ki,[65] or book of history of Szema Tsien, to “large birds with eggs as big as water-jars” as inhabiting T‘iaou-chi, identified by Mr. Kingsmill as Sarangia or Drangia; and, in speaking of Parthia, it says, “On the return of the mission he sent envoys with it that they might see the extent and power of China. He sent with them, as presents to the Emperor, eggs of the great bird of the country, and a curiously deformed man from Samarkand.”

The gigantic Chelonians which once abounded in India[Pg 75] and the Indian seas are now entirely extinct; but we have had little difficulty in believing the accounts of their actual and late existence contained in the works of Pliny and Ælian since the discovery of the Colossochelys, described by Dr. Falconer, in the Upper Miocene deposits of the Siwalik Hills in North-Western India. The shell of Colossochelys Atlas (Falconer and Cautley) measured twelve feet, and the whole animal nearly twenty.

Pliny,[66] who published his work on Natural History about A.D. 77, states that the turtles of the Indian Sea are of such vast size that a single shell is sufficient to roof a habitable cottage, and that among the islands of the Red Sea the navigation is mostly carried on in boats formed from this shell.

Ælian,[67] about the middle of the third century of our era, is more specific in his statement, and says that the Indian river-tortoise is very large, and in size not less than a boat of fair magnitude; also, in speaking of the Great Sea, in which is Taprobana (Ceylon), he says: “There are very large tortoises generated in this sea, the shell of which is large enough to make an entire roof; for a single one reaches the length of fifteen cubits, so that not a few people are able to live beneath it, and certainly secure themselves from the vehement rays of the sun; they make a broad shade, and so resist rain that they are preferable for this purpose to tiles, nor does the rain beating against them sound otherwise than if it were falling on tiles. Nor, indeed, do those who inhabit them have any necessity for repairing them, as in the case of broken tiles, for the whole roof is made out of a solid shell so that it has the appearance of a cavernous or undermined rock, and of a natural roof.”

[Pg 76]El Edrisi, in his great geographical work,[68] completed A.D. 1154, speaks of them as existing down to his day, but as his book is admitted to be a compilation from all preceding geographical works, he may have been simply quoting, without special acknowledgment, the statements given above. He says, speaking of the Sea of Herkend (the Indian Ocean west of Ceylon), “It contains turtles twenty cubits long, containing within them as many as one thousand eggs.” Large tortoises formerly inhabited the Mascarene islands, but have been destroyed on all of them, with the exception of the small uninhabited Aldabra islands, north of the Seychelle group; and those formerly abundant on the Galapagos islands are now represented by only a few survivors, and the species rapidly approaches extinction.

I shall close this chapter with a reference to a creature which, if it may not be entitled to be called “the dragon,” may at least be considered as first cousin to it. This is a lacertilian of large size, at least twenty feet in length, panoplied with the most horrifying armour, which roamed over the Australian continent during Pleistocene times, and probably until the introduction of the aborigines.

Its remains have been described by Professor Owen in several communications to the Royal Society,[69] under the name of Megalania prisca. They were procured by Mr. G. F. Bennett from the drift-beds of King’s Creek, a tributary of the Condamine River in Australia. It was associated with correspondingly large marsupial mammals, now also extinct.

From the portions transmitted to him Professor Owen determined that it presented in some respects a magnified resemblance of the miniature existing lizard, Moloch horridus,[Pg 77] found in Western Australia,[70] of which Dr. Gray remarks, “The external appearance of this lizard is the most ferocious of any that I know.” In Megalania the head was rendered horrible and menacing by horns projecting from its sides, and from the tip of the nose, which would be “as available against the attacks of Thylacoleo as the buffalo’s horns are against those of the South African lion.” The tail consisted of a series of annular segments armed with horny spikes, represented by the less perfectly developed ones in the existing species Uromastix princeps from Zanzibar, or in the above-mentioned moloch. In regard to these the Professor says, “That the horny sheaths of the above-described supports or cores arming the end of the tail may have been applied to deliver blows upon an assailant, seems not improbable, and this part of the organization of the great extinct Australian dragon may be regarded, with the cranial horn, as parts of both an offensive and defensive apparatus.”

The gavial of the Ganges is reported to be a fish-eater only, and is considered harmless to man. The Indian museums, however, have large specimens, which are said to have been captured after they had destroyed several human beings; and so we may imagine that this structurally herbivorous lizard (the Megalania having a horny edentate upper jaw) may have occasionally varied his diet, and have proved an importunate neighbour to aboriginal encampments in which toothsome children abounded, and that it may, in fact, have been one of the sources from which the myth of the Bunyip, of which I shall speak hereafter, has been derived.

[Pg 78]

ANTIQUITY OF MAN.

I do not propose to bestow any large amount of space upon the enumeration of the palæontological evidence of the antiquity of man. The works of the various eminent authors who have devoted themselves to the special consideration of this subject exhaust all that can be said upon it with our present data, and to these I must refer the reader who is desirous of acquainting himself critically with its details, confining myself to a few general statements based on these labours.

In the early days of geological science when observers were few, great groups of strata were arranged under an artificial classification, which, while it has lost to a certain extent the specific value which it then assumed to possess, is still retained for purposes of convenient reference. Masters of the science acquired, so to say, a possessive interest in certain regions of it, and the names of Sedgwick, Murchison, Jukes, Phillips, Lyell, and others became, and will remain, inseparably associated with the history of those great divisions of the materials of the earth’s crust, which, under the names of the Cambrian, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Tertiary formations, have become familiar to us.

In those days, when observations were limited to a comparatively small area, the lines separating most of these formations were supposed to be hard and definite; forms of life which characterized one, were presumed to have become[Pg 79] entirely extinct before the inauguration of those which succeeded them, and breaks in the stratigraphical succession appeared to justify the opinion, held by a large and influential section, that great cataclysms or catastrophes had marked the time when one age or formation terminated and another commenced to succeed it.

By degrees, and with the increase of observers, both in England and in every portion of the world, modifications of these views obtained; passage beds were discovered, connecting by insensible gradations formations which had hitherto been supposed to present the most abrupt separations; transitional forms of life connecting them were unearthed; and an opinion was advanced, and steadily confirmed, which at the present day it is probable no one would be found to dispute, that not all in one place or country, but discoverable in some part or other of the world, a perfect sequence exists, from the very earliest formations of which we have any cognizance, up to the alluvial and marine deposits in process of formation at the present day.[71]

[Pg 80]Correlatively it was deduced that the same phenomena of nature have been in action since the earliest period when organic existence can be affirmed. The gradual degradation of pre-existing continents by normal destructive agencies, the upheaval and subsidence of large areas, the effusion from volcanic vents, into the air or sea, of ashes and lavas, the action of frost and ice, of heat, rain, and sunshine—all these have acted in the past as they are still acting before our eyes.

In earlier days, arguing from limited data, a progressive creation was claimed which confined the appearance of the higher form of vertebrate life to a successive and widely-stepped gradation.

Hugh Miller, and other able thinkers, noted with satisfaction the appearance, first of fish, then of reptiles, next of birds and mammals, and finally, as the crowning work of all, both geologically and actually, quite recently of man.

This wonderful confirmation of the Biblical history of creation appealed so gratefully to many, that it caused for a time a disposition to cramp discovery, and even to warp the facts of science, in order to make them harmonize with the statements of Revelation. The alleged proofs of the existence of pre-historic man were for a long time jealously disputed, and it was only by slow degrees that they were admitted, that the tenets of the Darwinian school gained ground, and that the full meaning was appreciated of such anomalies as the existence at the present day of Ganoid fishes both in America and Europe, of true Palæozoic type, or of Oolitic forms on the Australian continent and in the adjacent seas.

But step by step marvellous palæontological discoveries were made, and the pillars which mark the advent of each great form of life have had to be set back, until now no one would, I think, be entirely safe in affirming that even in the Cambrian, the oldest of all fossiliferous formations, vestiges of mammals, that is to say, of the highest forms of life, may[Pg 81] not at a future day be found, or that the records contained between the Cambrian and the present day, may not in fact be but a few pages as compared with the whole volume of the world’s history.[72]

[Pg 82]It is with the later of these records that we have to deal, in which discoveries have been made sufficiently progressive to justify the expectation that they have by no means reached their limit, and sufficiently ample in themselves to open the widest fields for philosophic speculation and deduction.

Before stating these, it may be premised that estimates have been attempted by various geologists of the collective age of the different groups of formations.[73] These are based on reasonings which for the most part it is unnecessary to give in detail, in so much as these can scarcely yet be considered to have passed the bounds of speculation, and very different results can be arrived at by theorists according to the relative importance which they attach to the data employed in the calculation.

Thus Mr. T. Mellard Reade, in a paper communicated to the Royal Society in 1878, concludes that the formation of the sedimentary strata must have occupied at least six hundred million years: which he divides in round numbers as follows:—

He estimates the average thickness of the sedimentary crust of the earth to be at least one mile, and from a [Pg 83]computation of the proportion of carbonate and sulphate of lime to materials held in suspension in various river-waters from a variety of formations, infers that one-tenth of this crust is calcareous.

He estimates the annual flow of water in all the great river-basins, the proportion of rain-water running off the granitic and trappean rocks, the percentage of lime in solution which they carry down, and arrives at the conclusion that the minimum time requisite for the elimination of the calcareous matter contained in the sedimentary crust of the earth, is at least six hundred millions of years.

A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine[74] (Professor Huxley?), whose article I am only able to quote at second-hand, makes an estimate which, though much lower than the above, is still of enormous magnitude, as follows:—

Mr. Darwin, arguing upon Sir W. Thompson’s estimate of a minimum of ninety-eight and maximum of two hundred millions of years since the consolidation of the crust, and on Mr. Croll’s estimate of sixty millions, as the time elapsed since the Cambrian period, considers that the latter is quite insufficient to permit of the many and great mutations of life which have certainly occurred since then. He judges[Pg 84] from the small amount of organic change since the commencement of the glacial epoch, and adds that the previous one hundred and forty million years can hardly be considered as sufficient for the development of the varied forms of life which certainly existed towards the close of the Cambrian period.

On the other hand, Mr. Croll considers that it is utterly impossible that the existing order of things, as regards our globe, can date so far back as anything like five hundred millions of years, and, starting with referring the commencement of the Glacial epoch to two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, allows fifteen millions since the beginning of the Eocene period, and sixty millions of years in all since the beginning of the Cambrian period. He bases his arguments on the limit to the age of the sun’s heat as detailed by Sir William Thompson.

Sir Charles Lyell and Professor Haughton respectively estimated the expiration of time from the commencement of the Cambrian at two hundred and forty and two hundred millions of years, basing their calculations on the rate of modification of the species of mollusca, in the one case, and on the rate of formation of rocks and their maximum thickness, in the other.

This, moreover, is irrespective of the vast periods during which life must have existed, which on the development theory necessarily preceded the Cambrian, and, according to Mr. Darwin, should not be less than in the proportion of five to two.

In fine, one school of geologists and zoologists demand the maximum periods quoted above, to account for the amount of sedimentary deposit, and the specific developments which have occurred; the other considers the periods claimed as requisite for these actions to be unnecessary, and to be in excess of the limits which, according to their views, the physical elements of the case permit.

[Pg 85]Mr. Wallace, in reviewing the question, dwells on the probability of the rate of geological changes having been greater in very remote times than it is at present, and thus opens a way to the reconciliation of the opposing views so far as one half the question is concerned.

Having thus adverted to the principles upon which various theorists have in part based their attacks on the problem of the estimation of the duration of geological ages, I may now make a few more detailed observations upon those later periods during which man is, now, generally admitted to have existed, and refer lightly to the earlier times which some, but not all, geologists consider to have furnished evidences of his presence.

I omit discussing the doubtful assertions of the extreme antiquity of man, which come to us from American observers, such as are based on supposed footprints in rocks of secondary age, figured in a semi-scientific and exceedingly valuable popular journal. There are other theories which I omit, both because they need further confirmation by scientific investigators, and because they deal with periods so remote as to be totally devoid of significance for the argument of this work.

Nor, up to the present time, are the evidences of the existence of man during Miocene and Pliocene times admitted as conclusive. Professor Capellini has discovered, in deposits recognised by Italian geologists as of Pliocene age, cetacean bones, which are marked with incisions such as only a sharp instrument could have produced, and which, in his opinion, must be ascribed to human agency. To this view it is objected that the incisions might have been made by the teeth of fishes, and further evidence is waited for.

Not a few discoveries have been made, apparently extending the existence of man to a much more remote antiquity, that of Miocene times. M. l’Abbé Bourgeois has collected, from undoubted Miocene strata at Thenay, supposed flint[Pg 86] implements which he conceives to exhibit evidences of having been fashioned by man, as well as stones showing in some cases traces of the action of fire, and which he supposes to have been used as pot-boilers. M. Carlos Ribeiro has made similar discoveries of worked flints and quartzites in the Pliocene and Miocene of the Tagus; worked flint has been found in the Miocene of Aurillac (Auvergne) by M. Tardy, and a cut rib of Halitherium fossile, a Miocene species, by M. Delaunay at Pouancé.

Very divided opinions are entertained as to the interpretation of the supposed implements discovered by M. l’Abbé Bourgeois. M. Quatrefages, after a period of doubt, has espoused the view of their being of human origin, and of Miocene age. “Since then,” he says, “fresh specimens discovered have removed my last doubts. A small knife or scraper, among others, which shows a fine regular finish, can, in my opinion, only have been shaped by man. Nevertheless, I do not blame those of my colleagues who deny or still doubt. In such a matter there is no very great urgency, and, doubtless, the existence of Miocene man will be proved, as that of Glacial and Pliocene has been, by facts.” Mr. Geikie, from whose work—Prehistoric Europe—I have summarized the above statements, says, in reference to this question: “There is unquestionably much force in what M. Quatrefages says; nevertheless, most geologists will agree with him that the question of man’s Miocene age still remains to be demonstrated by unequivocal evidence. At present, all that we can safely say is, that man was probably living in Europe near the close of the Pliocene period, and that he was certainly an occupant of our continent during glacial and interglacial times.”

Professor Marsh considers that the evidence, as it stands to-day, although not conclusive, “seems to place the first appearance of man [in America] in the Pliocene, and that the best proofs of this are to be found on the Pacific coast.”[Pg 87] He adds: “During several visits to that region many facts were brought to my knowledge which render this more than probable. Man, at this time, was a savage, and was doubtless forced by the great volcanic outbreaks to continue his migration. This was at first to the south, since mountain chains were barriers on the east,” and “he doubtless first came across Behring’s Straits.”

I have hitherto assumed a certain acquaintance, upon the part of the general reader, with the terms Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene, happily invented by Sir Charles Lyell to designate three of the four great divisions of the Tertiary age. These, from their universal acceptation and constant use, have “become familiar in our mouths as household words.” But it will be well, before further elaborating points in the history of these groups, bearing upon our argument, to take into consideration their subdivisions, and the equivalent or contemporary deposits composing them in various countries. This can be most conveniently done by displaying these, in descending order, in a tabular form, which I accordingly annex below. This is the more desirable as there are few departments in geological science which have received more attention than this; or in which greater returns, in the shape of important and interesting discoveries relative to man’s existence, have been made.

Comparatively recent—comparatively, that is to say, with regard to the vast æons that preceded them, but extending back over enormous spaces of time when contrasted with the limited duration of written history,—they embrace the period during which the mainly existing distribution of land and ocean has obtained, and the present forms of life have appeared by evolution from preceding species, or, as some few still maintain, by separate and special creation.

 [Pg 88]

THE TERTIARY OR CAINOZOIC AGE.

PLIOCENE.

 [Pg 89]

MIOCENE.

 [Pg 90]

EOCENE.

The subdivisions of the Eocene have been worked out in great detail in Britain, France, and America. Those of most other countries have either not yet been fully studied or their exact equivalence remains undetermined.

[Pg 91]We learn, both from the nature of these deposits and from their organic contents, that climatic oscillations have been passing during the whole period of their deposition over the surface of the globe, and inducing corresponding fluctuations in the character of the vegetable and animal life abounding on it. A complete collation of these varying conditions at synchronous periods remains to be achieved, but the study of our own country, and those adjacent to it, shows that alternations of tropical, boreal, and temperate climate have occurred in it; a remarkable series of conditions which has only lately been thoroughly and satisfactorily accounted for.

Thus, during a portion of the Eocene period a tropical climate prevailed, as is evidenced by deposits containing remains of palms of an equatorial type, crocodiles, turtles, tropical shells, and other remains attesting the existence of a high temperature. The converse is proved of the Pleistocene by the existence of a boreal fauna, and the widespread evidences of glacial action. The gradations of climate during the Miocene and Pliocene, and the amelioration subsequent to the glacial period, have resulted in the gradual development or appearance of specific life as it exists at present.

Corresponding indications of secular variability of climate are derived from all quarters: during the Miocene age, Greenland (in N. Lat. 70°) developed an abundance of trees, such as the yew, the Redwood, a Sequoia allied to the Californian species, beeches, planes, willows, oaks, poplars, and walnuts, as well as a Magnolia and a Zamia. In Spitzbergen (N. Lat. 78° 56′) flourished yews, hazels, poplars, alders, beeches, and limes. At the present day, a dwarf willow and a few herbaceous plants form the only vegetation, and the ground is covered with almost perpetual ice and snow.

Many similar fluctuations of climate have been traced right back through the geological record; but this fact, though interesting in relation to the general solution of the causes, has little bearing on the present purpose.

[Pg 92]Sir Charles Lyell conceived that all cosmical changes of climate in the past might be accounted for by the varying preponderance of land in the vicinity of the equator or near the poles, supplemented, of course, in a subordinate degree by alteration of level and the influence of ocean currents. When, for example, at any geological period the excess of land was equatorial, the ascent and passage northwards of currents of heated air would, according to his view, render the poles habitable; while, per contrâ, the excessive massing of land around the pole, and absence of it from the equator, would cause an arctic climate to spread far over the now temperate latitudes.

The correctness of these inferences has been objected to by Mr. James Geikie and Dr. Croll, who doubt whether the northward currents of air would act as successful carriers of heat to the polar regions, or whether they would not rather dissipate it into space upon the road. On the other hand, Mr. Geikie, though admitting that the temperature of a large unbroken arctic continent would be low, suggests that, as the winds would be stripped of all moisture on its fringes, the interior would therefore be without accumulations of snow and ice; and in the more probable event of its being deeply indented by fjords and bays, warm sea-currents (the representatives of our present Gulf and Japan streams, but possessing a higher temperature than either, from the greater extent of equatorial sea-surface originating them, and exposed to the sun’s influence) would flow northward, and, ramifying, carry with them warm and heated atmospheres far into its interior, though even these, he thinks, would be insufficient in their effects under any circumstances to produce the sub-tropical climates which are known to have existed in high latitudes.

Mr. John Evans[75] has thrown out the idea that possibly a[Pg 93] complete translation of geographical position with respect to polar axes may have been produced by a sliding of the whole surface crust of the globe about a fluid nucleus. This, he considers, would be induced by disturbances of equilibrium of the whole mass from geological causes. He further points out that the difference between the polar and equatorial diameters of the globe, which constitutes an important objection to his theory, is materially reduced when we take into consideration the enormous depth of the ocean over a large portion of the equator, and the great tracts of land elevated considerably above the sea-level in higher latitudes. He also speculates on the general average of the surface having in bygone geological epochs approached much more nearly to that of a sphere than it does at the present time.

