being as distant as possible from the Spanish settlements, and has
always suffered from an insufficient depth of water on its bars to
accommodate the largest class of merchant ships. It has barely sixteen
feet of water at high tide, and ships loaded as lightly as possible
have often been obliged to wait for weeks to enter or leave the port. A
decrease of one or two feet in its main channel would, in its palmiest
days, have been fatal to its prosperity. The sinking of a dozen ships
loaded with stone has no doubt placed a permanent barrier to the
entrance of all but a small class of vessels. The ships themselves may
soon be displaced or destroyed by the sea-worm, but the New England
granite will prove a lasting monument to the folly and madness of the
rebellion. The destruction of the best part of the city by fire seems
also to show that Providence has designed it to be ranked only with the
cities of the past.
The productions of South Carolina have always been large and valuable,
and since the completion of their system of railroad facilities they
have greatly increased; therefore a commercial city is a necessity, and
Port Royal must be its locality. Here is the noblest harbor south of the
Chesapeake, with a draught of water of from twenty-five to thirty feet,
enough for the largest-sized ships, and sufficient anchorage room for
all the navies of the world. Our government should here have a naval
depot to take the place of Norfolk, since there is no more suitable
place on the whole coast. In this connection the name, Royal Port, is
truly significant.
The precise locality for the new city can not now be indicated, but we
would suggest the point some two miles south-west of Beaufort, which
would give it a position not unlike New York. It would have the straight
Broad River for its Hudson, with a fine channel on the south and east
communicating with numerous sounds and rivers. Its situation on an
island of about the same length as Manhattan completes the parallel.
The value of the produce conveyed over the sounds and rivers connecting
with Port Royal, by sloops and steamers, must be counted by millions of
dollars. We may estimate the crop of Sea-Island cotton at about fifteen
thousand bales, or six millions of pounds, and of rice about fifty
million pounds. Yankee enterprise would soon double the amount, and add
to it an immense bulk of naval stores and lumber.
But this is but a moiety of what the exports would be. A branch railroad
only ten miles long would connect this port with all the railroads of
South Carolina and Georgia, which, diverging from Charleston and
Savannah, spread themselves over a large part of five States. This road
would make tributary to this place a vast district of country.
Savannah, which has for the last few years competed with Charleston for
this trade, will soon feel the power of the government, and it must
yield up a large part of its business to the more favorable location of
the new city.
A few short years, and what a change may come over these beautiful
islands and the waters that hold them in its embrace! A fair city,
active with its commerce and manufactures, wharves and streets lined
with stores and dwellings, interspersed with churches and schools,
inhabited by people from every section of our country, and from every
part of Europe, all interested to improve their own condition, and all
combining to add strength and wealth to the Union which they agree to
respect, love, honor, and defend!
* * * * *
THE ANTE-NORSE DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA.
I. THE MYTHICAL ERA.
Who were the first settlers in America?
Within a few years our school-books pointed to Cristoval Colon, or
Columbus, and his crew, as the first within the range of history who
'passed far o'er the ocean blue' to this hemisphere. Now, however, even
the school-books--generally the last to announce novel truths--say
something of the Norsemen in America, though they frequently do it in a
discrediting and discreditable way. However, the old Vikings have
triumphed once more, even in their graves, and Professor Rafn can prove
as conclusively that his fierce ancestry trod the soil of Boston as that
the Mayflower Puritans followed in their footsteps. It is a dim old
story, laid away in Icelandic manuscripts, and confirmed by but few
relics on our soil; yet it is strong enough to give New England a link
to the Middle Ages of Europe, with their wildest romance and strangest
elements. It is pleasant to think that far back in the night there
walked for a short season on these shores great men of that hearty
Norse-Teuton race which in after times flowed through France into
England, and from England through the long course of ages hitherward.
Among the old Puritan names of New England there is more than one which
may be found in the roll of Battle Abbey, and through the Norse-Norman
spelling of which we trace the family origin of fierce sea-kings in
their lowland isles or rocky lairs on the Baltic.
But there are older links existing between America and Europe than this
of the Norseman. Of these the first is indeed buried in mystery--leading
us back into that sombre twilight of 'symbolism,' as the Germans
somewhat obscurely call the study of the early ages whose records are
lost, and which can only be traced by reflection in the resemblances
between mythologies which argue a common origin, and the monuments
remaining, which seem to establish it. Yes, America has this in common
with every country of Asia, Europe, and Africa: she has relics which
indicate that at one time she was inhabited by a race which had perhaps
the same faith, the same stupendous nature-worship, with that of the Old
World, and which was, to reason by analogy, _possibly_ identified by the
same language and customs. What _was_ this race, this religion, this
language? Who shall answer? Men like Faber, and Higgins, and Lajard,
with scores of others, have unweariedly gathered together all the points
of resemblance between the religions and mythologies of the Hindus and
Egyptians and Chinese, the Druids and the Phenicians, the Etruscans and
the Scandinavians, and old Sclavonic heathen, and found in and between
and through them all a startling identity: everywhere the Serpent,
everywhere the Queen of Heaven with her child, everywhere the cup of
life and the bread and honey of the mysteries, with the salt of the
orgie, everywhere a thousand fibres twining and trailing into each other
in bewildering confusion, indicating a common origin, yet puzzling
beyond all hope those who seek to find it. So vast is the wealth of
material which opens on the scholar who seeks to investigate this common
origin of mythologies, and with them the possible early identity of
races and of languages, that he is almost certain to soon bury himself
in a hypothesis and become lost in some blind alley of the great
labyrinth.
Certain points appear to have once existed in common to nations on every
part of the earth previous to authentic history, and in these America
had probably more or less her share, as appears from certain monuments
and relics of her early races. They are as follows:--
1. A worship of nature, based on the inscrutable mystery of generation
with birth and death. As these two extremes caused each other, they were
continually _identified_ in the religious myth or symbol employed to
represent either.
2. This great principle of action, developing itself into birth and
death, was regarded as being symbolized in every natural object, and
corresponding with these there were created myths, or 'stories,' setting
forth the principal mystery of nature in a thousand poetic forms.
3. The formula according to which all myths were shaped was that of
transition, or _the passing through_. The germ, in the mother or in the
plant, which after its sleep reappeared in life, was also recognized in
Spring, or Adonis, coming to light and warmth after the long death of
winter in the womb of the earth. The ark, which floats on the waters,
bearing within it the regenerator, signified the same; so did the cup or
horn into which the wine of life was poured and from which it was drunk;
so too did nuts, or any object capable of representing latent existence.
The passing into a cavern through a door between pillars or rocky
passes, or even the wearing of rings, all intimated the same
mystery--the going into and the coming forth into renewed life.
4. But the great active principle which lay at the foundation of the
mystery of birth and death, or of action, was set forth by the
serpent--the type of good and evil, of life and destruction--the first
intelligence. It is the constant recurrence of this symbol among the
early monuments of America, as of the Old World, which proves most
conclusively the existence at one time of a common religion, or
'cultus.' It was probably meant to signify water from its wavy curves,
and the snake-like course of rivers, as inundation seems to have been,
according to early faith, the most prolific source of the destruction of
nature, and yet the most active in its revival.
There are in Brittany vast lines of massy Druidic stones, piled
sometimes for leagues in regular order, in such a manner as to represent
colossal serpents. Those who will consult the French _Dracontia_ will be
astonished at the labor expended on these strange temples. Squier has
shown that the earth-works of the West represent precisely the same
symbol. Mexico and South America abound, like Europe and the East, in
serpent emblems; they twine around the gods; they are gods themselves;
they destroy as Typhon, and give life in the hands of Esculapius.