Sir John Lubbock favoured the idea of a change in the position of the axis of rotation, and this view has been supported by Sir H. James[76] and many later geologists.[77] If I apprehend their arguments correctly, this change could only have been produced by what may be termed geological revolutions. These are great outbursts of volcanic matter, elevations, subsidences, and the like. These having probably been almost continuous throughout geological time, incessant changes, small or great, would be demanded in the position of the axis, and the world must be considered as a globe rolling over in space with every alteration of its centre of gravity. The possibility of this view must be left for mathematicians and astronomers to determine.

Sounder arguments sustain the theory propounded by Dr. Croll (though this, again, is not universally accepted), that all these alterations of climate can be accounted for by the effects of nutation, and the precession of the equinoxes.[Pg 94] From these changes, combined with the eccentricity of the ecliptic from the first, it results that at intervals of ten thousand five hundred years, the northern and southern hemispheres are alternately in aphelion during the winter, and in perihelion during the summer months, and vice versâ; or, in other words, that if at any given period the inclination of the earth’s axis produces winter in the northern hemisphere, while the earth is at a maximum distance from that focus of its orbit in which the sun is situated, then, after an interval of ten thousand five hundred years, and as a result of the sum of the backward motion of the equinoxes along the ecliptic, at the rate of 50′ annually, the converse will obtain, and it will be winter in the northern hemisphere while the earth is at a minimum distance from the sun.

The amount of eccentricity of the ecliptic varies greatly during long periods, and has been calculated for several million years back. Mr. Croll[78] has demonstrated a theory explaining all great secular variations of climate as indirectly the result of this, through the action of sundry physical agencies, such as the accumulation of snow and ice, and especially the deflection of ocean currents. From a consideration of the tables which he has computed of the eccentricity and longitude of the earth’s orbit, he refers the glacial epoch to a period commencing about two hundred and forty thousand years back, and extending down to about eighty thousand years ago, and he describes it as “consisting of a long succession of cold and warm periods; the warm periods of the one hemisphere corresponding in time with the cold periods of the other, and vice versâ.”

Having thus spoken of the processes adopted for estimating the duration of geological ages, and the results which have been arrived at, with great probability of accuracy, in regard[Pg 95] to some of the more recent, it now only remains to briefly state the facts from which the existence of man, during these latter periods, has been demonstrated. The literature of this subject already extends to volumes, and it is therefore obviously impossible, in the course of the few pages which the limits of this work admit, to give anything but the shortest abstract, or to assign the credit relatively due to the numerous progressive workers in this rich field of research. I therefore content myself with taking as my text-book Mr. James Geikie’s Prehistoric Europe, the latest and most exhaustive work upon the subject, and summarizing from it the statements essential to my purpose.

From it we learn that, long prior to the ages when men were acquainted with the uses of bronze and iron, there existed nations or tribes, ignorant of the means by which these metals are utilized, whose weapons and implements were formed of stone, horn, bone, and wood.

These, again, may be divided into an earlier and a later race, strongly characterized by the marked differences in the nature of the stone implements which they respectively manufactured, both in respect to the material employed and the amount of finish bestowed upon it. To the two periods in which these people lived the terms Palæolithic and Neolithic have been respectively applied, and a vast era is supposed to have intervened between the retiring from Europe of the one and the appearance there of the other.

Palæolithic man was contemporaneous with the mammoth (Elephas primigenius), the woolly rhinoceros (Rhinoceros primigenius), the Hippopotamus major, and a variety of other species, now quite extinct, as well as with many which, though still existing in other regions, are no longer found in Europe; whereas the animals contemporaneous with Neolithic man were essentially the same as those still occupying it.

 [Pg 96]

Fig. 19.—Engraving by Palæolithic Man on Reindeer Antler.[79]

(The two sides of the same piece of antler are here represented.)

The stone implements of Palæolithic man had but little variety of form, were very rudely fashioned, being merely[Pg 97] chipped into shape, and never ground or polished; they were worked nearly entirely out of flint and chert. Those of Neolithic man were made of many varieties of hard stone, often beautifully finished, frequently ground to a sharp point or edge, and polished all over.

Palæolithic men were unacquainted with pottery and the art of weaving, and apparently had no domesticated animals or system of cultivation; but the Neolithic lake dwellers of Switzerland had looms, pottery, cereals, and domesticated animals, such as swine, sheep, horses, dogs, &c.

Implements of horn, bone, and wood were in common use among both races, but those of the older are frequently distinguished by their being sculptured with great ability or ornamented with life-like engravings of the various animals living at the period; whereas there appears to have been a marked absence of any similar artistic ability on the part of Neolithic man.

Fig. 20.—Reindeer engraved on Antler by Palæolithic Man. (After Geikie.)

Again, it is noticeable that, while the passage from the Neolithic age into the succeeding bronze age was gradual, and, indeed, that the use of stone implements and, in some[Pg 98] parts, weapons, was contemporaneous with that of bronze in other places, no evidence exists of a transition from Palæolithic into Neolithic times. On the contrary, the examination of bone deposits, such as those of Kent’s Cave and Victoria Cave in England, and numerous others in Belgium and France, attest “beyond doubt that a considerable period must have supervened after the departure of Palæolithic man and before the arrival of his Neolithic successor.” The discovery of remains of Palæolithic man and animals in river deposits in England and on the Continent, often at considerable elevations[80] above the existing valley bottoms, and in Löss, and the identification of the Pleistocene or Quaternary period with Preglacial and Glacial times, offer a means of estimating what that lapse of time must have been.[81]

[Pg 99]Skeletons or portions of the skeletons of human beings, of admitted Palæolithic age, have been found in caverns in the vicinity of Liege in Belgium, by Schmerling, and probably the same date may be assigned those from the Neanderthal Cave near Düsseldorf. A complete skeleton, of tall stature, of probable but not unquestioned Palæolithic age, has also been discovered in the Cave of Mentone on the Riviera.

These positive remains yield us further inferences than can be drawn from the mere discovery of implements or fragmentary bones associated with remains of extinct animals.

The Mentone man, according to M. Rivière, had a rather long but large head, a high and well-made forehead, and the very large facial angle of 85°. In the Liege man the cranium was high and short, and of good Caucasian type; “a fair average human skull,” according to Huxley.

Other remains, such as the jaw-bone from the cave of the Naulette in Belgium, and the Neanderthal skeleton, show marks of inferiority; but even in the latter, which was the lowest in grade, the cranial capacity is seventy-five cubic inches or “nearly on a level with the mean between the two human extremes.”

We may, therefore, sum up by saying that evidences have been accumulated of the existence of man, and intelligent man, from a period which even the most conservative among geologists are unable to place at less than thirty thousand[Pg 100] years; while most of them are convinced both of his existence from at least later Pliocene times, and of the long duration of ages which has necessarily elapsed since his appearance—a duration to be numbered, not by tens, but by hundreds of thousands of years.

Fig. 21.—Engraving by Palæolithic Man on Reindeer Antler.

[Pg 101]

THE DELUGE NOT A MYTH.

If we assume that the antiquity of man is as great, or even approximately as great, as Sir Charles Lyell and his followers affirm, the question naturally arises, what has he been doing during those countless ages, prior to historic times? what evidences has he afforded of the possession of an intelligence superior to that of the brute creation by which he has been surrounded? what great monuments of his fancy and skill remain? or has the sea of time engulphed any that he erected, in abysses so deep that not even the bleached masts project from the surface, to testify to the existence of the good craft buried below?

These questions have been only partially asked, and but slightly answered. They will, however, assume greater proportions as the science of archæology extends itself, and perhaps receive more definite replies when fresh fields for investigation are thrown open in those portions of the old world which Asiatic reserve has hitherto maintained inviolable against scientific prospectors.

If man has existed for fifty thousand years, as some demand, or for two hundred thousand, as others imagine, has his intelligence gone on increasing thoughout the period? and if so, in what ratio? Are the terms of the series which involve the unknown quantity stated with sufficient precision to enable us to determine whether his development has been slow, gradual, and more or less uniform, as in arithmetical, or gaining at a rapidly increasing rate, as in geometric progression. Or, to pursue the simile, could it be more[Pg 102] accurately expressed by the equation to a curve which traces an ascending and descending path, and, though controlled in reality by an absolute law, appears to exhibit an unaccountable and capricious variety of positive and negative phases, of points d’arrêt, nodes, and cusps.

These questions cannot yet be definitely answered; they may be proposed and argued on, but for a time the result will doubtless be a variety of opinions, without the possibility of solution by a competent arbiter.

For example, it is a matter of opinion whether the intelligence of the present day is or is not of a higher order than that which animated the savans of ancient Greece. It is probable that most would answer in the affirmative, so far as the question pertains to the culture of the masses only, but how will scholars decide, who are competent to compare the works of our present poets, sculptors, dramatists, logicians, philosophers, historians, and statesmen, with those of Homer, Pindar, Œschylus, Euripides, Herodotus, Aristotle, Euclid, Phidias, Plato, Solon, and the like? Will they, in a word, consider the champions of intellect of the present day so much more robust than their competitors of three thousand years ago as to render them easy victors? This would demonstrate a decided advance in human intelligence during that period; but, if this is the case, how is it that all the great schools and universities still cling to the reverential study of the old masters, and have, until quite recently, almost ignored modern arts, sciences, and languages.

We must remember that the ravages of time have put out of court many of the witnesses for the one party to the suit, and that natural decay, calamity, and wanton destruction[82][Pg 103] have obliterated the bulk of the philosophy of past ages. With the exceptions of the application of steam, the employment of moveable type in printing,[83] and the utilization of electricity, there are few arts and inventions which have not descended to us from remote antiquity, lost, many of them, for a time, some of them for ages, and then re-discovered and paraded as being, really and truly, something new under the sun.

Neither must we forget the oratory and poetry, the masterpieces of logical argument, the unequalled sculptures, and the exquisitely proportioned architecture of Greece, or the thorough acquaintance with mechanical principles and engineering skill evinced by the Egyptians, in the construction of the pyramids, vast temples, canals[84] and hydraulic works.[85]

Notice, also, the high condition of civilization possessed[Pg 104] by the Chinese four thousand years ago, their enlightened and humane polity, their engineering works,[86] their provision for the proper administration of different departments of the State, and their clear and intelligent documents.[87]

 [Pg 105]

Fig. 23.—Vase. Han Dynasty,
B.C. 206 to A.D. 23.
(From the Poh Ku T’u.)

Fig. 24.—Cyathus or Cup for Libations.
Shang Dynasty, B.C. 1766 to B.C. 1122.
(From the Poh Ku T’u.)

In looking back upon these, I think we can hardly distinguish any such deficiency of intellect, in comparison with ours, on the part of these our historical predecessors as to indicate so rapid a change of intelligence as would, if we were able to carry our comparison back for another similar period, inevitably land us among a lot of savages similar to[Pg 106] those who fringe the civilization of the present period. Intellectually measured, the civilized men of eight or ten thousand years ago must, I think, have been but little inferior to ourselves, and we should have to peer very far back indeed before we reached a status or condition in which the highest type of humanity was the congener of the cave lion, disputing with him a miserable existence, shielded only from the elements by an overhanging rock, or the fortuitous discovery of some convenient cavern.

If this be so, we are forced back again to the consideration of the questions with which this section opened; where are the evidences of man’s early intellectual superiority? are they limited to those deduced from the discovery of certain stone implements of the early rude, and later polished ages? and, if so, can we offer any feasible explanation either of their non-existence or disappearance?

In the first place, it may be considered as admitted by archæologists that no exact line can be drawn between the later of the two stone-weapon epochs, the polished Neolithic stone epoch, and the succeeding age of bronze. They are agreed that these overlap each other, and that the rude hunters, who contented themselves with stone implements of war and the chase, were coeval with people existing in other places, acquainted with the metallurgical art, and therefore of a high order of intelligence. The former are, in fact, brought within the limit of historic times.

 [Pg 107]

Fig. 25.—Incense Burner(?).
Chen Dynasty, B.C. 1122 to B.C. 255.
(From the Poh Ku T’u.)

Fig. 26.—Tripod of the Shang Dynasty.
Probable date, B.C. 1649.
(From the Poh Ku T’u.)

 [Pg 108]

Fig. 27.—Tripod of Fu Yih,
Shang Dynasty.
(From the Poh Ku T’u.)

Fig. 28.—Tripod of Kwai Wan,
Chen Dynasty, B.C. 1122 to B.C. 255
(From the Poh Ku T’u.)

A similar inference might not unfairly be drawn with regard to those numerous discoveries of proofs of the existence of ruder man, at still earlier periods. The flint-headed arrow of the North American Indian, and the stone hatchet of the Australian black-fellow exist to the present day; and but a century or two back, would have been the sole representatives of the constructive intelligence of humanity over nearly one half the inhabited surface of the world. No philosopher, with these alone to reason on, could have [Pg 109]imagined the settled existence, busy industry, and superior intelligence which animated the other half; and a parallel suggestive argument may be supported by the discovery of human relics, implements, and artistic delineations such as those of the hairy mammoth or the cave-bear. These may possibly be the traces of an outlying savage who co-existed with a far more highly-organized people elsewhere,[88] just as at the present day the Esquimaux, who are by some geologists considered as the descendants of Palæolithic man, co-exist with ourselves. They, like their reputed ancestors, have great ability in carving on bone, &c.; and as an example of their capacity not only to conceive in their own minds a[Pg 110] correct notion of the relative bearings of localities, but also to impart the idea lucidly to others, I annex a wood-cut of a chart drawn by them, impromptu, at the request of Sir J. Ross, who, inferentially, vouches for its accuracy.

Fig. 29. (From Sir John Ross’ Second Voyage to the Arctic Regions.)

There is but a little step between carving the figure of a mammoth or horse, and using them as symbols. Multiply them, and you have the early hieroglyphic written language of the Chinese and Egyptians. It is not an unfair presumption that at no great distance, in time or space, either some generations later among his own descendants, or so many nations’ distance among his coevals, the initiative faculty of the Palæolithic savage was usefully applied to the communication of ideas, just as at a much later date the Kououen symbolic language was developed or made use of among the early Chinese.[89]

Such is, necessarily, the first stage of any written language, and it may, as I think, perhaps have occurred, been developed into higher stages, culminated, and perished at many successive epochs during man’s existence, presuming it to have been so extended as the progress of geology tends to affirm.

May not the meandering of the tide of civilization westward during the last three thousand years, bearing on its crest fortune and empire, and leaving in its hollow decay and oblivion, possibly be the sequel of many successive waves which have preceded it in the past, rising, some higher, some lower, as waves will.

 [Pg 111]

Fig. 30.—Early Chinese Hieroglyphics.

 [Pg 112]

Fig. 31.—Early Chinese Hieroglyphics.

In comparison with the vast epochs of which we treat how[Pg 113] near to us are Nineveh, Babylon, and Carthage! Yet the very sites of the former two have become uncertain, and of the last we only know by the presence of the few scattered ruins on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Tyre, the vast entrepôt of commerce in the days of Solomon, was stated, rightly or wrongly, by Benjamin of Tudela, to be but barely discernible (in 1173) in ruins beneath the waves; and the glory of the world, the temple of King Solomon, was represented at the same date by two copper columns which had been carried off and preserved in Rome. It is needless to quote the cases of Persia, Greece, and Rome, and of many once famous cities, which have dissolved in ruin; except as assisting to point the moral that conquest, which is always recurring, means to a great extent obliteration, the victor having no sympathy with the preservation of the time-honoured relics of the vanquished.

When decay and neglect are once initiated, the hand of man largely assists the ravages of time. The peasant carts the marbles of an emperor’s palace to his lime-kiln,[90] or an Egyptian monarch strips the casing of a pyramid[91] to furnish the material for a royal residence.

Nor is it beyond the limits of possibility that the arrogant caprice of some, perhaps Mongol, invader in the future, may level the imperishable pyramids themselves for the purpose of constructing some defensive work, or the gratification of an inordinate vanity.

[Pg 114]In later dates how many comfortable modern residences have been erected from the pillage of mediæval abbey, keep, or castle? and how many fair cities[92] must have fallen to decay, in Central and Eastern Asia, and how many numerous populations dwindled to insignificance since the days when Ghenghis and Timour led forth their conquering hordes, and Nadun could raise four hundred thousand horsemen[93] to contest the victory with Kublai Khan.

The unconscious ploughman in Britain has for centuries guided his share above the remains of Roman villas, and the inhabitants of the later city of Hissarlik were probably as ignorant that a series of lost and buried cities lay below them, as they would have been incredulous that within a thousand years their own existence would have passed from the memory of man, and their re-discovery been due only to the tentative researches of an enthusiastic admirer of Homer. Men live by books and bards longer than by the works of their hands, and impalpable tradition often survives the material vehicle which was destined to perpetuate it. The name of Priam was still a household word when the site of his palace had been long forgotten.

The vaster a city is, the more likely is it to be constructed upon the site of its own grave, or, in other words, to occupy the broad valley of some important river beneath whose gravels it is destined to be buried.

Perched on an eminence, and based on solid rock, it may escape entombment, but more swiftly and more certainly will[Pg 115] it be destroyed by the elements,[94] and by the decomposition of its own material furnish the shroud for its envelopment.[95] It is not altogether surprising then that no older discoveries than those already quoted have yet been made, for these would probably never have resulted if tradition had not both stimulated and guided the fortunate explorer.

It is, therefore, no unfair inference that the remains of equally important, but very much more ancient cities and memorials of civilization may have hitherto entirely escaped our observation, presuming that we can show some reasonable grounds for belief that, subsequent to their completion, a catastrophe has occurred of sufficiently universal a character to have obliterated entirely the annals of the past, and to have left in the possession of its few survivors but meagre and fragmentary recollections of all that had preceded them.

Now this is precisely what the history and traditions of all nations affirm to have occurred. However, as a variance of opinion exists as to the credence which should be attached to these traditions, I shall, before expressing my own views upon the subject, briefly epitomize those entertained by two authors of sufficient eminence to warrant their being selected as representatives of two widely opposite schools.

These gentlemen, to whom we are indebted for exhaustive papers,[96] embracing the pith of all the information extant[Pg 116] upon the subject, have tapped the same sources of information, consulted the same authorities, ranged their information in almost identical order, argued from the same data, and arrived at diametrically opposite conclusions.

Mr. Cheyne, following the lead of Continental mythologists, deduces that the Deluge stories were on the whole propagated from several independent centres, and adopts the theory of Schirrer and Gerland that they are ether myths, without any historical foundation, which have been transferred from the sky to the earth.

M. Lenormant, upon the other hand, eliminating from the inquiry the great inundation of China in the reign of Yao, and some others, as purely local events, concludes as the result of his researches that the story of the Deluge “is a universal tradition among all branches of the human race,” with the one exception of the black. He further argues: “Now a recollection thus precise and concordant cannot be a myth voluntarily invented. No religious or cosmogenic myth presents this character of universality. It must arise from the reminiscences of a real and terrible event, so powerfully impressing the imagination of the first ancestors of our race, as never to have been forgotten by their descendants. This cataclysm must have occurred near the first cradle of mankind and before the dispersion of families from which the different races of men were to spring.”