In the United States, as in Europe and in the East, there are found in
steep places, by difficult paths, always near the banks of streams,
narrow, much-worn passages in rocks, through which one person[J] can
barely squeeze, and which were evidently not intended for ordinary
travel. The passing through these places was enjoined on religious
votaries, as indicating respect for the great principle of regeneration.
The peasants of Europe, here and there, at the present day, continue to
pass through these rock or cave doors, 'for luck.' It was usual, after
the transition, whether into a cave, where mysteries, feasts, and orgies
were held, significant of 'the revival,' or merely through a narrow
way,--to bathe in the invariably neighboring river; the serpent-river or
water which drowns organic life, yet without which it dies.
In England, at a comparatively recent period, and even yet occasionally
in Scandinavia, the peasantry plighted their troth by passing their
hands through the hole in the 'Odin-stones,' and clasping them. Beads
and wedding rings and 'fairy-stones,' or those found with holes in them,
were all linked to the same faith which rendered sacred every
resemblance to the 'passing through.' The graves of both North and
South America contain abundant evidence of the sacredness in which the
same objects were held. I have a singularly-shaped soapstone ornament,
taken from an Indian grave, whose perforation indicates the
'fairy-stone.' The religious legends of Mexico and of Peru are too
identical with many of the Old World to be passed over as coincidences;
the gold images of Chiriqui, with their Baal bell-ringing figures, and
serpent-girt, pot-bellied phallic idols, are too strikingly like those
of _Old_ Ireland and of the East not to suggest some far-away common
origin. I have good authority for saying that almost every symbol,
whether of cup or dove, serpent or horn, flower or new moon, boat or
egg, common to Old World mythology, may be found set forth or preserved
with the emphasis of religious emblems in the graves or ruined temples
of ancient North America.
The mass of evidence which has been accumulated by scholars illustrative
of a common origin of mythologies and a centralization of them around
the serpent; or, as G.S. Faber will have it, the Ark; or, as some think,
the heavenly bodies; or, as others claim, simply a worship of paternity
and maternity,--is immense. Why they should claim separate precedence
for symbols, all of which set forth the one great mystery how GOD
'weaves and works in action's storm,' is only explicable on the ground
that 'every scholar likes to have his own private little pet
hypothesis.' Enough, however, may be found to show that this stupendous
nature-worship _was_ held the world over,--_possibly_ in the days of a
single language,--in America as in ancient Italy, or around the sacred
mountain-crags of India; in Lebanon as in Ireland, in the garden-lands
of Assyria, and in the isles of the South.
Yet all this is as yet, for the truly scientific ethnologist, only
half-fact, indefinite, belonging to the cloud-land of fable. The poet or
the thinker, yearning for a new basis of art, may find in the immense
mass of legends and symbols an identification between all the forms of
nature in a vast harmony and mutual reflection of every beautiful
object; but for the man of facts it is unformed, not arranged, useless.
We know not the color of the race or races which piled the Western
mounds; their languages are lost; they are vague mist-gods, living in a
dimmer medium than that of mere tradition. So ends the first period of
intercommunication between Asia--the probable birthplace of the old
mythology--and America.
II. THE CHINESE DISCOVERERS OF MEXICO IN THE FIFTH CENTURY.
But there is a second link, ere we come to the Norsemen, which is strong
enough to merit the favorable consideration of the scientific man, for
it rests on evidence worthy serious investigation. I refer to the fact
that the Chinese-Annals, or Year Books,--which, according to good
authority, have been well kept, and which are certainly prosaic and
blue-bookish enough in their mass of dry details of embassies and
expenditures to be highly credible,--testify that in the fifth century
the Chinese learned the situation of the great peninsula Aliaska, which
they named Tahan, or Great China. Beyond this, at the end of the fifth
century,--be it observed that the advances in discovery correspond in
time in the records,--they discovered a land which Deguignes long after
identified with the north-west coast of America. With each discovery,
the people of these new lands were compelled, or were represented at
court as having been compelled, to send ambassadors wife tribute to the
Central Realm, or China.
But there had been unofficial Chinese travelers in Western America, and
even in Mexico itself, before this time. Those who have examined the
history of that vast religious movement of Asia which, contemporary with
Christianity, shook the hoary faiths of the East, while a higher and
purer doctrine was overturning those of the West, are aware that it had
many external points or forms in common with those of the later Roman
church, which have long been a puzzle to the wise. To say nothing of
mitres, tapers, violet robes, rosaries, bells, convents, auricular
confession, and many other singular identities, the early Buddhist
church distinguished itself by a truly catholic zeal for the making of
converts, and, to effect this, sent its emissaries to Central Africa and
Central Russia; from the Sclavonian frontier on the west to China,
Japan, and the farthest Russian isles of the east. On they went; who
shall say where they paused? We know that there are at this day in St.
Petersburg certain books on black paper taken from a Buddhist temple
found in a remote northern corner of Russia. It was much less of an
undertaking, and much less singular, that Chinese priests should pass,
by short voyages, from island to island, almost over the proposed
Russian route for the Pacific telegraph to America. That they _did so_
is explicitly stated in the Year Books, which contain details relative
to _Fusang_, or Mexico, where it is said of the inhabitants that 'in
earlier times these people lived not according to the laws of Buddha.
But it happened in the second "year-naming" "Great Light" of Song (A.D.
458), that five beggar monks, from the kingdom Kipin, went to this land,
extended over it the religion of Buddha, and with it his holy writings
and images. They instructed the people in the principles of monastic
life, and so changed their manners.'
But I am anticipating my subject. In another chapter I propose, on the
authority of Professor Neumann, a learned Sinologist of Munich, to set
forth the proofs that in the last year of the fifth century a Buddhist
priest, bearing the cloister name of Hoei-schin, or Universal
Compassion, returned from America, and gave for the first time an
official account of the country which he had visited, which account was
recorded, and now remains as a simple fact among the annual registers of
the government.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
* * * * *
THE SPUR OF MONMOUTH.
'Twas a little brass half-circlet,
Deep gnawed by rust and stain,
That the farmer's urchin brought me,
Plowed up on old Monmouth plain;
On that spot where the hot June sunshine
Once a fire more deadly knew,
And a bloodier color reddened
Where the red June roses blew;--
Where the moon of the early harvest
Looked down through the shimmering leaves,
And saw where the reaper of battle
Had gathered big human sheaves.
Old Monmouth, so touched with glory--
So tinted with burning shame--
As Washington's pride we remember,
Or Lee's long tarnished name.
'Twas a little brass half-circlet;
And knocking the rust away,
And clearing the ends and the middle
From their buried shroud of clay,
I saw, through the damp of ages
And the thick disfiguring grime,
The buckle-heads and the rowel
Of a spur of the olden time.
And I said--what gallant horseman,
Who revels and rides no more,
Perhaps twenty years back, or fifty,
On his heel that weapon wore?
Was he riding away to his bridal,
When the leather snapped in twain?
Was he thrown and dragged by the stirrup,
With the rough stones crushing his brain?
Then I thought of the Revolution,
Whose tide still onward rolls--
Of the free and the fearless riders
Of the 'times that tried men's souls.'
What if, in the day of battle
That raged and rioted here,
It had dropped from the foot of a soldier,
As he rode in his mad career?
What if it had ridden with Forman,
When he leaped through the open door,
With the British dragoon behind him,
In his race o'er the granary floor?
What if--but the brain grows dizzy
With the thoughts of the rusted spur;
What if it had fled with Clinton,
Or charged with Aaron Burr?
But bravely the farmer's urchin
Had been scraping the rust away;
And cleansed from the soil that swathed it,
The spur before me lay.
Here are holes in the outer circle--
No common heel it has known,
For each space, I see by the setting,
Once held some precious stone.