Lord Arundel of Wardour adopts a similar view in many respects to that of M. Lenormant, but argues for the existence of a Deluge tradition in Egypt, and the identity of the Deluge of Yu (in China) with the general catastrophe of which the tradition is current in other countries.

The subject is in itself so inviting, and has so direct a bearing upon the argument of this work that I propose to re-examine the same materials and endeavour to show from them that the possible solutions of the question have not yet been exhausted.

[Pg 117]We have as data:—

It is unnecessary to travel in detail over the well-worn ground of the myths and traditions prevalent among European nations, the presumed identity of Noah with Saturn, Janus, and the like, or the Grecian stories of Ogyges and Deucalion. Nor is anyone, I think, disposed to dispute the identity of the cause originating the Deluge legends in Persia and in India. How far these may have descended from independent sources it is now difficult to determine, though it is more than probable that their vitality is due to the written Semitic records. Nor is it necessary to discuss any unimportant differences which may exist between the text of Josephus and that of the Bible, which agree sufficiently closely, but are mere abstracts (with the omission of many important details) in comparison with the Chaldæan account. This may be accounted for by their having been only derived from oral tradition through the hands of Abraham. The Biblical narrative shows us that Abraham left Chaldæa on a nomadic enterprise, just as a squatter leaves the settled districts of Australia or America at the present day, and strikes out with a small following and scanty herd to search for, discover, and occupy new country; his destiny leading him, may be for a few hundred, may be for a thousand miles. In such a train there is no room for heavy baggage, and the stone tablets containing the detailed history of the Deluge would equally with all the rest of such heavy literature be left behind.

[Pg 118]The tradition, however reverenced and faithfully preserved at first, would, under such circumstances, soon get mutilated and dwarfed. We may, therefore, pass at once to the much more detailed accounts presented in the text of Berosus, and in the more ancient Chaldæan tablets deciphered by the late Mr. G. Smith from the collation of three separate copies.

The account by Berosus (see Appendix) was taken from the sacred books of Babylon, and is, therefore, of less value than the last-mentioned as being second-hand. The leading incidents in his narrative are similar to those contained in that of Genesis, but it terminates with the vanishing of Xisuthros (Noah) with his wife, daughter, and the pilot, after they had descended from the vessel and sacrificed to the gods, and with the return of his followers to Babylon. They restored it, and disinterred the writings left (by the pious obedience of Xisuthros) in Shurippak, the city of the Sun.

The great majority of mythologists appear to agree in assigning a much earlier date to the Deluge, than that which has hitherto been generally accepted as the soundest interpretation of the chronological evidence afforded by the Bible.

I have never had the advantage of finding the arguments on which this opinion is based, formulated in association, although, as incidentally referred to by various authors, they appear to be mainly deduced from the references made, both by sacred and profane writers, to large populations and important cities existing subsequently to the Deluge, but at so early a date, as to imply the necessity of a very long interval indeed between the general annihilation caused by the catastrophe, and the attainment of so high a pitch of civilization and so numerous a population as their existence implies.

Philologists at the same time declare that a similar inference may be drawn from the vast periods requisite for the divergence[Pg 119] of different languages from the parent stock,[97] while the testimony of the monuments and sculptures of ancient Egypt assures us that race distinction of as marked a type as occurs at the present day existed at so early a date[98] as to preclude the possibility of the derivation of present nations from the descendants of Noah within the limited period usually allowed.

These difficulties vanish, if we consider the Biblical and Chaldean narratives as records of a local catastrophe, of vast extent perhaps, and resulting in general but not total destruction, whose sphere may have embraced the greater portion of Western Asia, and perhaps Europe; but which, while wrecking the great centres of northern civilization, did not extend southwards to Africa and Egypt.[99] The Deluge legends indigenous in Mexico at the date of the Spanish conquest, combining the Biblical incidents of the despatch of birds from a vessel with the conception of four consecutive ages terminating in general destruction, and corresponding with the four ages or Yugas of India, supply in themselves the testimony of their probable origin from Asia. The cataclysm which caused what is called the Deluge may or may not have extended to America, probably not. In a future page[Pg 120] I shall enumerate a few of the resemblances between the inhabitants of the New World and of the Old indicative of their community of origin.

I refer the reader to M. Lenormant’s valuable essay[100] for his critical notice on the dual composition of the account in Genesis, derived as it appears to be from two documents, one of which has been called the Elohistic and the other the Jehovistic account, and for his comparison of it with the Chaldean narrative exhumed by the late Mr. George Smith from the Royal Library of Nineveh, the original of which is probably of anterior date to Moses, and nearly contemporaneous with Abraham.

I transcribe from M. Lenormant the text of the Chaldean narrative, because there are points in it which have not yet been commented on, and which, as it appears to me, assist in the solution of the Deluge story:—

This narrative agrees with the Biblical one in ascribing the inundation to a deluge of rain; but adds further details which connect it with intense atmospheric disturbance, similar to that which would be produced by a series of cyclones, or typhoons, of unusual severity and duration.

The intense gloom, the deluge of rain, terrific violence of wind, and the havoc both on sea and land, which accompany the normal cyclones occurring annually on the eastern coast of China, and elsewhere, and lasting but a few hours in any one locality, can hardly be credited, except by those who have experienced them. They are, however, sufficient to render explicable the general devastation and loss of life which would result from the duration of typhoons, or analogous tempests, of abnormal intensity, for even the limited period of six days and nights allotted in the text above, and much more so for that of one hundred and fifty days assigned to it in the Biblical account.

As illustrating this I may refer to a few calamities of recent date, which, though of trivial importance in comparison with the stupendous event under our consideration, bring home to us the terribly devastating power latent in the elements.

In Bengal, a cyclone on October 31, 1876, laid under water three thousand and ninety-three square miles, and destroyed two hundred and fifteen thousand lives.

A typhoon which raged in Canton, Hongkong, and Macao on September 22, 1874, besides much other destruction, destroyed several thousand people in Macao and the adjacent villages, the number of corpses in the town being so numerous that they had to be gathered in heaps and burnt with kerosene,[Pg 125] the population, without the Chinese who refused to lend assistance, being insufficient to bury them.

A tornado in Canton, on April 11, 1878, destroyed, in the course of a few minutes, two thousand houses and ten thousand lives.

In view of these few historical facts, which might be greatly supplemented, there appears to my mind to be no difficulty in believing that the continuance, during even only six days and six nights, of extraordinarily violent circular storms over a given area, would, especially if accompanied by so-called tidal or earthquake waves, be sufficient to wreck all sea-going and coasting craft, all river boats, inundate every country embraced within it to a very great extent, submerge each metropolis, city, or village, situate either in the deltas of rivers, or higher up their course, sap, unroof, batter down, and destroy all dwellings on the highlands, level forests, destroy all domestic animals, sweep away all cultivated soil, or bury it beneath an enormous thickness of débris, tear away the soil from the declivities of hills and mountains, destroy all shelter, and hence, by exposure, most of those wretched human beings who might have escaped drowning on the lower levels. The few survivors would with difficulty escape starvation, or death from subsequent exposure to the deadly malaria which would be liberated by the rooting up of the accumulated débris of centuries. This latter supposition appears to me to be directly indicated by the passage towards the end of the extract referring to famine, and to the devastation of the earth by Dibbara (the god of epidemics).

It is noticeable that in this account there is no suggestion of complete immersion, Khasisatra simply says there is not any continent (i.e. all the hill ranges within sight would stand out from the inundation like islands), while he speaks of his vessel being arrested by the mountain of Nizir, which must consequently have been above the surface of the water.

Neither is there any such close limitation of the number[Pg 126] of persons preserved, as in the Biblical story, for Khasisatra took with him his men-servants, maid-servants, and his young people, while the version transmitted by Berosus (see Appendix to this Chapter), states that Xisuthros embarked his wife, children, and his intimate friends, and that these latter subsequently founded numerous cities, built temples, and restored Babylon.

We have thus a fair nucleus for starting a fresh population in the Euphrates valley, which may have received accessions from the gradual concentration of scattered survivors, and from the enterprise of maritime adventurers from the African coast and elsewhere, possibly also nomads from the north, east, and west may have swelled the numbers, and a polyglot community have been established, which subsequently, through race distinctions, jealousies, and incompatibility of language, became again dismembered, as recorded in the history of the attempted erection of the Tower of Babel.

Confining our attention for the moment to this one locality, we may imagine that the young population would not be deterred by any apprehension of physical danger from reinhabiting such of the old cities as remained recognizable; since we see that men do not hesitate to recommence the building of cities overthrown by earthquake shocks almost before the last tremblings are over; or, as in the case of Herculaneum and Pompeii, within the range of volcanoes which may have already repeatedly vomited destroying floods of lava. Yet, in this instance, they would probably invest the calamity with a supernatural horror, and regard it, as the text expresses it, as a chastisement from the gods for their impiety. If this were so, the very memory of such cities would soon be lost, and with it all the treasures of art and literature which they contained.[110]

[Pg 127]The Hindu account is taken from the S’atapatha-Brâhmana, a work of considerable antiquity, being one of a series which Professor Max Müller believes to have been written eight hundred years before Christ. A literal translation of the legend, as given in this venerable work, is as follows:—

“To Manu in the morning they brought water for washing, just as they bring it for washing the hands. As he was using the water, a fish came into his hand. This (fish) said to him, ‘Preserve me, and I will save thee.’ (Manu said), ‘From what wilt thou preserve me?’ (The fish replied), ‘A flood will carry away all these creatures; from that I will preserve thee.’ (Manu said), ‘How is thy preservation (to be effected)?’ (The fish replied), ‘As long as we are small, there is great danger of our destruction; fish even devours fish: at first preserve me in a jar. When I grow too big for that, cut a trench, and preserve me in that. When I outgrow that, carry me to the sea; then I shall be beyond (the reach of) danger.’ Soon it became a great fish; it increased greatly. (The fish said), ‘In so many years the flood will come; make a ship and worship me. On the rising of the flood enter the ship, then I will preserve thee.’ Having preserved the fish he brought it to the sea. In the same year indicated by the fish (Manu) made a ship and worshipped the fish. When the flood rose he entered the ship; the fish swam near him: he attached the cable of the ship to his (the fish’s) horn. By this means the fish carried him over the northern mountain (Himalayas). (The fish said),[Pg 128] ‘I have preserved thee: fasten the ship to a tree. But lest the water cut thee off whilst thou art on the mountain, as fast as the water subsides thou wilt descend with it.’ Accordingly he descended (with the water); hence this became ‘Manu’s Descent’ from the northern mountain. The flood had carried away all those creatures, Manu alone was left. He being desirous of offspring performed a sacred rite; there also he offered a pâka-sacrifice. With clarified butter, coagulated milk, whey, and curds, he made an offering to the waters. In a year a female was produced; and she arose unctuous from the moisture, with clarified butter under her feet. Mitra and Varuna came to her; and said to her, ‘Who art thou?’ (She said), ‘The daughter of Manu.’ (They said), ‘Say (thou art) our (daughter).’ ‘No,’ she replied, ‘I am verily (the daughter) of him who begot me.’ They desired a share in her; she agreed and did not agree. She went on and came to Manu. Manu said to her, ‘Who art thou?’ ‘Thy daughter,’ she replied. ‘How, revered one, art thou my daughter?’ (She replied), ‘The offerings which thou hast cast upon the waters,—clarified butter, coagulated milk, whey, and curds,—from them thou hast generated me. I am a blessing. Do thou introduce me into the sacrifice. If thou wilt introduce me into the sacrifice, thou wilt be (blessed) with abundance of offspring and cattle. Whatever blessing thou shalt ask through me, will all be given to thee.’ Thus he introduced her in the middle of the sacrifice; for the middle of the sacrifice is that which comes between the final and the introductory prayers. He, desirous of offspring, meditating and toiling, went with her. By her he begot this (offspring), which is (called) ‘The offspring of Manu.’”

The correspondence of this legend with the Biblical and the other accounts is remarkable. We have the announcement of the Deluge, the construction of a ship, the preservation therein of a representative man, the settlement of[Pg 129] the vessel on a mountain, the gradual subsidence of the water, and the subsequent re-peopling of the world by the man thus preserved. The very scene of the cataclysm is in singular agreement with the other accounts; for the flood is said to carry Manu “over the northern mountain.” This places the scene of the Deluge in Central Asia, beyond the Himalaya mountains, and it proves that the legend embodies a genuine tradition brought by the progenitors of the Hindus from their primæval home, whence also radiated the Semitic and Sinitic branches of mankind.

There has been much discussion as to whether the great inundation which occurred in China during the reign of Yao is identical with that of Genesis or not. The close proximity of date lends a strong support to the assumption, and the supposition that the scene of the Biblical Deluge was local in its origin, but possibly widespread in its results, further favours the view.

As the rise of the Nile at Cairo is the only intimation which the inhabitants of Lower Egypt have of the tropical rains of Central Africa, so the inundation of the countries adjacent to the head waters of the great rivers of China may alone have informed the inhabitants of that country of serious elemental disturbances, only reaching, and in a modified form, their western frontier; and it may well have been that the deluge which caused a national annihilation in Western Asia was only a national calamity in the eastern portion of it.

This view is strengthened if we consider that Chinese history has no record of any deluge prior to this, which could hardly have been the case had the Chinese migrated from their parent stock subsequent to an event of such importance; assuming that it had occurred, as there seems valid reason to suppose, within the limits of written history. The anachronism between the two dates assigned by Chinese authors (2297 B.C.)[Pg 130] and the Jewish historian’s calculation (2104 B.C.) is only one hundred and ninety-three years, and this is not so great but that we may anticipate its being explained at some future date. Strauchius’ computation of 2293 B.C. for the date of the Biblical deluge is within four years, and Ussher’s (2349-2348) within fifty-one of the Chinese one. The reason for supposing the deluge of Yao to be historically true, will be inferred from the arguments borrowed from Mr. Legge on the subject of the Shu-king, in another portion of this volume. It is detailed in the great Chinese work on history, the T‘ung-këen-kang-muh, by Choo He, of which De Mailla’s History of China professes to be a translation.

This states that the inundation happened in the sixty-first year of the reign of Yao (2297 B.C.), and that the waters of the Yellow River mingled with those of the Ho-hi-ho and the Yangtsze, ruining all the agricultural country, which was converted into one vast sea.

But neither in the Bamboo Books nor in the Shu-king do we find that any local phenomena of importance occurred, with the exception of the inundation. In fact, the first work is singularly silent on the subject, and simply says that in his sixty-first year Yao ordered K‘wan of Ts‘ung to regulate the Ho, and degraded him in his sixty-ninth for being unable to effect it, as we learn elsewhere.

The Shu is more explicit. The Emperor, consulting one of his chief officials on the calamity, says: “O chief of the four mountains, destructive in their overflow are the waters of the inundation. In their vast extent they embrace the mountains and overtop the hills, threatening the heavens with their floods, so that the inferior people groan and murmur.”

According to De Mailla’s translation, K‘wan laboured uselessly for nine years, the whole country was overrun with briars and brushwood, the people had almost forgotten the art of cultivating the ground—they were without the necessary[Pg 131] seeds—and wild animals and birds destroyed all their attempts at agriculture.

In this extremity Yao consulted Shun, his subsequent successor, who recommended the appointment of Yu, the son of K‘wan, in his father’s place.

Yu was more successful, and describes his labours as follows:—

“The inundating waters seemed to assail the heavens, and in their vast extent embraced the mountains and over-topped the hills, so that people were bewildered and overwhelmed. I mounted my four conveyances,[111] and all along the hills hewed down the woods, at the same time, along with Yih, showing the multitudes how to get flesh to eat.

“I also opened passages for the streams throughout the nine provinces, and conducted them to the sea. I deepened, moreover, the channels and canals, and conducted them to the streams, at the same time, along with Tseih, sowing grain, and showing the multitudes how to procure the food of toil in addition to flesh meat.”

Yu’s success is simply chronicled in the Bamboo Books as, “In his seventy-fifth year Yu, the Superintendent of Works, regulated the Ho.”

There was a legend extant in China in the times of Pinto, which he gives in his book, of the original Chinese having migrated from a region in the West, and, following the course of the Ho in boats, finally settling in the country adjacent to Pekin. That some such event took place is not unlikely. Its acceptance would explain much that is difficult.

The pioneers, pushing through a country infested with[Pg 132] hostile aborigines, who would immediately after their passage close up the road of communication behind them—pioneers who may have been fugitives from their kindred through political commotions, or expelled by successful enemies—would have a further barrier against return, even were they disposed to attempt it, in the strong opposing current which had borne them safely to their new homes.

It is probable that such a journey would form an entirely new departure for their history, and that a few generations later it would resemble a nebulous chronological zone, on the far side of which could be dimly seen myths of persons and events representing in reality the history of the not very remote ancestors from whom they had become separated. The early arrivals would have been too much occupied with establishing themselves in their new dominions to be able to give much attention to keeping records or preserving other than the most utilitarian branches of knowledge which they had brought with them. The volumes of their ancestors were probably, like the clay tablets of the royal library of Babylon, not of a portable nature, at all events to fugitives, whose knowledge would, therefore, be rather of a practical than of a cultivated nature, and this would soon become limited for a while to their chiefs and religious instructors, the exigencies of a colony menaced with danger prohibiting any general acquisition or extension of learning.

In this way we can account for the community of the fables relating to the remote antiquity of the Chinese with those of Chaldean and Indian mythology, and with the highly civilized administration and astrological knowledge possessed by Yao and Shun as herediton of Fuh Hi, &c.

We can account for their possession of accurate delineations of the dragon, which would form an important decoration of the standards and robes of ceremony which were[Pg 133] companions of their flight, while their descriptions of the animal and its qualities would have already entered into the realms of fanciful exaggeration and myth.

The dragon of Yao and Shun’s time, and of Yu’s time was, in my opinion, an aquatic creature, an alligator; but the dragon of their ancestors was a land lizard, which may even have existed down to the time of the great cataclysm which we call the Deluge, and the memory of which is best preserved in the Chinese drawings which have been handed down from remote antiquity, and have travelled from the great Central Asian centre, which was once alike its habitat and that of their ancestors. Its history may perhaps become evolved when the great store of book knowledge contained in the cuneiform tablets, representing the culture of the other branch of their great ethnological family, has been more extensively explored.

Geologists of the present day have a great objection to the bringing in of cataclysms to account for any considerable natural changes, but this one I conceive to have been of so stupendous a nature as to have been quite capable of both extinguishing a species and confusing the recollection of it. The mere fact of the story of the dragon having survived such a period argues greatly, in my mind, for the reality of its previous existence.

Extending our consideration, we are brought face to face with another very important fact, namely, that a large proportion of the human race content themselves with ephemeral structures. Thus, for example, the Chinese neither have now, nor at any time have had, any great architectural works. “The finest building in China is a reproduction, on a large scale, of the tent; and the wooden construction is always imitated where the materials are stone or marble. The supports, often magnificent logs, brought, at great expense, specially from the Straits, represent tent-poles; and the roof has always the peaked ends and the curves that recall the[Pg 134] drooping canvas of the marquee. Architecture evidently died early; it never had life enough to assimilate the new material which it found when it migrated into China Proper. The yamen is a slightly glorified cottage; the temple is an improved yamen. Sculpture is equally neglected in this (æsthetically) benighted country. The human form is as dignified and sightly, to Chinese eyes at least, in China as in the West; but it never seems to have occurred, throughout so many hundreds of years, to any Chinaman to perpetuate it in marble or bronze, or to beautify a city with statues of its deities or great men.”[112]

What holds good of the Chinese now, probably holds good of their ancestors and the race from which they parted company in Central Asia five thousand years ago, when they pierced their way eastwards through the savage aborigines of Thibet and Mongolia, pushing aside tribes which closed in again behind them, so as to intercept their return or communication with their mother country—a country which may have been equally careless of elaborating stupendous and permanent works of architecture such as other nations glory in possessing, and which, like the pyramids of Egypt and of Central America, stand forth for thousands of years as landmarks of the past.

We must, therefore, not be surprised if we do not immediately discover the vestiges of the people of ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand years ago. With an ephemeral architecture (which, as we have seen, is all that a highly populous and long civilized race actually possess), the sites of vast cities may have become entirely lost to recollection in a few thousands of years from natural decay, and how much more so would this be the case if, as we may reasonably argue, minor cataclysms have intervened, such as local inundations, earthquakes, deposition of volcanic ashes from even distant[Pg 135] sources, the spread of sandy deserts, destruction of life by exceptionally deadly pestilence, by miasma, or by the outpour of sulphurous fumes.

We have shown in another chapter how the process of extinction of species continues to the present day, and from the nature of this process we may deduce that the number of species which became extinct during the four or five thousand years preceding the era of exact history must have been considerable.

The less remarkable of these would expire unnoticed; and only those distinguished by their size, ferocity, and dangerous qualities, or by some striking peculiarity, would leave their impress on the mythology of their habitat. Their exact history would be lost as the cities of their epoch crumbled away, and during the passage through dark ages of the people of their period and their descendants, and by conquest or catastrophes such as we have referred to elsewhere; while the slow dispersion which appears to have obtained among all nations would render the record of their qualities the more confused as the myth which embalmed it spread in circling waves farther and farther from its original centre.

Amongst the most fell destroyer both of species and of their history must have been the widespread, although not universal, inundation known as the Biblical Deluge; a deluge which we think the evidence given in the foregoing pages, and gathered from divers nations, justifies us in believing to have really taken place, and not to be, as mythologists claim, a mere ether myth. As to its date, allowance being made for trifling errors, there is no reason for disputing the computation of Jewish chronology, especially as that is closely confirmed by the entirely independent testimony of Chinese history.

This interposes a vast barrier between us and the knowledge of the past, a barrier round which we pass for a short[Pg 136] distance at either end when we study the history of the two great streams of nations which have diverged from a common centre, the Chinese towards the East, the Accadian Chaldæans and Semites towards the West; a barrier which we may hope to surmount when we are able to discover and explore the lost cities of that common centre, with the treasures of art and literature which they must undoubtedly possess.

[Pg 137]

ON THE TRANSLATION OF MYTHS BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW WORLD.

Intercourse between various parts of the old world and the new was probably much more intimate even three or four thousand years ago than we, or at all events our immediate ancestors, have credited. The Deluge Tablets referred to in another chapter contain items from which we gather that sea-going vessels, well equipped and with skilled pilots, were in vogue in the time of Noah, and there is wanting no better proof of their seaworthiness than the fact that his particular craft was able to weather a long-continued tempest which would probably have sunk the greater part of those which keep the seas at the present time. The older Chinese classics make constant allusions to maritime adventure, and the discovery by Schliemann in ancient Troy[113] of vases with[Pg 138] Chinese inscriptions confirms the notion that, at that date at least, commercial exchange was effected between these two widely-distant countries, either directly or by transfer through different entrepôts.

A more striking example, and one which carries us back to a still earlier epoch, will be afforded if the reported discovery of Chinese vestigia in Egyptian tombs is confirmed by further investigation.

The fleets of King Solomon penetrated at least to India, and detached squadrons[114] probably coasted from island to island along the Malay archipelago; while to descend by gradation to modern times, we may quote the circumnavigation of Africa by Hanno the Carthaginian,[115] the discovery[Pg 139] of America prior to Columbus by the Chinese in the fifth century, from the Asiatic side, and by the Norsemen under Leif Ericsson in the year 1001, from the European; and the anticipation of the so-called discoveries of Van Diemen and Tasman by the voyages of Arab and other navigators, from whose records El Edrisi,[116] in the twelfth century, was enabled to indicate the existence of New Guinea, and, I think, of the northern coast of Australia. For although the identity with Mexico of the country called Fu-sang, visited prior to A.D. 499[Pg 140] by the Buddhist priest Hoei-shiu, has been disputed, yet the arguments in favour of it seem to preponderate. These were adduced primarily by Deguignes, and subsequently by C. F. Neumann, Leland and others, and are based on the facts stated in the short narrative in regard to distance, description of the Maguey plant, or great aloe,[117] the absence of iron, and abundance of copper, gold, and silver.

While there can be little question that the islands and land of Wák Wák are respectively some of the Sunda islands, New Guinea, and the adjacent portion of Australia, it does not appear to have struck any of the commentators on this question that the name “islands of Wák Wák” may be assumed to signify simply “Bird of Paradise islands.” Wallace, in his Malay Archipelago, emphatically remarks that in the interior of the forests of New Guinea the most striking sound is the cry “Wok Wok” of the great Bird of Paradise, and we may therefore reasonably speculate on the bird having been known as the Wok Wok, and the islands as the Wok Wok islands, just as we ourselves use the imitative names of Cuckoo, Morepork, or Hoopoe for birds, or Snake islands, Ape Hill, &c. for places.

This view is to an extent strengthened by Wák Wák being the home of the lovely maiden captured by Hasan (in the charming story of Hasan of El Basrah in the Arabian Nights), after she had divested herself of her bird skin, and to which he had to make so weary a pilgrimage from island to island, and sea to sea, in search of her after her escape from him. It is evident that among the wonders related by navigators of islands so remote and unfrequented, not the least would be the superavian loveliness of the Birds of Paradise, and from the exaggerated narratives of travellers may have[Pg 141] arisen the beautiful fable incorporated in the Arabian Nights, as well as that other recorded by Eesa or Moosa the son of El Mubarak Es Serafee.[118] “Here, too, is a tree that bears fruit like women with bodies, eyes, limbs, &c. like those of women; they have beautiful faces, and are suspended by the hair; they come forth from integuments like large leathern bags; and when they feel the air and the sun they cry out ‘Wák Wák’ until their hair is cut, and when it is cut they die; and the people of these islands understand their cry, and augur ill from it.” This, after all, is not more absurd than the story of the origin of the barnacle duck, extant and believed in Europe until within the last century or so.

El Edrisi, who, in common with the geographers of the period, believed in a great antarctic continent, after describing Sofala with its mines of gold, abundance of iron, &c., jumps at once to the mainland of Wák Wák, which he describes as possessing two towns situated on a great gulf (Carpentaria?), and a savage population.[119]

The two small towns may very well have been encampments of the aborigines, or trading stations of Malay merchants.

It may be noted that this identification of Wák Wák is in opposition to the view entertained by some commentators; for example, Professor de Goeje of Leyden has recently identified the Silâ islands (which had previously been [Pg 142]considered as being Japan) with Corea, and Wák Wák with Japan; but this does not agree with El Edrisi’s account of the people being black, unclothed, and living on fish, shell, and tortoises (turtles), without gold, commerce, ships, or beasts of burden. Elsewhere El Edrisi says the women are entirely naked, and only wear combs of ivory ornamented with mother of pearl.

Lane thinks the Arabs applied the name of Wák Wák to all the islands with which they were acquainted on the east and south-east of Borneo. Es Serafee, beside the details given in a previous note, also says, “From one of these islands of Wák Wák there issueth a great torrent like pitch, which floweth into the sea, and the fish are burnt thereby, and float upon the water.” And Hasan, in the story quoted above, has, in order to reach the last of the seven islands of Wák Wák, to pass over the third island, the land of the Jinn, “where by reason of the vehemence of the cries of the Jánn, and the rising of the flames about, of the sparks and the smoke from their mouths, and the harsh sounds from their throats, and their insolence, they will obstruct the way before us,” &c. &c. I think that in each of these latter instances, the volcanic islands of Java, and other of the Sunda islands are indicated.

The information in our possession is as yet too meagre to permit of our indulging in any profitable consideration of the sources from which originated those nations which peopled America during the very early pre-traditional ages, of which geological evidence is accumulating daily. In fact, the theories on this point have advanced so little beyond the limits of speculation that I feel it unnecessary to do more than quote one of them, as summarized in the ensuing extract. “Professor Flowers, in remarking upon recent palæontological investigations, which prove that an immense number of forms of terrestrial animals that were formerly supposed to be peculiar to the Old World are abundant in[Pg 143] the New; and that many, such as the horse, rhinoceros, and the camel, are more numerous in species and varieties in the latter, infers that the means of land communication must have been very different to what it is now, and that it is quite as likely that Asiatic man may have been derived from America as the reverse, or both may have had their source in a common centre, in some region of the earth now covered with sea.”[120]

The most commonly accepted theory with regard to the origin of those who have peopled the American continent, within the limits of tradition, is that they are of Asiatic descent, and that the migration has been effected in comparatively recent times by way of Behring Straits, and supplemented by chance passages from Southern Asia by way of the Polynesian islands, or from the north of Africa, across the Atlantic. There are, however, some who elaborate Professor Flowers’ suggestion, and contend, in opposition to the more generally received opinion, that the peopling of the present countries of the Old World has in fact been effected from the New.

For instance, a proficient Aztec scholar, Senor Altamirano[121] of Mexico, argues that the Aztecs were a race, originating in the unsubmerged parts of America, as old as the Asiatics themselves, and that Asia may in fact have been peopled from Mexico; while Mr. E. J. Elliott, in quoting him, says: “From the ruins recently found, the most northern of any yet discovered, the indications of improved architecture, the work of different ages, can be traced in a continual chain to Mexico, when they culminate in massive and imposing structures, thus giving some proof by circumstantial evidence to Altamirano’s reasoning.”

[Pg 144]Again, “Dr. Rudolf Falb[122] discovers that the language spoken by the Indians in Peru and Bolivia, especially in Quichua and Aymara, exhibits the most astounding affinities with the Semitic languages, and particularly with the Arabic—in which tongue Dr. Falb himself has been skilled from his boyhood. Following up the links of this discovery, he has first found a connecting link with the Aryan roots, and, secondly, has arrived face to face with the surprising revelation that the Semitic roots are universally Aryan. The common stems of all the variants are found in their purest condition in Quichua and Aymara, from which fact Dr. Falb derives the conclusion that the high plains of Peru and Bolivia must be regarded as the point of exit of the present human race.”

On the other hand, Mr. E. B. Tylor, in the course of an article upon Backgammon among the Aztecs,[123] which he argues must have reached them from Asia, and very likely through Mexico, points out that the myths and religion of the North American tribes contain many fancies well known to Asia, which they were hardly likely to have hit upon independently, and which they had not learned from white men: “Such as the quaint belief that the world is a monstrous tortoise floating on the waters; and an idea which the Sioux have in common with the Tartars, that it is sinful to chop or poke with a sharp instrument the burning log on the fire.” He quotes Alexander von Humboldt as having “argued years ago that the Mexicans did and believed things which were at once so fanciful and so like the fancies of the Asiatics that there must have been communication. Would two nations,” he asks, “have taken independently to forming calendars of days and years by repeating and combining cycles of animals, such as tiger, dog, ape, hare, &c.? Would they have [Pg 145]developed independently similar astrological fancies about these signs governing the periods they began, and being influential each over a particular limb or organ of men’s bodies? Would they, again, have evolved separately out of this consciousness the myths of the world and its inhabitants having, at the end of several successive periods, been destroyed by elemental catastrophes?”

He adds, “It may very well have been the same agency which transported to Mexico the art of bronze-making, the computation of time by periods of dogs and apes, the casting of nativity, and the playing of backgammon.”

Then, again, we have the theory of those, now indeed few in number, who hold that the present Indian inhabitants of America were a distinctly indigenous race. Lord Kaimes, in his Sketches of the History of Man, says, “I venture still further, which is to conjecture that America has not been peopled from any part of the Old World.” Voltaire had preceded him in this line of argument, relying on ridicule rather than on reason. “The same persons that readily admit that the beavers of Canada are of Canadian origin, assert that the men must have come there in boats, and that Mexico must have been peopled by some of the descendants of Magog.”[124]

Missionaries of various sects have endeavoured to identify the Red man with the lost ten tribes. Adair conceived the language of the Southern Indians to be a corruption of Hebrew, and the Jesuit Lafitan, in his history of the savages of America, maintained that the Caribee language was radically Hebrew.

Mr. John Josselyn,[125] in an account of the Mohawks, states that their language is a dialect of the Tartars, and Dr. Williamson, in his history of North Carolina, considers it[Pg 146] can hardly be questioned that the Indians of South America are descended from a class of the Hindoos in the southern part of Asia.

Amongst others, Captain Don Antonio del Rio, who described the ruins of an ancient city in Guatemala, believed that they were the relics of a civilization founded by Phœnician colonists who had crossed the Atlantic ocean; and yet another theory is propounded by Mr. Knox,[126] who considers the extinct Guanches, formerly inhabiting the Canary and Cape de Verde islands, to have closely resembled the Egyptians in certain particulars. He goes on to observe, “Now cross the Atlantic, and in a nearly parallel zone of the earth, or at least in one not far removed, we stumble all at once upon the ruined cities of Copan and Central America. To our astonishment, notwithstanding the breadth of the Atlantic, vestiges, of a nature not to be doubted, of a thoroughly Egyptian character reappear—hieroglyphics, monolithic temples, pyramids; who erected these monuments on the American continent? Perhaps at some remote period the continents were not so far apart, they might have been united, thus forming a zone or circle of the earth occupied by a pyramid-building people.”

It is not impossible that all of these theories may be correct, and that numerous migrations may have been made at various periods by different nations, the most facile would of course be that from North-Eastern Asia by way of the Aleutian islands, for, as the author of Fu-sang well remarks, a sailor in an open boat might cross from Asia to America by that route in summer time, and hardly ever be out of sight of land; and this in a part of the sea generally abounding in fish, as is proved by the fishermen who inhabit many of these islands, on which fresh water is always to be found. But it is more than likely that the direct route,[Pg 147] from the islands of Japan to the coast of California or Mexico, was also occasionally followed, voluntarily or involuntarily, by mariners impelled by enterprise, religious motives, or stress of weather.

Colonel B. Kennon, as an evidence of the possibility of junks performing long ocean voyages, adduces the instance of a Japanese junk picked up by an American whaler two thousand three hundred miles south-east of Japan, and of others which had drifted among the Aleutian islands nearly half-way over to San Francisco; and in noting the resemblance and probable co-origin of the Sandwich Islanders with the Japanese, he adverts to the “ancient and confirmed habit of both Japanese and Chinese of taking women to sea with them, or of traders keeping their families on board, which would fully account for the population of those islands,” or, to extend the argument, of points on the American continent. The Jewish element might easily be introduced through this channel, for the occasional admixture of Jewish blood both among the Chinese and Japanese is so strongly marked, as to have induced some authors to contend for the absolute descent of the latter people at least from Jewish parentage.

It must also be remembered that the waters of both the North and South Pacific are peculiarly favourable to the navigation of small craft, and that Captain Bligh, after the mutiny on board the Bounty, was able to safely perform a journey of two thousand miles in an open boat; while all the islands both in North and South Polynesia must necessarily have been gradually peopled by the drifting over the ocean of stray canoes.

Again, as the tradition of the existence of a large continent west of the African coast was extant amongst the Egyptian priests long before the days of Solon, and, as I shall show hereafter, among the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians, it is, I think, more than probable that both Phœnician[Pg 148] and Egyptian mariners, either acting under a Royal Commission, or influenced by mercantile considerations, would endeavour to discover it, and, as in the case of Columbus, would have no difficulty in stretching across the Atlantic before a fair trade wind, though they might be less successful than him on their return.

The possibility of the existence of a large island or continent, midway between the Old and New World, within the traditional period, is included in the important question, which is still sub judice amongst geologists, whether the general disposition of land and water has or has not been variable during past ages. Sir Charles Lyell held the first view, and was of opinion[127] that complete alternations of the positions of continent and ocean had repeatedly occurred in geological time.

The opposite idea has been suggested at various dates by eminent authorities, suggested rather than sustained by elaborate arguments, until recently, when the question has been re-examined by Mr. Wallace and Dr. Carpenter.

The former, in that chapter of island life devoted to the permanence of continents, dwells forcibly upon Dr. Darwin’s inference from the paucity of oceanic islands affording fragments of either Palæozoic or Secondary formations “that perhaps during the Palæozoic and Secondary periods neither continents nor continental islands existed where our oceans now extend; for, had they existed, Palæozoic and Secondary formations would in all probability have been accumulated from sediment derived from their wear and tear; and these would have been at least partially upheaved by the oscillations of level which must have intervened during these enormously long periods. If, then, we may infer anything from these facts, we may infer that, where our oceans now extend, oceans have extended from the remotest period of which we[Pg 149] have any record; and, on the other hand, that where continents now exist, large tracts of land have existed, subjected no doubt to great oscillations of level, since the Cambrian period.”

I am not aware whether Dr. Darwin has expressed himself more authoritatively on this point in later works, or whether the whole question has been discussed in detail otherwise than by Mr. Wallace in the chapter referred to, in which he quotes what must, I think, after all, only be taken in the light of a suggestion as an auxiliary to the powerful arguments which he himself has enunciated in favour of a similar conclusion. There is no doubt that the paucity of any but volcanic or coralline islands throughout the greatest extent of existing oceans has a certain but not absolute significance, so far as recent geological epochs are concerned.

There is another line of reasoning, debated by Mr. Wallace, based on the formation of the Palæozoic and Secondary strata from the waste of broken continents and islands occupying generally the site of the existing continents, and separated by insignificant distances of inland sea or extensions from the adjacent oceans. It is soundly based on their lithological structure, as generally indicative of a littoral and shallow water origin, but it seems to me to be only positive so far as it shows that, throughout geological time, some land has existed somewhere within the limits of the present upheaval, and simply negative as to what may or may not have been the condition of what are now the great ocean spaces of the world. Indeed, it would at first sight seem only reasonable to infer, that the very depressions which caused the inundations of Europe and Asia, during the deposition of any important formation, would imply a corresponding elevation elsewhere, in order that the same relative areas of land and water might be maintained.

This view has, however, been reduced in its proportions by Dr. Carpenter, who has levelled the results of the recent[Pg 150] researches by the Challenger expedition against the advocates of the intermutations of land and ocean, and, in pursuing another line of reasoning from Mr. Wallace, has estimated the solid contents of ocean and land above the sea-level respectively, as bearing the proportion of thirty-six to one. So that, supposing all the existing land of the globe to sink down to the sea-level, this subsidence would be balanced by the elevation of only one thirty-sixth part of the existing ocean floor from its present depth to the same level.

It must be admitted that the balance of argument was until lately considerably against the former existence of the country of Atlantis, whose ghostly outlines, however, we could almost imagine to be sketched out by faint contours in the chart illustrative of the North Atlantic portion of the Challenger investigations. But it was not so overwhelming as to entitle us to ignore the story entirely as a fable. I do not conceive it impossible that some centrally situated and perhaps volcanic island may once have existed, sufficiently important to have served as the basis of simple legends, which, under the enchantment of distance and time became metamorphosed and enriched.

Mr. A. R. Grote suggests that it is simply a myth founded on the observation of low-lying clouds in a sun-flushed sky, which gave the appearance like islands on a golden sea.

Mr. Donelly, on the other hand, in a very exhaustive and able volume, contends first, that Atlantis actually existed, and secondly, that it was the origin of our present civilization, that its kings are represented by the gods of Greek mythology, and that its destruction originated our Deluge story.

The well-known story is contained in an epic of Plato, of which two fragments only remain, found in two dialogues (the Timæus and the Critias). Critias is represented as telling an old-world story, handed down in his family from[Pg 151] his great-grandfather Dropidas, who had heard it from Solon, who had it from the Egyptian priests of Sais.[129]

Ælian, again, contains an extract from Theophrastus, who wrote in the time of Alexander the Great, which can hardly imply anything else than an acquaintance with America. It is in the form of a dialogue between Midas the Phrygian and Silenus.

The latter informs Midas that Europe, Asia, and Africa were but islands surrounded on all sides by sea, but that there was a continent situated beyond these which was of immense dimensions, even without limits, and that it was so luxuriant as to produce animals of prodigious magnitude. That there men grew to double the size of themselves, and that they lived to a far greater age, that they had many cities, and their usages and laws were different from their own; that in one city there was more than a million of inhabitants, and that gold and silver were there in vast quantities.

Diodorus Siculus gives an account of what could only have been the mainland of America, or one of the West Indian islands; it is as follows.

“After cursorily mentioning the islands within the Pillars of Hercules, let us treat of those further ones in the open ocean, for towards Africa there is a very large island in the great ocean sea, situated many days’ sail from Libya towards the west.

“Its soil is fruitful, a great part rising in mountains, but still with no scarcity of level expanse, which excels in pleasantness, for navigable rivers flow through and irrigate it. Gardens abound, stored with various trees and numerous orchards, intersected by pleasant streams.

“The towns are adorned with sumptuous edifices, and[Pg 152] drinking taverns, beautifully situated in gardens, are everywhere met with; as the convenient situation of these largely invites to pleasure, they are frequented during the summer season.

“The mountain region possesses numerous and large forests, and various kinds of fruitful trees. It everywhere presents deep valleys and springs suitable for mountain recreations.

“Indeed the whole of this island is watered with springs of sweet water, which gives rise not merely to the pleasure of its inhabitants, but also to an accession of their health and strength.

“Hunting furnishes all kinds of game, the abundance of which in their banquets leaves nothing to be desired.

“Moreover, the sea which washes against this island abounds with fish, since the ocean, from its nature everywhere, affords a variety of fish.

“Finally, the temperature is very genial, from which it results that the trees bear fruit throughout the greater part of the year.

“Lastly, it excels so much in felicity as to resemble the habitations of the gods rather than of men.

“Formerly it was unknown, on account of the remoteness of its situation from the rest of the world, but accident disclosed its position. The Phœnicians have been in the habit of making frequent passages, for the sake of commerce, from the very oldest dates, from whence it resulted that they were the founders of many of the African colonies, and of not a few of those European ones situated to the west; and when they had yielded to the idea which had entered their minds, of enriching themselves greatly, they passed out beyond the Pillars of Hercules into the sea which is called the Ocean, and they first founded a city called Gades, on the European peninsula, and near the straits of the Pillars [of Hercules] in which, when others had flocked to it, they instituted a[Pg 153] sumptuous temple to Hercules. This temple has been held in the utmost veneration both in ancient times and during later periods up to the present day; therefore many Romans of illustrious nobility and reputation pronounce their vows to that god, and happily discharge their obligations.

“The Phœnicians for this reason continued their exploration beyond the Pillars, and when they were sailing along the African coast, being carried off by a tempest to a distant part of the ocean, were driven by the violence of the storm, after a period of many days, to the island of which I have spoken, and having first acquainted themselves with its nature and pleasing characters, introduced it to the notice of others. On that account, the Tyrrhenians, also obtaining the empire of the sea, determined on a colony there, but the Carthaginians prevented them, both because they feared lest many of their citizens, being allured by the advantages of the island, might migrate there, and because they wished to have a refuge prepared for themselves against a sudden stroke of fortune, if by chance the Carthaginian Republic should receive any deadly blow, for they contemplated that they would be able, while yet powerful at sea, to transport themselves and their families to the island unknown to the victors.”[130]

Among the many proofs which may be cited of community of origin between the Asiatics and certainly a large proportion of the American population is the practice of scalping enemies, quoted by Herodotus as prevalent amongst the Scythians, and universally existing amongst all tribes of North American Indians; the discovery of jade ornaments amongst Mexican remains, and the general esteem in which that material is held by the Chinese; the use of the Quipos among the Peruvians, and the assertion in the I-king, or Book[Pg 154] of Change, one of the oldest of the Chinese Classics, that “The ancients knotted cords to express their meaning, but in the next age the sages renounced the custom and adopted a system of written characters;”[131] the discovery of the meander pattern among Peruvian relics, and the common use of this ornamentation on Chinese vases and tripods, at dates long preceding the Trojan era, in which it is commonly supposed to have originated; the similarity of the features of Chinese, and other Mongols, with those of various Indian tribes; the resemblance of masks and various other remains to Chinese patterns discovered recently by Desirée de Charnay in Central America; and the reserve and stolid demeanour of both races. A good illustration of this is afforded by the story told of the celebrated statesman Sieh Ngan (A.D. 320-385), in Mayer’s Chinese Reader’s Manual; it could be imagined to apply to any Indian sachem.

It is related of Sieh Ngan that, at the time when the capital was menaced by the advancing forces of Fukien, he sat one day over a game of chess with a friend, when a despatch was handed to him, which he calmly read and then continued the game. On being asked what the news was, he replied: “It is merely an announcement that my young people have beaten the enemy.” The intelligence was, in fact, of the decisive rout of the invaders by the army under his brother Sieh She and his nephew Sieh Hüan. Only when retired within the seclusion of his private apartments did he give himself up to an outburst of joy. The very expression “my young people” is the equivalent of “my young men” which the Indian chief would have employed.

A singular custom prevails among the Petivaces, an Indian[Pg 155] tribe of Brazil.[132] “When they are delivered of a child, and ought to have all the ceremony and attendance proper to a lying-in woman, the husband presently lies down in his hammock (as if he had been brought to bed himself), and all his wives and neighbours come about and serve him. This is a pleasant fancy indeed, that the woman must take all the pains to bring the child into the world, and then the man lie down and gruntle upon it.”

Compare with this the account given by Marco Polo of the same custom prevalent among the Miau-tze, or aborigines of China, as distinguished from their present occupants. Their reduction to submission is recorded in the early works on the country.

“Proceeding five days’ journey, in a westerly direction from Karazan, you enter the province of Kardandan belonging to the dominion of the great Khan, and of which the principal city is named Vochang (probably Yung-chang in the western part of Yunnan). These people have the following singular usage. As soon as a woman has been delivered of a child, and rising from her bed, has washed and swathed the infant, her husband immediately takes the place she has left, has the child beside him, and nurses it for forty days. In the meantime the friends and relations of the family pay to him their visits of congratulation; whilst the woman attends to the business of the house, carries victuals and drink to the husband in his bed, and suckles the infant at his side.”[133]

We find a reference in Hudibras to this grotesque practice, in which it is imputed, but erroneously, to the Chinese themselves, and it reappears on the western side of Europe, among those singular people the Basques, who have their[Pg 156] own especial Deluge tradition, and use a language which, according to Humboldt, approaches some of the dialects of the North American Indians more nearly than any other. They profess to trace the custom up to Aïtor or Noah, whose wife bore a son to him when they were in exile, and, being afraid to stay by herself for fear of being discovered and murdered, bade her husband take care of the child, while she went out to search for food and firing.

The change of name which prevails among the Chinese and Japanese in both sexes, at different periods of life, is also found upon the other continent,[134] where males and females when they come to years of discretion do not retain the names they had when young, and, if they do any remarkable deed, assume a new name upon it.

Less importance is to be attached to the coincidence of sun worship, Deluge tradition, and the preservation of ancestral ashes.[135] These, though probably not, might have been indigenous; but we can hardly conceive this of serpent worship, which Mr. Fergusson suggests arose among a people of Turanian origin, from which it spread to every country or land of the Old World in which a Turanian settled. The coincidence between the serpent mounds of North America and such an one as is described by M. Phené in Argyllshire[136] is remarkable; and still more so is that between the Mexican myth of the fourfold destruction of the world by fire and water, with those current among the Egyptians and that of the four ages in the Hindu mythology.

Another coincidence, although perhaps of minor value, will be seen in the dresses of the soldiers of China and Mexico, as noted in the passages annexed. “Thus, in our[Pg 157] own time, the Chinese soldiers wear a dress resembling the tiger skin, and the cap, which nearly covers the face, is formed to represent the head of a tiger”;[137] while the Mexican warriors, according to Spanish historians, “wore enormous wooden helmets in the form of a tiger’s head, the jaws of which were armed with the teeth of this animal.”[138]

Mr. C. Wolcott-Brooks, in an address to the California Academy of Science, has pointed out that, according to Chinese annals, Tai Ko Fo Kee, the great stranger-king, ruled the kingdom of China, and that he is always represented in pictures with two small horns like those associated with the representation of Moses. He and his successors are said to have introduced into China “picture writing” like that in use in Central America at the time of the Spanish conquest. Now there has been found at Copan, in Central America, a figure strikingly like the Chinese symbol of Fo Kee, with his two horns. “Either,” says Mr. Brooks, “one people learned from the other, or both acquired their forms from a common source.”

In reviewing all these cases we cannot fail to perceive that early and frequent communication must have taken place between the two worlds, and that the myths of one have probably been carried with them by the migrants to the other.

[Pg 158]

Fig. 32.—Mural Tablet, Temple of Longevity, Canton.

[Pg 159]

THE DRAGON.

The dragon is defined in the Encyclopædia Britannica for 1877 as “the name given by the ancients to a huge winged lizard or serpent (fabulous).”

Fig. 33.—Draco, or
Flying Lizard from
Singapore.
(After N. B. Dennys.)

The text also goes on to state that “they (the ancients) regarded it as the enemy of mankind, and its overthrow is made to figure among the greatest exploits of the gods and heroes of heathen mythology. A dragon watched the gardens of the Hesperides, and its destruction formed one of the seven labours of Hercules. Its existence does not seem to have been called in question by the older naturalists; figures of the dragon appearing in the works of Gesner and Aldrovandus, and even specimens of the monster, evidently formed artificially of portions of different animals,[Pg 160] have been exhibited.” A reference is also made to the genus Draco, comprising eighteen specimens of winged lizards, all small, and peculiar to India and the islands of the Malay archipelago.

Such is the meagre account of a creature which figures in the history and mythology of all nations, which in its different forms has been worshipped as a god, endowed with beneficent and malevolent attributes, combatted as a monster, or supposed to have possessed supernatural power, exercised alternately for the benefit or chastisement of mankind.

Its existence is inseparably wedded to the history, from the most remote antiquity, of a nation which possesses connected and authentic memoirs stretching uninterruptedly from the present day far into the remote past; on which the belief in its existence has been so strongly impressed, that it retains its emblem in its insignia of office, in its ornamentation of furniture, utensils, and dwellings, and commemorates it annually in the competition of dragon boats, and the processions of dragon images; which believes, or affects to believe, in its continued existence in the pools of the deep, and the clouds of the sky; which propitiates it with sacrifices and ceremonies, builds temples in its honour, and cultivates its worship; whose legends and traditions teem with anecdotes of its interposition in the affairs of man, and whose scientific works, of antiquity rivalling that of our oldest Western Classics, treat of its existence as a sober and accepted fact, and differentiate its species with some exactness. It is, moreover, though not very frequently, occasionally referred to in the Biblical history of that other ancient, and almost equally conservative branch of the human race, the Jews, not as a myth, or doubtfully existent supernatural monster, but as a tangible reality, an exact terrible creature.

Equally do we find it noticed in those other valuable records of the past which throw cross lights upon the Bible narrative, and confirm by collateral facts the value of its [Pg 161]historic truth; such as the fragments of Chaldæan history handed down by the reverent care of later historians, the careful narrative of Josephus, and the grand resurrection of Chaldæan and Assyrian lore effected by the marvellously well directed and fortunate labour of G. H. Smith and those who follow in his train.

 [Pg 162]

Fig. 34.—Bronze Dragons supporting the Armillary Sphere, Observatory, Pekin.

Among the earliest classics of Europe, its existence is asserted as a scientific fact, and accepted by poets as a sound basis for analogies, comparisons, allegories, and fable; it appears in the mythology of the Goth, and is continued through the tradition and fable of every country of Europe; nor does it fail to appear even in the imperfect traditions of the New World,[139] where its presence may be considered as comparatively indigenous, and undetermined by the communications dependent on the so-called discovery of later days.

Turning to other popular accounts, we find equally limited and incredible versions of it. All consider it sufficiently disposed of by calling it fabulous,[140] and that a sufficient explanation of any possible belief in it is afforded by a reference[141] to the harmless genus of existing flying lizards referred to above.

[Pg 163]Some consider it an evolution of the fancy, typifying noxious principles; thus, Chambers[142] says, “The dragon appears in the mythical history and legendary poetry of almost every nation as the emblem of the destructive and anarchical principle; ... as misdirected physical force and untamable animal passions.... The dragon proceeds openly to work, running on its feet with expanded wings, and head and tail erect, violently and ruthlessly outraging decency and propriety, spouting fire and fury both from mouth and tail, and wasting and devastating the whole land.”

The point which strikes me as most interesting in this passage is the reference to the legendary theory of the mode of the dragon’s progress, which curiously calls to mind the semi-erect attitude of the existing small Australian frilled lizard (Chlamydosaurus). This attitude is also ascribed to some of the extinct American Dinosaurs, such as the Stegosaurus.

No one, so far as I am aware, in late days has hitherto ventured to uphold the claims of this terrible monster to be accepted as a real contemporary of primitive man,[143] which[Pg 164] may even have been co-existent with him to a comparatively recent date, and but lately passed away into the cohort of extinct species, leaving behind it only the traditions of its ferocity and terrors, to stamp their impression on the tongues of all countries.

No one has endeavoured to collate the vast bulk of materials shrouded in the stories of all lands. If this were perfectly effected, a diagnosis of the real nature of the dragon might perhaps be made, and the chapter of its characteristics, alliances, and habits completed like that of any other well-established species.

The following sketch purposes only to initiate the task here propounded, the author’s access to materials being limited, and only sufficient to enable him, as he thinks, to establish generally the proposition which it involves, to grasp as it were some of the broader and salient features of the investigation, while leaving a rich gleaning of corroborative information for the hand of any other who may please to continue and extend his observations.

At the outset it will be necessary to assign a much more extended signification to the word dragon than that which is contained in the definition at the head of this chapter. The popular mind of the present day doubtless associates it always with the idea of a creature possessing wings; but the Lung of the Chinese, the δράκων of the Greeks, the[Pg 165] Draco of the Romans, the Egyptian dragon, and the Nâga of the Sanscrit have no such limited signification, and appear to have been sometimes applied to any serpent, lacertian, or saurian, of extraordinary dimensions, nor is it always easy to determine from the passages in which these several terms occur what kind of monster is specially indicated.

Thus the dragon referred to by Propertius in the quotation annexed may have been a large python. “Lanuvium[144] is, of old, protected by an aged dragon; here, where the occasion of an amusement so seldom occurring is not lost, where is the abrupt descent into a dark and hollowed cave; where is let down—maiden, beware of every such journey—the honorary tribute to the fasting snake, when he demands his yearly food, and hisses and twists deep down in the earth. Maidens, let down for such a rite, grow pale, when their hand is unprotectedly trusted in the snake’s mouth. He snatches at the delicacies if offered by a maid; the very baskets tremble in the virgin’s hands; if they are chaste, they return and fall on the necks of their parents, and the farmers cry ‘We shall have a fruitful year.’”[145]

To the same class may probably be ascribed the dragon referred to by Aristotle.[146] “The eagle and the dragon are enemies, for the eagle feeds on serpents”; and again,[147] “the Glanis in shallow water is often destroyed by the dragon serpent.” It might perhaps be supposed that the crocodile is here referred to, but this is specially spoken of in another passage, as follows[148]: “But there are others which, though they live and feed in the water, do not take in water but air, and produce their young out of the water; many of these[Pg 166] animals are furnished with feet, as the otter and crocodile, and others are without feet, as the water-serpent.”

A somewhat inexplicable habit is ascribed to the dragon in Book ix.[149]: “When the draco has eaten much fruit, it seeks the juice of the bitter lettuce; it has been seen to do this.”

Pliny, probably quoting Aristotle,[150] also states that the dragon relieves the nausea which affects it in spring with the juices of the lettuce; and Ælian[151] repeats the story.

It is also probable that some large serpent is intended by Pliny in the story which he relates,[152] after Democritus, that a man called Thoas was preserved in Arcadia by a dragon. When a boy, he had become attached to it and had reared it very tenderly; but his father, being alarmed at the nature and monstrous size of the reptile, had taken and left it in the desert. Thoas being here attacked by robbers who lay in ambush, he was delivered from them by the dragon, which recognized his voice and came to his assistance. It may be noted in regard to this that there are many authenticated instances of snakes evidencing considerable affection for those who have treated them with kindness.[153]

The impression that Pliny’s dragon was intended to represent[Pg 167] some large boa or python is strengthened by his statement:[154] “The dragon is a serpent destitute of venom; its head placed beneath the threshold of a door, the gods being duly propitiated by prayers, will ensure good fortune to the house, it is said.”

It is remarkable that he attributes to the dragon the same desire and capacity to attack the elephant as is attributed to the Pa snake in Western China, and by the old Arabian voyagers to serpents in Borneo.

The Shan-hai-king, a Chinese work of extreme antiquity, of which special mention will be made hereafter, says: “The Pa snake swallows elephants, after three years it ejects the bones; well-to-do people, eating it, are cured of consumption.”

Diodorus Siculus, in speaking of the region of the Nile in Libya, says that, according to report, very large serpents are produced there and in great numbers, and that these attack elephants when they gather around the watering places, involve them in their folds till they fall exhausted, and then devour them.

Diodorus, in another passage referring to the crocodiles and hippopotami of Egypt, speaking of Ethiopia and Libya, mentions a variety of serpents as well as of other wild beasts, including dragons of unusual size and ferocity.

While El Edrisi says: “On peut encore citer le serpent de Zaledj dont parlent Ben Khordadébe, l’auteur du Livre des Merveilles, et divers autres écrivains qui s’accordent à dire qu’il existe dans les montagnes de l’ile de Zaledj une espèce de serpent qui attaque l’elephant et le buffle, et qui ne les abandonnent qu’après les avoir vaincu.”[155]

[Pg 168]Artemidorus, also, according to Strabo,[156] “mentions serpents of thirty cubits in length, which can master elephants and bulls. In this he does not exaggerate; but the Indian and African serpents are of a more fabulous size, and are said to have grass growing on their backs.”

Iphicrates, according to Bryant, “related that in Mauritania there were dragons of such extent that grass grew upon their backs.”

It is doubtful whether large serpents, or real dragons, are referred to by Pliny in the following interesting passages which I give at length: the surprise which he expresses at Juba’s believing that they had crests, leads me to suspect that there was possibly some confusion of species involved; that Juba might have been perfectly accurate so far as the crests are concerned, and that the beasts in question, in place of being pythons of magnitude, were rather some gigantic lizard-like creature, of great length and little bulk, corresponding with the Chinese idea of the dragon, and, therefore, naturally bearing horny crests, similar to those with which the monster is usually represented by the latter people.

It must be noticed here, that if we postulate the existence of the dragon, we are not bound to limit ourselves to a single species, or even two, as the same causes which effected the gradual destruction of one would be exceedingly likely to effect that of another; we must not, therefore, be too critical in comparing descriptions of different authors in different[Pg 169] countries and epochs, since they may refer only to allied, but not identical, animals.

“Africa produces elephants, but it is India that produces the largest, as well as the dragon, who is perpetually at war with the elephant, and is itself of so enormous a size, as easily to envelop the elephants with its folds, and encircle them in its coils. The contest is equally fatal to both; the elephant, vanquished, falls to the earth, and by its weight crushes the dragon which is entwined around it.[158]

“The sagacity which every animal exhibits in its own behalf is wonderful, but in these it is remarkably so. The dragon has much difficulty in climbing up to so great a height, and therefore, watching the road, which bears marks of their footsteps, when going to feed, it darts down upon them from a lofty tree. The elephant knows that it is quite unable to struggle against the folds of the serpent, and so seeks for trees or rocks against which to rub itself.

“The dragon is on its guard against this, and tries to prevent it, by first of all confining the legs of the elephant with the folds of its tail; while the elephant, on the other hand, tries to disengage itself with its trunk. The dragon, however, thrusts its head into its nostrils, and thus, at the same moment, stops the breath, and wounds the most tender parts. When it is met unexpectedly, the dragon raises itself up, faces its opponent, and flies more especially at the eyes; this is the reason why elephants are so often found blind, and worn to a skeleton with hunger and misery.

“There is another story, too, told in relation to these combats. The blood of the elephant, it is said, is remarkably cold; for which reason, in the parching heats of summer, it is sought by the dragon with remarkable avidity. It lies, therefore, coiled up and concealed in the river, in wait for[Pg 170] the elephants when they come to drink; upon which it darts out, fastens itself around the trunk, and then fixes its teeth behind the ear, that being the only place which the elephant cannot protect with the trunk. The dragons, it is said, are of such vast size that they can swallow the whole of the blood; consequently the elephant, being drained of its blood, falls to the earth exhausted; while the dragon, intoxicated with the draught, is crushed beneath it, and so shares its fate.[159]

“Æthiopia produces dragons, not so large as those of India, but still twenty cubits in length. The only thing that surprises me is, how Juba came to believe that they have crests. The Æthiopians are known as the Asachæi, among whom they most abound; and we are told that on those coasts four or five of them are found twisted and interlaced together like so many osiers in a hurdle, and thus setting sail, with their heads erect, they are borne along upon the waves to find better sources of nourishment in Arabia.”[160]

Pliny then goes on to describe, as separate from dragons, large serpents in India, as follows.

“Megasthenes[161] informs us that in India serpents grow to such an immense size as to swallow stags and bulls; while Metrodorus says that about the river Rhyndacus, in Pontus, they seize and swallow the birds that are flying above them, however high and however rapid their flight.

“It is a well-known fact that during the Punic war, at the river Bagrada, a serpent one hundred and twenty feet in length was taken by the Roman army under Regulus, being besieged, like a fortress, by means of balistæ and other engines of war. Its skin and jaws were preserved in a temple at Rome down to the time of the Numantine war.

“The serpents, which in Italy are known by the name of[Pg 171] boa, render these accounts far from incredible, for they grow to such vast size that a child was found entire in the stomach of one of them which was killed on the Vaticanian Hill during the reign of Emperor Claudius.”[162]

Aristotle tells us that “in Libya, the serpents, as it has been already remarked, are very large. For some persons say that as they sailed along the coast, they saw the bones of many oxen, and that it was evident to them that they had been devoured by serpents. And, as the ships passed on, the serpents attacked the triremes, and some of them threw themselves upon one of the triremes and overturned it.”[163]

It is doubtful whether the dragons described by Benjamin of Tudela, who travelled through Europe and the East and returned to Castille in 1173,[164] as infesting the ruins of the palace of Nebuchodonosor at Babylon, so as to render them inaccessible, were creatures of the imagination such as the mediæval mind seems to have loved to dress up, or venomous serpents. But there is little doubt that the so-called dragons of later voyages were simply boas, pythons, or other large serpents, such as those described by John Leo, in his description[Pg 172] of a voyage to Africa, as existing in the caverns of Atlas. He says, “There are many monstrous dragons which are thick about the middle, but have slender necks and tails, so that their motion is but slow.[165] They are so venomous, that whatever they bite or touch, certain death ensues.” There is also the statement of Job Ludolphus that (in Æthiopia) “the dragons are of the largest size, very voracious, but not venomous.”[166]

I fancy that at the present day the numbers, magnitude, and terrifying nature of serpents but feebly represent the power which they asserted in the early days of man’s existence, or the terror which they then inspired. This subject has been so ably dealt with by a writer of the last century[167] that I feel no hesitation in transcribing his remarks at length.

“It is probable, in early times, when the arts were little known and mankind were but thinly scattered over the earth, that serpents, continuing undisturbed possessors of the forest, grew to an amazing magnitude, and every other tribe of animals fell before them. It then might have happened that the serpents reigned tyrants of the district for centuries together. To animals of this kind, grown by time and rapacity to one hundred or one hundred and fifty feet long, the lion, the tiger, and even the elephant itself were but feeble opponents. That horrible fetor, which even the commonest and the most harmless snakes are still found to diffuse, might in these larger ones become too powerful for any living being to withstand, and while they preyed without distinction, they might also have poisoned the atmosphere round them. In this manner, having for ages lived in the hidden and unpeopled forest, and finding, as their appetites were more powerful, the quantity of their prey decreasing, it is possible[Pg 173] they might venture boldly from their retreats into the more cultivated parts of the country, and carry consternation among mankind, as they had before desolation among the lower ranks of nature.

“We have many histories of antiquity presenting us such a picture, and exhibiting a whole nation sinking under the ravages of a single serpent. At that time man had not learned the art of uniting the efforts of many to effect one great purpose. Opposing multitudes only added new victims to the general calamity, and increased mutual embarrassment and terror. The animal, therefore, was to be singly opposed by him who had the greatest strength, the best armour, and the most undaunted courage. In such an encounter hundreds must have fallen, till one more lucky than the rest, by a fortunate blow, or by taking the monster in its torpid interval and surcharged with spoil, might kill and thus rid his country of the destroyer. Such was the original occupation of heroes.

“But as we descend into more enlightened antiquity we find these animals less formidable, as being attacked in a more successful manner.

“We are told that while Regulus led his army along the banks of the river Bagrada in Africa, an enormous serpent disputed his passage over. We are assured by Pliny that it was one hundred and twenty feet long, and that it had destroyed many of the army. At last, however, the battering engines were brought out against it, and then, assailing it at a distance, it was destroyed. Its spoils were carried to Rome, and the general was decreed an ovation for his success.

“There are, perhaps, few facts better ascertained in history than this: an ovation was a remarkable honour, and was only given for some signal exploit that did not deserve a triumph. No historian would offer to invent that part of the story, at least, without being subject to the most shameful detection.

[Pg 174]“The skin was kept for several years after, in the Capitol, and Pliny says he saw it there.

“This tribe of animals, like that of fishes, seem to have no bounds put to their growth; their bones are in a great measure cartilaginous, and they are consequently capable of great extension.

“The older, therefore, a serpent becomes, the larger it grows, and, as they live to a great age, they arrive at an enormous size. Leguat assures us that he saw one in Java that was fifty feet long.[168] Carli mentions their growing to above forty feet, and there is now in the British Museum one that measures thirty-two feet.

“Mr. Wentworth, who had large concerns in the Berbice in America, assures us that in that country they grow to an enormous length. He describes an Indian mistaking one for a log, and proceeding to sit down on it, when it began to move. A soldier with him shot the snake, but the Indian died of fright. It measured thirty-six feet. It was sent to the Hague.

“A life of savage hostility in the forest offers the imagination one of the most tremendous pictures in nature. In those burning countries where the sun dries up every brook for hundreds of miles round: where what had the appearance of a great river in the rainy season becomes in summer one dreary bed of sand; in those countries a lake that is never dry, or a brook that is perennial, is considered by every animal as the greatest convenience of nature. When they have discovered this, no dangers can deter them from attempting to slake their thirst. Thus the neighbourhood of a rivulet, in the heart of the tropical continents, is generally[Pg 175] the place where all the hostile tribes of nature draw up for the engagement.

“On the banks of this little envied spot, thousands of animals of various kinds are seen venturing to quench their thirst, or preparing to seize their prey. The elephants are perceived in a long line, marching from the darker parts of the forest. The buffaloes are there, depending upon numbers for security; the gazelles relying solely upon their swiftness; the lion and tiger waiting a proper opportunity to seize.

“But chiefly the larger serpents are upon guard there, and defend the accesses of the lake. Not an hour passes without some dreadful combat, but the serpent, defended by its scales, and naturally capable of sustaining a multitude of wounds, is of all others the most formidable. It is the most wakeful also, for the whole tribe sleep with their eyes open, and are consequently for ever upon the watch; so that, till their rapacity is satisfied, few other animals will venture to approach their station.”

We read of a serpent exhibited in the time of Augustus at Rome, which, Suetonius tells us, “was fifty cubits in length.”[169] But at the present day there are few authentic accounts of snakes exceeding thirty feet in length; and there are some people who discredit any which profess to speak of snakes of greater dimensions than this. There are some, however, among the annexed stories, which I think demand belief, and apparently we may conclude that the python and boa exceptionally attain as much as forty feet in length, or even more.

Wallace[170] merely reports by hearsay that the pythons in the Phillipines, which destroy young cattle, are said to reach more than forty feet.

Captain Sherard Osborn,[171] in his description of Quedah in[Pg 176] the Malay peninsula, says, also, as a matter of popular belief: “The natives of Tamelan declared most of them to be of the boa-constrictor species, but spoke of monsters in the deep forests, which might, if they came out, clear off the whole village. A pleasant feat, for which Jadie, with a wag of his sagacious head, assured me that an ‘oular Bessar’ or big snake was quite competent.

“It was strange but interesting to find amongst all Malays a strong belief in the extraordinary size to which the boa-constrictors or pythons would grow; they all maintained that in the secluded forests of Sumatra or Borneo, as well as on some of the smaller islands which were not inhabited, these snakes were occasionally found of forty or fifty feet in length.”

Major McNair says[172]: “One of the keenest sportsmen in Singapore gives an account of a monster that he encountered. He had wounded a boar in the jungle, and was following its tracks with his dogs, when, in penetrating further into the forest, he found the dogs at bay, and, advancing cautiously, prepared for another shot at the boar; to his surprise, however, he found that the dogs were baying a huge python, which had seized the boar, thrown its coils round the unfortunate beast, and was crushing it to death. A well-directed shot laid the reptile writhing on the ground, and it proved to be about thirty feet long. But such instances of extreme length are rare.”

Unfortunately the exciting story of a serpent, between forty and fifty feet in length, which I extract from the North China Daily News of November 10th, 1880, the scene of which is also laid in the Malay peninsula, lacks the authenticity of the narrator’s name. It is as follows:—

“The Straits Times tells the following exciting python story: ‘A sportsman, who a few days ago penetrated into the[Pg 177] jungle lying between Buddoh and Sirangoon, came upon a lone hut in a district called Campong Batta, upon the roof of which the skin of an enormous boa or python (whichever may be the correct name) was spread out. The hut was occupied by a Malay and his wife, from whom our informant gathered the following extraordinary account. One night, about a week previously, the Malay was awakened by the cries of his wife for assistance. Being in perfect darkness, and supposing the alarm to be on account of thieves, he seized his sharp parang, and groped his way to her sleeping place, where his hand fell upon a slimy reptile. It was fully a minute before he could comprehend the entire situation, and when he did, he discovered that the whole of his wife’s arm had been drawn down the monster’s throat, whither the upper part of her body was slowly but surely following. Not daring to attack the monster at once for fear of causing his wife’s death, the husband, with great presence of mind, seized two bags within reach, and commenced stuffing them into the corner of the snake’s jaws, by means of which he succeeded in forcing them wider open and releasing his wife’s arm. No sooner had the boa lost his prey than he attacked the husband, whom he began encircling in his fatal coils; but holding out both arms, and watching his opportunity, he attacked the monster so vigorously with his parang that it suddenly unwound itself and vanished through an opening beneath the attap sides of the hut. His clothes were covered with blood, as was also the floor of the hut, and his wife’s arm was blue with the squeezing it received between the boa’s jaws. At daylight the husband discovered his patch of plaintain trees nearly ruined, where the boa, writhing in agony, had broken off the trees at the roots, and in the midst of the debris lay the monster itself, dead. The Malay assured our informant that he had received no less than sixty dollars from Chinese, who came from long distances to purchase pieces of the flesh on account of its supposed medical[Pg 178] properties, and that he had refused six dollars for the skin, which he preferred to retain as a trophy. It was greatly decomposed, having been some days exposed in the open air, and useless for curing. There is no telling what may have been the measurement of this large reptile, but the skin, probably greatly stretched by unskilful removal, measured between seven and eight fathoms.’”

Bontius speaks of serpents in the Asiatic Isles. “The great ones,” he says, “sometimes exceed thirty-six feet; and have such capacity of throat and stomach that they swallow whole boars.”

Mr. McLeod, in the Voyage of the Alceste, states that during a captivity of some months at Whidah, on the coast of Africa, he had opportunities of observing serpents double this length.[173]

Broderip, in his Leaves from the Note-book of a Naturalist (Parker, 1852), speaks of a serpent thirty feet in length, which attacked the crew of a Malay proa anchored for the night close to the island of Celebes.

Mr. C. Collingwood in Rambles of a Naturalist, states that “Mr. Low assured me that he had seen one [python] killed measuring twenty-six feet, and I heard on good authority of one of twenty-nine feet having been killed there. In Borneo they were said to attain forty feet, but for this I cannot vouch.”

That large pythons still exist in South and Western China, although of very reduced dimensions as compared with those described in ancient works, is affirmed by many writers, from whom I think it is sufficient to extract a notice by one of the early missionaries who explored that country.

“Pour ce qui est des serpens qu’on trouve dans Chine l’Atlas raconte que la Province de Quansi, en produit de si grands et d’une longueur si extrême, qu’il est presque incroyable; et il nous assure, qu’il s’en est trouvé, qui étaient plus[Pg 179] longs que ne seraient pas dix perches attachées les unes avec les autres, c’est-à-dire, qu’ils avaient plus de trente pieds géométriques. Flore Sienois dit, ‘Gento est le plus grand de tous ceux qui sont dans les provinces de Quansi, de Haynan, et de Quantun ... il dévore les cerfs.... Il s’élève droit sur sa queue, et combat vigoureusement, en cette posture, contre les hommes et les bêtes farouches.’”[174]

We have unfortunately no clue to the actual length of the serpent Bomma, described by J. M. da Sorrento in A Voyage to Congo in 1682, contained in Churchill’s collection of voyages published in 1732.[175] “The flesh they eat is generally that of wild creatures, and especially of a sort of serpent called Bomma. At a certain feast in Baia, I observed the windows, instead of tapestry and arras, adorned with the skin of these serpents as wide as that of a large ox, and long in proportion.”

That harmless snakes of from twelve to fourteen feet in length occur abundantly in Northern Australia is generally known; but it is only of late years that I have been made acquainted with a firm belief, entertained by the natives in the interior, of the existence near the junction of the Darling and Murray, south of the centre of the continent, of a serpent of great magnitude.

I learn from Mr. G. R. Moffat that on the Lower Murray, between Swan Hill and the Darling junction—at the time of his acquaintance with the district (about 1857 to 1867)—the black fellows had numerous stories of the existence of a large serpent in the Mallee scrub. It was conspicuous for its size, thirty to forty feet in length, and especially for its great girth, swiftness, and intensely disgusting odour; this latter, in fact, constituted the great protection from it, insomuch[Pg 180] as it would be impossible to approach without recognising its presence.

Mr. Moffatt learnt personally from a Mr. Beveridge, son of Mr. Peter Beveridge, of Swan Hill station, that he had actually seen one, and that his account quite tallied with those of the blacks. In answer to an inquiry which I addressed to Australia, I received the note attached below.[176]

Mr. Henry Liddell, who was resident on the Darling River in 1871-72, informs me that he has heard from stock-riders and ration-carriers similar accounts to that of Mr. Moffatt, with reference to the existence of large serpents of the boa species in an adjacent locality, viz. the tract of country lying to the east of Darling and Murray junction, in the back country belonging to Pooncaira station.

They described them as being numerous, in barren and rocky places, among big boulders; fully forty feet long; as thick as a man’s thigh; and as having the same remarkable odour described by Mr. Moffatt. They spoke of them as quite common, and not at all phenomenal, between Wentworth and Pooncaira.

The Anaconda, in regard to which so much myth and superstition prevails among the Indians of Brazil, is thus spoken of by Condamine, in his Travels in South America. “The most rare and singular of all is a large amphibious serpent from twenty-five to thirty feet long and more than a foot thick, according to report. It is called Jacumama, or ‘the mother of the waters,’ by the Americans of Maynas,[Pg 181] and commonly inhabits the large lakes formed by the river-water after flood.”[177]

Ulloa, also, in his Voyage to South America,[178] says: “In the countries watered by that vast river (the Maranon) is bred a serpent of a frightful magnitude, and of a most deleterious nature. Some, in order to give an idea of its largeness, affirm that it will swallow any beast whole, and that this has been the miserable end of many a man. But what seems still a greater wonder is the attractive quality attributed to its breath,[179] which irresistibly draws any creature to it which happens to be within the sphere of its attraction. The Indians call it Jacumama, i.e. ‘mother of water’; for, as it delights in lakes and marshy places, it may in some sense be considered as amphibious. I have taken a great deal of pains to inquire into this particular, and all I can say is that the reptile’s magnitude is really surprising.”

John Nieuhoff, in his Voyages to Brazil,[180] speaking of the serpent Guaku or Liboya, says: “It is questionless the biggest of all serpents, some being eighteen, twenty-four, nay thirty feet long, and of the thickness of a man in his middle. The Portuguese call it Kobra Detrado, or the roebuck serpent, because it will swallow a whole roebuck, or any other deer it meets with; after they have swallowed such a deer, they fall asleep, and so are catched. Such a one I saw at Paraiba, which was thirty feet long, and as big as a barrel. This serpent, being a very devouring creature, greedy of prey, leaps from amongst the hedges and woods, and standing upright upon its tail, wrestles both with men and wild[Pg 182] beasts; sometimes it leaps from the trees upon the traveller, whom it fastens upon, and beats the breath out of his body with its tail.”

The largest (water boa) ever met with by a European appears to be that described by a botanist, Dr. Gardiner, in his Travels in Brazil. It had devoured a horse, and was found dead, entangled in the branches of a tree overhanging a river, into which it had been carried by a flood; it was nearly forty feet long.

Winged Serpents.

The next section relates to winged serpents, a belief in which was prevalent in early ages, and is strongly supported by several independent works.

Fig. 35.—Egyptian Four-winged Serpent, Chanuphis, or Bait.
(From “Serpent Myths of Ancient Egypt,” by W. R. Cooper.)

To my mind, Herodotus speaks without the slightest doubt upon the subject in the following passages. “Arabia[181] is the last of inhabited lands towards the south, and it is the only country which produces frankincense, myrrh, cassia, cinnamon, and ledanum.” “The frankincense they procure by means of the gum styrax, which the Greeks get from the Phœnicians. This they burn, and thereby obtain the spice; for the trees which bear the frankincense are guarded by[Pg 183] winged serpents, small in size, and of various colours, whereof vast numbers hang about every tree. They are of the same kind as the serpents that invade Egypt, and there is nothing but the smoke of the styrax which will drive them from the trees.”

Fig. 36.—The Symbolic Winged Serpent of the Goddess
Mersokar or Melsokar. (After W. R. Cooper.)

Again,[182] “the Arabians say that the whole world would swarm with these serpents, if they were not kept in check, in the way in which I know that vipers are.” “Now, with respect to the vipers and the winged snakes of Arabia, if they increased as fast as their nature would allow, impossible were it for man to maintain himself upon the earth. Accordingly, it is found that when the male and female come together, at the very moment of impregnation, the female seizes the male by the neck, and having once fastened cannot be brought to leave go till she has bit the neck entirely through, and so the male perishes; but after a while he is avenged upon the female by means of the young, which, while still unborn, gnaw a passage through the womb and then through the belly of their mother. Contrariwise, other snakes, which are harmless, lay eggs and hatch a vast number of young. Vipers are found in all parts of the world, but the winged serpents are nowhere seen except in Arabia, where they are all congregated together; this makes them appear so numerous.”

[Pg 184]Herodotus had so far interested himself in ascertaining the probability of their existence as to visit Arabia for the purpose of inquiry; he says,[183] “I went once to a certain place in Arabia, almost exactly opposite the city of Buto, to make inquiries concerning the winged serpents. On my arrival I saw the back-bones and ribs of serpents in such numbers as it is impossible to describe; of the ribs there were a multitude of heaps, some great, some small, some middle-sized. The place where the bones lie is at the entrance of a narrow gorge between steep mountains, which there open upon a spacious plain communicating with the great plains of Egypt. The story goes, that with the spring the snakes come flying from Arabia towards Egypt, but are met in this gorge by the birds called ibises, who forbid their entrance and destroy them all. The Arabians assert, and the Egyptians also admit, that it is on account of the service thus rendered that the Egyptians hold the ibis in so much reverence.” He further[184] describes the winged serpent as being shaped like the water-snake, and states that its wings are not feathered, but resemble very closely those of the bat.

Fig. 37.—The Symbolic Winged Serpent of the
Goddess Eileithya. (After W. R. Cooper.)

Aristotle briefly states, as a matter of common report, that there were in his time winged serpents in Ethiopia.[185] Both two and four winged snakes are depicted among the Egyptian[Pg 185] sculptures, considered by Mr. Cooper to be emblematic of deities, and to signify that the four corners of the earth are embraced and sheltered by the supreme Providence.

Josephus[186] unmistakably affirms his belief in the existence of flying serpents, in his account of the stratagem which Moses adopted in attacking the Ethiopians, who had invaded Egypt and penetrated as far as Memphis. From this we may infer that in his time flying serpents were by no means peculiar to Arabia, but, as might have been expected, equally infested the desert lands bordering the fertile strip of the Nile.

In Whiston’s translation we read that “Moses prevented the enemies, and took and led his army before those enemies were apprised of his attacking them; for he did not march by the river, but by land, where he gave a wonderful demonstration of his sagacity; for when the ground was difficult to be passed over, because of the multitude of serpents (which it produces in vast numbers, and indeed is singular in some of those productions, which other countries do not breed, and yet such as are worse than others in power and mischief, and an unusual fierceness of sight, some of which ascend out of the ground unseen, and also fly in the air, and so come upon men at unawares, and do them a mischief), Moses invented a wonderful stratagem to preserve the army safe and without hurt; for he made baskets, like unto arks, of sedge, and filled them with ibes, and carried them along with them; which animal is the greatest enemy to serpents imaginable, for they fly from them when they come near them; and as they fly they are caught and devoured by them, as if it were done by the harts; but the ibes are tame creatures, and only enemies to the serpentine kind; but about these ibes I say no more at present, since the Greeks themselves are not unacquainted with this sort of bird. As soon, therefore, as Moses was come to the land,[Pg 186] which was the breeder of these serpents, he let loose the ibes, and by their means repelled the serpentine kind, and used them for his assistants before the army came upon that ground.”

These statements of Herodotus and Josephus are both too precise to be explicable on the theory that they refer to the darting or jumping serpents which Nieuhoff describes, in his day, as infesting the palm trees of Arabia and springing from tree to tree; or to the jaculus of Pliny,[187] which darts from the branches of trees, and flies through the air as though it were hurled by an engine, and which is described by Ælian and graphically figured by Lucan[188] in the passage—“Behold! afar, around the trunk of a barren tree, a fierce serpent—Africa calls it the jaculus—wreathes itself, and then darts forth, and through the head and pierced temples of Paulus it takes its flight: nothing does venom there effect, death seizes him through the wound. It was then understood how slowly fly the stones which the sling hurls, how sluggishly whizzes the flight of the Scythian arrow.”

Solinus, whose work, Polyhistor, is mainly a compilation from Pliny’s Natural History, gives a similar account of the swarms of winged serpents about the Arabian marshes, and states that their bite was so deadly that death followed the bite before pain could be felt; he also refers to their destruction by the ibises, and is probably only quoting other authors rather than speaking of his own knowledge.

Cicero, again, speaks of the ibis as being a very large bird, with strong legs, and a horny long beak, which destroys a great number of serpents, and keeps Egypt free from pestilential diseases, by killing and devouring the flying serpents, brought from the deserts of Lybia by the south-west wind, and so preventing the mischief which might[Pg 187] attend their biting while alive, or from any infection when dead.

There are not unfrequent allusions in ancient history to serpents having become so numerous as to constitute a perfect plague; the dreadful mortality caused among the Israelites by the fiery serpents spoken of in Numbers is a case in point, and another[189] is the migration of the Neuri from their own country into that of the Budini, one generation before the attack of Darius, in consequence of the incursion of a huge multitude of serpents. It is stated that some of these were produced in their own country, but for the most part they came in from the deserts of the north. The home of the Neuri appears to have been to the north-west of the Pontus Euxinus, pretty much in the position of Poland, and I believe that at the present day the only harmful reptile occurring in it is the viper common to the rest of Europe. Diodorus Siculus[190] mentions a tradition that the Cerastes had once made an irruption into Egypt in such numbers as to have depopulated a great portion of the inhabited districts.

These stories are interesting as showing a migratory instinct occurring in certain serpents, either periodically or occasionally, and are thus to some extent corroborative of the account of the annual invasion of Egypt by serpents, referred to in a previous page. They also, I think, confirm the impression that serpents were more numerous in the days of early history, and had a larger area of distribution than they have now, and that possibly some species, such as the Arabian and flying serpents, which have since become extinct, then existed. Thus the boa is spoken of by Pliny as occurring commonly in Italy, and growing to such a vast size that a child was found entire in one of them, which was killed on the Vatican Hill during the reign of the[Pg 188] Emperor Claudius. Yet at the present day there are no snakes existing there at all corresponding to this description.

Parallel instances of invasions of animals materially affecting the prosperity of man are doubtless familiar to my readers, such as the occasional migration of lemmings, passage of rats, flights of locusts, or the ravages caused by the Colorado beetle; but many are perhaps quite unaware what a terrible plague can be established, in the course of a very few years, by the prolific unchecked multiplication of even so harmless, innocent, and useful an animal as the common rabbit. The descendants of a few imported pairs have laid waste extensive districts of Australia and New Zealand, necessitated an enormous expenditure for their extirpation, and have at the present day[191] caused such a widespread destruction[Pg 189] of property in the latter country, that large areas of ground have actually had to be abandoned and entirely surrendered to them.

It is interesting to find in the work of the Arabic geographer El Edrisi a tradition of an island in the Atlantic, called Laca, off the north-west coast of Africa, having been formerly inhabited, but abandoned on account of the excessive multiplication of serpents on it. According to Scaligerus, the mountains dividing the kingdom of Narsinga from Malabar produce many wild beasts, among which may be enumerated winged dragons, who are able to destroy any one approaching their breath.

Megasthenes (tradente Æliano) relates that winged serpents are found in India; where it is stated that they are noxious, fly only by night, and that contact with their urine destroys portions of animals.

[Pg 190]Ammianus Marcellinus (who wrote about the fourth century A.D.) states that the ibis is one among the countless varieties of the birds of Egypt, sacred, amiable, and valuable as storing up the eggs of serpents in his nest for food and so diminishing their number. He also refers to their encountering flocks of winged snakes, coming laden with poison from the marshes of Arabia, and overcoming them in the air, and devouring them before they quit their own region. And Strabo,[192] in his geographical description of India, speaks of serpents of two cubits in length, with membraneous wings like bats: “They fly at night, and let fall drops of urine or sweat, which occasions the skins of persons who are not on their guard to putrefy.” Isaiah speaks of fiery flying serpents, the term “fiery” being otherwise rendered in the Alexandrine edition of the Septuagint by θανατοῦντες “deadly,” while the term “fiery” is explained by other authorities as referring to the burning sensation produced by the bite, and to the bright colour of the serpents.[193] Collateral evidence of the belief in winged serpents is afforded by incidental allusions to them in the classics. Thus Virgil alludes to snakes with strident wings in the line

Illa autem attolit stridentis anguibus alis.[194]

Lucan[195] refers to the winged serpents of Arabia as forming one of the ingredients of an incantation broth brewed by a Thessalian witch, Erictho, with the object of resuscitating a corpse, and procuring replies to the queries of Sextus, son of Pompey. There are other passages in Ovid and other poets, in which the words “winged serpents” are made use of, but[Pg 191] which I omit to render here, since from the context it seems doubtful whether they were not intended as poetic appellations of the monster to which, by popular consent, the term dragon has been generally restricted.

I feel bound to refer, although of course without attaching any very great weight of evidence to them, to the numerous stories popular in the East, in which flying serpents play a conspicuous part, the serpents always having something magical or supernatural in their nature. Such tales are found in the entrancing pages of the Arabian Nights, or in the very entertaining folk-lore of China, as given to us by Dr. N. P. Dennys of Singapore.[196]

The latest notice of the flying serpent that we find is in a work by P. Belon du Mans, published in 1557, entitled, Portraits de quelques animaux, poissons, serpents, herbes et arbres, hommes et femmes d’Arabie, Égypte, et Asie, observés par P. Belon du Mans. It contains a drawing of a biped winged dragon, with the notice “Portrait du serpent ailé” and the quatrain—

Dangereuse est du serpent la nature
Qu’on voit voler près le mont Sinai
Qui ne serait, de la voir, esbahy,
Si on a peur, voyant sa pourtraiture?

This is copied by Gesner, who repeats the story of its flying out of Arabia into Egypt.[197] I attach considerable importance to the short extract which I shall give in a future page from the celebrated Chinese work on geography and natural history, the Shan Hai King, or Mountain and Sea Classic. The Shan Hai King claims to be of great antiquity, and, as Mr. Wylie remarks, though long looked on with distrust, has been investigated recently by scholars of great[Pg 192] ability, who have come to the conclusion that it is at least as old as the Chow dynasty, and probably older. Now, as the Chow dynasty commenced in 1122 B.C., it is, if this latter supposition be correct, of a prior age to the works of Aristotle, Herodotus, and all the other authors we have been quoting, and therefore is the earliest work on natural history extant, and the description of the flying serpent of the Sien mountains (vide infrà) the earliest record of the existence of such creatures.

Classical Dragon and Mediæval Dragon.

While the flying serpents of which we have just treated, will, if we assent to the reality of their former existence, assist greatly in the explanation of the belief in a winged dragon so far as Egypt, Arabia, and adjacent countries are concerned, it seems hardly probable that they are sufficient to account for the wide-spread belief in it. This we have already glanced at; but we now propose to examine it in greater detail, with reference to countries so distant from their habitat as to render it unlikely that their description had penetrated there.

The poets of Greece and Rome introduce the dragon into their fables, as an illustration, when the type of power and ferocity is sought for. Homer, in his description of the shield of Hercules, speaks of “The scaly horror of a dragon coiled full in the central field, unspeakable, with eyes oblique, retorted, that askant shot gleaming fire.” So Hesiod[198] (750 to 700 B.C., Grote), describing the same object, says: “On its centre was the unspeakable terror of a dragon glancing backward with eyes gleaming with fire. His mouth, too, was filled with teeth running in a white line, dread and unapproachable; and above his terrible forehead, dread strife[Pg 193] was hovering, as he raises the battle rout. On it likewise were heads of terrible serpents, unspeakable, twelve in number, who were wont to scare the race of men on earth, whosoever chanced to wage war against the son of Jove.”

Here it is noteworthy that Hesiod distinguishes between the dragon and serpents.

Ovid[199] locates the dragon slain by Cadmus in Bœotia, near the river Cephisus. He speaks of it as being hid in a cavern, adorned with crests, and of a golden colour. He, like the other poets, makes special reference to the eyes sparkling with fire, and it may be noted that a similar brilliancy is mentioned by those who have observed pythons in their native condition. He speaks of the dragon as blue,[200] and terribly destructive owing to the possession of a sting, long constricting folds, and venomous breath.

The story of Ceres flying to heaven in a chariot drawn by two dragons, and of her subsequently lending it to Triptolemus, to enable him to travel all over the earth and distribute corn to its inhabitants, is detailed or alluded to by numerous poets, as well as the tale of Medea flying from Jason in a chariot drawn by winged dragons. Ceres[201] is[Pg 194] further made to skim the waves of the ocean, much after the fashion of mythical personages depicted in the wood-cuts illustrating passages in the Shan Hai King.[202] Ammianus Marcellinus, whose history ends with the death of Valerius in A.D. 378, refers, as a remarkable instance of credulity, to a vulgar rumour that the chariot of Triptolemus was still extant, and had enabled Julian, who had rendered himself formidable both by sea and land, to pass over the walls of, and enter into the city of Heraclea. Though rational explanations are afforded by the theory of Bochart and Le Clerc, that the story is based upon the equivocal meaning of a Phœnician word, signifying either a winged dragon or a ship fastened with iron nails or bolts; or by that of Philodorus, as cited by Eusebius, who says that his ship was called a flying dragon, from its carrying the figure of a dragon on its prow; yet either simply transposes into another phase the current belief in a dragon, without prejudicing it.

Diodorus Siculus disposes of the Colchian dragon and the golden-fleeced ram in a very summary manner, as follows:—

“It is said that Phryxus, the son of Athamas and Nephele, in order to escape the snares of his stepmother, fled from Greece with his half-sister Hellen, and that whilst they were being carried, under the advice of the gods, by the ram with a golden fleece out of Europe into Asia, the girl accidentally fell off into the sea, which on that account has been called Hellespont. Phryxus, however, being carried safely into Colchis, sacrificed the ram by the order of an oracle, and hung up its skin in a shrine dedicated to Mars.

“After this the king learnt from an oracle that he would meet his death when strangers, arriving there by ship, should have carried off the golden fleece. On this account,[Pg 195] as well as from innate cruelty, the man was induced to offer sacrifice with the slaughter of his guests; in order that, the report of such an atrocity being spread everywhere, no one might dare to set foot within his dominions. He also surrounded the temple with a wall, and placed there a strong guard of Taurian soldiery; which gave rise to a prodigious fiction among the Greeks, for it was reported by them that bulls, breathing fire from their nostrils, kept watch over the shrine, and that a dragon guarded the skin, for by ambiguity the name of the Taurians was twisted into that of bulls, and the slaughter of guests furnished the fiction of the expiation of fire. In like manner they translated the name of the prefect Draco, to whom the custody of the temple had been assigned, into that of the monstrous and horrible creature of the poets.”

Nor do others fail to give a similar explanation of the fable of Phryxus, for they say that Phryxus was conveyed in a ship which bore on its prow the image of a ram, and that Hellen, who was leaning over the side under the misery of sea-sickness, tumbled into the water.

Among other subjects of poetry are the dragon which guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides, and the two which licked the eyes of Plutus at the temple of Æsculapius with such happy effect that he began to see.

Philostratus[203] separates dragons into Mountain dragons and Marsh dragons. The former had a moderate crest, which increased as they grew older, when a beard of saffron colour was appended to their chins; the marsh dragons had no crests. He speaks of their attaining a size so enormous that they easily killed elephants. Ælian describes their length as being from thirty or forty to a hundred cubits; and Posidonius mentions one, a hundred and forty feet long, that haunted the neighbourhood of Damascus; and another, whose[Pg 196] lair was at Macra, near Jordan, was an acre in length, and of such bulk that two men on horseback, with the monster between them, could not see each other.

Ignatius states that there was in the library of Constantinople the intestine of a dragon one hundred and twenty feet long, on which were written the Iliad and Odyssey in letters of gold. There is no ambiguity in Lucan’s[204] description of the Æthiopian dragon: “You also, the dragon, shining with golden brightness, who crawl in all (other) lands as innoxious divinities, scorching Africa render deadly with wings; you move the air on high, and following whole herds, you burst asunder vast bulls, embracing them with your folds. Nor is the elephant safe through his size; everything you devote to death, and no need have you of venom for a deadly fate.” Whereas the dragon referred to by Pliny (vide ante, p. 169), as also combating the elephant, is evidently without wings, and may either have been a very gigantic serpent, or a lacertian corresponding to the Chinese idea of the dragon.

Descending to later periods, we learn from Marcellinus[205] that in his day dragon standards were among the chief insignia of the Roman army; for, speaking of the triumphal entry of Constantine into Rome after his triumph over Magnentius, he mentions that numbers of the chief officers who preceded him were surrounded by dragons embroidered on various points of tissue, fastened to the golden or jewelled points of spears; the mouths of the dragons being open so as to catch the wind, which made them hiss as though they were inflamed with anger, while the coils of their tails were also contrived to be agitated by the breeze. And again he speaks of Silvanus[206] tearing the purple silk from the insignia[Pg 197] of the dragons and standards, and so assuming the title of Emperor.

Several nations, as the Persians, Parthians, Scythians, &c., bore dragons on their standards: whence the standards themselves were called dracones or dragons.

It is probable that the Romans borrowed this custom from the Parthians, or, as Casaubon has it, from the Dacae, or Codin, from the Assyrians; but while the Roman dracones were, as we learn from Ammianus Marcellinus, figures of dragons painted in red on their flags, among the Persians and Parthians they were, like the Roman eagles, figures in relievo, so that the Romans were frequently deceived and took them for real dragons.

The dragon plays an important part in Celtic mythology. Among the Celts, as with the Romans, it was the national standard.

While Cymri’s dragon, from the Roman’s hold
Spread with calm wing o’er Carduel’s domes of gold.[207]

The fables of Merllin, Nennius, and Geoffry describe it as red in colour, and so differing from the Saxon dragon which was white. The hero Arthur carried a dragon on his helm, and the tradition of it is moulded into imperishable form in the Faerie Queen. A dragon infested Lludd’s dominion, and made every heath in England resound with shrieks on each May-day eve. A dragon of vast size and pestiferous breath lay hidden in a cavern in Wales, and destroyed two districts with its venom, before the holy St. Samson seized and threw it into the sea.

In Celtic chivalry, the word dragon came to be used for chief, a Pendragon being a sort of dictator created in times of danger; and as the knights who slew a chief in battle were said to slay a dragon, this doubtless helped to keep alive the popular tradition regarding the monster which had[Pg 198] been carried with them westward in their migration from the common Aryan centre.

The Teutonic tribes who invaded and settled in England bore the effigies of dragons on their shields and banners, and these were also depicted on the ensigns of various German tribes.[208] We also find that Thor himself was a slayer of dragons,[209] and both Siegfried and Beowulf were similarly engaged in the Niebelungen-lied and the epic bearing the name of the latter.[210] The Berserkers not only named their boats after the dragon, but also had the prow ornamented with a dragon figure-head; a fashion which obtains to the present day among the Chinese, who have an annual dragon-boat festival, in which long snaky boats with a ferocious dragon prow run races for prizes, and paddle in processions.

So deeply associated was the dragon with the popular legends, that we find stories of encounters with it passing down into the literature of the Middle Ages; and, like the heroes of old, the Christian saints won their principal renown by dragon achievements. Thus among the dragon-slayers[211] we find that—

1. St. Phillip the Apostle destroyed a huge dragon at Hierapolis in Phrygia.

2. St. Martha killed the terrible dragon called Tarasque at Aix (la Chapelle).

3. St. Florent killed a similar dragon which haunted the Loire.

4. St. Cado, St. Maudet, and St. Paul did similar feats in Brittany.

[Pg 199]5. St. Keyne of Cornwall slew a dragon.

6. St. Michael, St. George, St. Margaret, Pope Sylvester, St. Samson, Archbishop of Dol, Donatus (fourth century), St. Clement of Metz, killed dragons.

7. St. Romain of Rouen destroyed the huge dragon called La Gargouille, which ravaged the Seine.

Moreover, the fossil remains of animals discovered from time to time, and now relegated to their true position in the zoological series, were supposed to be the genuine remains of either dragons or giants, according to the bent of the mind of the individual who stumbled on them: much as in the present day large fossil bones of extinct animals of all kinds are in China ascribed to dragons, and form an important item in the Chinese pharmacopœia. (Vide extract on[Pg 200] Dragon bones from the Pen-tsaou-kang-mu, given on pp. 244-246.)

Fig. 38.—Skeleton of an Iguanodon.

The annexed wood-cut of the skeleton of an Iguanodon, found in a coal-mine at Bernissant, exactly illustrates the semi-erect position which the dragon of fable is reported to have assumed.

Among the latest surviving beliefs of this nature may be cited the dragon of Wantley (Wharncliffe, Yorkshire), who was slain by More of More Hall. He procured a suit of armour studded with spikes, and, proceeding to the well where the dragon had his lair, kicked him in the mouth, where alone he was vulnerable. The Lambton worm is another instance.

The explanations of these legends attempted by mythologists, based on the supposition that the dragons which are their subjects are simply symbolic of natural phenomena, are ingenious, and perhaps in many instances sufficient, but do not affect, as I have before remarked, the primitive and conserved belief in their previous existence as a reality.

Thus, the author of British Goblins suggests that for the prototype of the red dragon, which haunted caverns and guarded treasures in Wales, we must look in the lightning caverns of old Aryan fable, and deduces the fire-darting dragons of modern lore from the shining hammer of Thor, and the lightning spear of Odin.

The stories of ladies guarded by dragons are explained on the supposition[212] that the ladies were kept in the secured part of the feudal castles, round which the walls wound, and that an adventurer had to scale the walls to gain access to the ladies; when there were two walls, the authors of romance said that the assaulter overcame two dragons, and so on. St. Romain, when he delivered the city of Rouen from a dragon which lived in the river Seine, simply [Pg 201]protected the city from an overflow, just as Apollo (the sun) is symbolically said to have destroyed the serpent Python, or, in other words, dried up an overflow. And the dragon of Wantley is supposed by Dr. Percy to have been an overgrown rascally attorney, who cheated some children of their estates, but was compelled to disgorge by a gentleman named More, who went against him armed with the “spikes of the law,” whereupon the attorney died of vexation.

Furthermore, our dragoons were so denominated because they were armed with dragons, that is, with short muskets, which spouted fire like dragons, and had the head of a dragon wrought upon their muzzle.

This fanciful device occurs also among the Chinese, for a Jesuit, who accompanied the Emperor of China on a journey into Western Tartary in 1683, says, “This was the reason of his coming into their country with so great an army, and such vast military preparations; he having commanded several pieces of cannon to be brought, in order for them to be discharged from time to time in the valleys; purposely that the noise and fire, issuing from the mouths of the dragons, with which they were adorned, might spread terror around.”

Though dragons have completely dropped out of all modern works on natural history, they were still retained and regarded as quite orthodox until a little before the time of Cuvier; specimens, doubtless fabricated like the ingeniously constructed mermaid of Mr. Barnum, were exhibited in the museums; and voyagers occasionally brought back, as authentic stories of their existence, fables which had percolated through time and nations until they had found a home in people so remote from their starting point as to cause a complete obliteration of their passage and origin.

For instance, Pigafetta, in a report of the kingdom of Congo,[213] “gathered out of the discourses of Mr. E. Lopes, a[Pg 202] Portuguese,” speaking of the province of Bemba, which he defines as “on the sea coast from the river Ambrize, until the river Coanza towards the south,” says of serpents, “There are also certain other creatures which, being as big as rams, have wings like dragons, with long tails, and long chaps, and divers rows of teeth, and feed upon raw flesh. Their colour is blue and green, their skin painted like scales, and they have two feet but no more.[214] The Pagan negroes used to worship them as gods, and at this day you may see divers of them that are kept for a marvel. And because they are very rare, the chief lords there curiously preserve them, and suffer the people to worship them, which tendeth greatly to their profits by reason of the gifts and oblations which the people offer unto them.”

And John Barbot, Agent-General of the Royal Company of Africa, in his description of the coasts of South Guinea,[215] says: “Some blacks assuring me that they (i.e. snakes) were thirty feet long. They also told me there are winged serpents or dragons having a forked tail and a prodigious wide mouth, full of sharp teeth, extremely mischievous to mankind, and more particularly to small children. If we may credit this account of the blacks, they are of the same sort of winged serpents which some authors tell us are to be found in Abyssinia, being very great enemies to the elephants. Some such serpents have been seen about the river Senegal, and they are adorned and worshipped as snakes are at Wida or Fida, that is, in a most religious manner.”

Ulysses Aldrovandus,[216] who published a large folio volume on serpents and dragons, entirely believed in the existence of the latter, and gives two wood engravings of a specimen[Pg 203] which he professes to have received in the year 1551, of a true dried Æthiopian dragon.

He describes it as having two feet armed with claws, and two ears, with five prominent and conspicuous tubercles on the back. The whole was ornamented with green and dusky scales. Above, it bore wings fit for flight, and had a long and flexible tail, coloured with yellowish scales, such as shone on the belly and throat. The mouth was provided with sharp teeth, the inferior part of the head, towards the ears, was even, the pupil of the eye black, with a tawny surrounding, and the nostrils were two in number, and open.

He criticises Ammianus Marcellinus for his disbelief in winged dragons, and states in further justification of his censure that he had heard, from men worthy of confidence, that in that portion of Pistorian territory called Cotone, a great dragon was seen whose wings were interwoven with sinews a cubit in length, and were of considerable width; this beast also possessed two short feet provided with claws like those of an eagle. The whole animal was covered with scales. The gaping mouth was furnished with big teeth, it had ears, and was as big as a hairy bear. Aldrovandus sustains his argument by quotations from the classics and reference to more recent authors. He quotes Isidorus as stating that the winged Arabian serpents were called Sirens, while their venom was so effective that their bite was attended by death rather than pain; this confirms the account of Solinus.

He instances Gesner as saying that, in 1543, he understood that a kind of dragon appeared near Styria, within the confines of Germany, which had feet like lizards, and wings after the fashion of a bat, with an incurable bite, and says these statements are confirmed by Froschonerus in his work on Styria (idque Froschonerus ex Bibliophila Stirio narrabat). He classes dragons (which he considers as essentially winged animals) either as footless or possessing two or four feet.

[Pg 204]He refers to a description by Scaliger[217] of a species of serpent four feet long, and as thick as a man’s arm, with cartilaginous wings pendent from the sides. He also mentions an account by Brodeus, of a winged dragon which was brought to Francis, the invincible King of the Gauls, by a countryman who had killed it with a mattock near Sanctones, and which was stated to have been seen by many men of approved reputation, who thought it had migrated from transmarine regions by the assistance of the wind.

Cardan[218] states that whilst he resided in Paris he saw five winged dragons in the William Museum; these were biped, and possessed of wings so slender that it was hardly possible that they could fly with them. Cardan doubted their having been fabricated, since they had been sent in vessels at different times, and yet all presented the same remarkable form. Bellonius states that he had seen whole carcases of winged dragons, carefully prepared, which he considered to be of the same kind as those which fly out of Arabia into Egypt; they were thick about the belly, had two feet, and two wings, whole like those of a bat, and a snake’s tail.

It would be useless to multiply examples of the stories, no doubt fables, current in mediæval times, and I shall therefore only add here two of those which, though little known, are probably fair samples of the whole. It is amusing to find the story of Sindbad’s escape from the Valley of Diamonds reappearing in Europe during the Middle Ages, with a substitution of the dragon for the roc. Athanasius Kircher, in the Mundus Subterraneus, gives the story of a Lucerne man who, in wandering over Mount Pilate, tumbled into a cavern from which there was no exit, and, in searching round, discovered the lair of two dragons, who proved [Pg 205]more tender than their reputation. Unharmed by them he remained for the six winter months, without any other sustenance than that which he derived from licking the moisture off the rock, in which he followed their example. Noticing the dragons preparing for flying out on the approach of spring, by stretching and unfolding their wings, he attached himself by his girdle to the tail of one of them, and so was restored to the upper world, where, unfortunately, the return to the diet to which he had been so long unaccustomed killed him. In memory, however, of the event, he left his goods to the Church, and a monument illustrative of his escape was erected in the Ecclesiastical College of St. Leodegaris at Lucerne. Kircher had himself seen this, and it was accepted as an irrefragable proof of the story.

 [Pg 206]

Fig. 39.—The Dragons of Mount Pilate.
(From the “Mundus Subterraneus” of Athanasius Kircher.)

Another story is an account also given by A. Kircher,[219] of the fight between a dragon and a knight named Gozione, in the island of Rhodes, in the year 1349 A.D. This monster is described as of the bulk of a horse or ox, with a long neck and serpent’s head—tipped with mule’s ears—the mouth widely gaping and furnished with sharp teeth, eyes sparkling as though they flashed fire, four feet provided with claws like a bear, and a tail like a crocodile, the whole body being coated with hard scales. It had two wings, blue above, but blood-coloured and yellow underneath; it was swifter than a horse, progressing partly by flight and partly by running. The knight, being solicited by the chief magistrate, retired into the country, when he constructed an imitation dragon of paper and tow, and purchased a charger and two courageous English dogs; he ordered slaves to snap the jaws and twist the tail about by means of cords, while he urged his horse and dogs on to the attack. After practising for two months, these latter could scarcely retain their frenzy at the mere sight of the image. He then proceeded to[Pg 207] Rhodes, and after offering his vows in the Church of St. Stephen, repaired to the fatal cave, instructing his slaves to witness the combat from a lofty rock, and hasten to him with remedies, if after slaying the dragon he should be overcome by the poisonous exhalations, or to save themselves, in the event of his being slain. Entering the lair he excited the beast with shouts and cries, and then awaited it outside. The dragon appearing, allured by the expectation of an easy prey, rushed on him, both running and flying; the knight shattered his spear at the first onset on the scaly carcase, and leaping from his horse continued the contest with sword and shield. The dragon, raising itself on its hind legs, endeavoured to grasp the knight with his fore ones, giving the latter an opportunity of striking him in the softer parts of the neck. At last both fell together, the knight being exhausted by the fatigue of the conflict, or by mephitic exhalations. The slaves, according to instruction, rushed forward, dragged off the monster from their master, and fetched water in their caps to restore him; after which he mounted his horse and returned in triumph to the city, where he was at first ungratefully received, but afterwards rewarded with[Pg 208] the highest ranks of the order, and created magistrate of the province.[220]

Fig. 40.—The Dragon of the Drachenfeldt. (Athanasius Kircher.)

Kircher had a very pious belief in dragons. He says: “Since monstrous animals of this kind for the most part select their lairs and breeding-places in subterraneous caverns, I have considered it proper to include them under the head of subterraneous beasts. I am aware that two kinds of this animal have been distinguished by authors, the one with, the other without, wings. No one either can or ought to doubt concerning the latter kind of creature, unless perchance he dares to contradict the Holy Scripture, for it would be an impious thing to say it when Daniel makes mention of the divine worship accorded to the dragon Bel by the Babylonians, and after the mention of the dragon made in other parts of the sacred writings.”

Harris, in his Collection of Voyages,[221] gives a singular resumé. He says:—“We have, in an ancient author, a very large and circumstantial account of the taking of a dragon on the frontiers of Ethiopia, which was one and twenty feet in length, and was carried to Ptolemy Philadelphus, who very bountifully rewarded such as ran the hazard of procuring him this beast.—Diodorus Siculus, lib. iii.... Yet terrible as these were they fall abundantly short of monsters of the same species in India, with respect to which St. Ambrose[222] tells us that there were dragons seen in the neighbourhood of the Ganges nearly seventy cubits in length. It was one of this size that Alexander and his army saw in a cave, where it was fed, either out of reverence or from curiosity, by the inhabitants; and the first lightning of its[Pg 209] eyes, together with its terrible hissing, made a strong impression on the Macedonians, who, with all their courage, could not help being frighted at so horrid a spectacle.[223] The dragon is nothing more than a serpent of enormous size; and they formerly distinguished three sorts of them in the Indies, viz. such as were found in the mountains, such as were bred in caves or in the flat country, and such as were found in fens and marshes.

“The first is the largest of all, and are covered with scales as resplendent as polished gold.[224] These have a kind of beard hanging from their lower jaw, their eyebrows large, and very exactly arched; their aspect the most frightful that can be imagined, and their cry loud and shrill;[225] their crests of a bright yellow, and a protuberance on their heads of the colour of a burning coal.

“Those of the flat country differ from the former in nothing but in having their scales of a silver colour,[226] and in their frequenting rivers, to which the former never come.

“Those that live in marshes and fens are of a dark colour, approaching to a black, move slowly, have no crest, or any rising upon their heads.[227] Strabo says that the painting them with wings is the effect of fancy, and directly contrary to truth, but other naturalists and travellers both ancient and modern affirm that there are some of these species winged.[228][Pg 210] Pliny says their bite is not venomous, other authors deny this. Pliny gives a long catalogue of medical and magical properties, which he ascribes to the skin, flesh, bones, eyes, and teeth of the dragon, also a valuable stone in its head. ‘They hung before the mouth of the dragon den a piece of stuff flowered with gold, which attracted the eyes of the beast, till by the sound of soft music they lulled him to sleep, and then cut off his head.’”

I do not find Harris’s statement in Diodorus Siculus, the author quoted, but there is the very circumstantial description of a serpent thirty cubits (say forty-five feet) in length, which was captured alive by stratagem, the first attempt by force having resulted in the death of several of the party. This was conveyed to Ptolemy II. at Alexandria, where it was placed in a den or chamber suitable for exhibition, and became an object of general admiration. Diodorus says: “When, therefore, so enormous a serpent was open for all to see, credence could no longer be refused the Ethiopians, or their statements be received as fables; for they say that they have seen in their country serpents so vast that they can not only swallow cattle and other beasts of the same size, but that they also fight with the elephant, embracing his limbs so tightly in the fold of their coils that he is unable to move, and, raising their neck up underneath his trunk, direct their head against the elephant’s eyes; having destroyed his sight by fiery rays like lightning, they dash him to the ground, and, having done so, tear him to pieces.”

In an account of the castle of Fahender, formerly one of the most considerable castles of Fars, it is stated—“Such is the historical foundation of an opinion generally prevalent, that the subterranean recesses of this deserted edifice are still replete with riches. The talisman has not been forgotten; and tradition adds another guardian to the previous deposit, a dragon or winged serpent; this sits for ever brooding over the treasure which it cannot enjoy.”

[Pg 211]I shall examine, on a future occasion, how far those figures correspond to the Persian ideas of dragons and serpents, the azhdaha (اژدها = dragon) and már (مار = snake), which, as various poets relate, are constant guardians of every subterraneous ganj (گنج = treasure).

The már at least may be supposed the same as that serpent which guards the golden fruit in the garden of the Hesperides.

[Pg 212]

THE CHINESE DRAGON.

We now approach the consideration of a country in which the belief in the existence of the dragon is thoroughly woven into the life of the whole nation. Yet at the same time it has developed into such a medley of mythology and superstition as to materially strengthen our conviction of the reality of the basis upon which the belief has been founded, though it involves us in a mass of intricate perplexities in connection with the determination of its actual period of existence.

There is no country so conservative as China, no nation which can boast of such high antiquity, as a collective people permanently occupying the same regions, and preserving records of their polity, manners, and surroundings from the earliest date of their occupation of the territory which still remains the centre of their civilization; and there is none in which dragon culture has been more persistently maintained down to the present day.

Its mythologies, histories, religions, popular stories, and proverbs, all teem with references to a mysterious being who has a physical nature and spiritual attributes. Gifted with an accepted form, which he has the supernatural power of casting off for the assumption of others, he has the power of influencing the weather, producing droughts or fertilizing[Pg 213] rains at pleasure, of raising tempests and allaying them. Volumes could be compiled from the scattered legends which everywhere abound relating to this subject; but as they are, for the most part, like our mediæval legends, echoes of each other, no useful purpose would be served by doing so, and I therefore content myself with drawing, somewhat copiously, from one or two of the chief sources of information.

As, however, Chinese literature is but little known or valued in England, it is desirable that I should devote some space to the consideration of the authority which may be fairly claimed for the several works from which I shall make quotations, bearing on the Chinese testimony of the past existence, and date of existence, of the dragon and other so-called mythical animals.