And here--not far from the buckle--
Do my eyes deceive their sight?--
Two letters are here engraven,
That initial a hero's might!
'G.W.'! Saints of heaven!
Can such things in our lives occur?
Do I grasp such a priceless treasure?
Was this _George Washington's spur_?
Did the brave old _Pater Patrioe_
Wear that spur like a belted knight--
Wear it through gain and disaster,
From Cambridge to Monmouth flight?
Did it press his steed in hot anger
On Long Island's day of pain?
Did it drive him, at terrible Princeton,
'Tween two storms of leaden rain?
And here--did the buckle loosen,
And no eye look down to see,
When he rode to blast with the lightning
The shrinking eyes of Lee?
Did it fall, unfelt and unheeded,
When that fight of despair was won,
And Clinton, worn and discouraged,
Crept away at the set of sun?
The lips have long been silent
That could send an answer back;
And the spur, all broken and rusted,
Has forgotten its rider's track!
I only know that the pulses
Leap hot, and the senses reel,
When I think that the Spur of Monmouth
May have clasped George Washington's heel!
And if it be so, O Heaven,
That the nation's destiny holds,
And that maps the good and the evil
In the future's bewildering folds,
Send forth some man of the people,
Unspotted in heart and hand,
On his foot to buckle the relic,
And charge for a periled land!
There is fire in our fathers' ashes;
There is life in the blood they shed;
And not a hair unheeded
Shall fall from the nation's head.
Old bones of the saints and the martyrs
Spring up at the church's call:--
God grant that the Spur of Monmouth
Prove the mightiest relic of all!
* * * * *
THE FATAL MARRIAGE OF BILL THE SOUNDSER.
Reader, possibly you do not know what a 'Soundser' is. Then I will tell
you. In the coastwise part of the State of New Jersey in which I live,
numerous sounds and creeks everywhere divide and intersect the low,
sea-skirting lands, wherein certain people are wont to cruise and delve
for the sake of securing their products, and hence come to be known in
our homely style as Soundsers. The fruitage afforded by these sounds is
both manifold and of price. Throughout all the pleasant weather, they
yield, with but little intermission, that gastronomic gem, the terrapin;
the succulent, hard-shell clam, and the 'soft' crab; the deep-lurking,
snowy-fleshed hake, or king-fish; the huge, bell-voiced drum, and that
sheen-banded pride of American salt-water fishes, the sheepshead. During
the waning weeks of May, and also with the continuance of dog-days, this
already profuse bounty receives a goodly accession in the shape of vast
flocks of willets, curlews, gray-backs, and other marine birds, which,
with every ebb tide, resort to their shoaler bars and flats, to take on
those layers of fat which the similarly well-conditioned old gentleman
of the city finds so inexpressibly delicious. When the summer is once,
over, and while the cold weather prevails, they furnish another and
quite new set of dainties. Then the span-long, ripe, 'salt' oyster is to
be had for the raking of their more solidly-bottomed basins; and all
along their more retired nooks and harbors, the gunner, by taking proper
precautions, may bring to bag the somewhat 'sedgy' but still
well-flavored black duck, the tender widgeon, the buttery little
bufflehead, the incomparable canvas-back, and the loud-shrieking,
sharp-eyed wild goose. All this various booty is industriously secured
by the 'soundsers,' to find, ere long, a ready market in the larger
inland towns and cities. But united to this shooting, fishing, and
oyster-catching, they have another 'trade' whose scene is on the waters,
though it connects itself with the sea, rather than the sounds, and
_this_ is 'wrecking.' They are prompt for this service whenever the
occasion requires; indeed, I sometimes think they prefer it, dangerous
though it be, before all others. Inured as they are to every sort of
exposure, they are of course a tough and rugged race; and what with
their diversity of occupation, calling, as it does, for a constant
interchange of the use of the gun, net, boat, fishing line, and some one
or other arm or edge tool, they are usually, nay, almost invariably,
handy and quick-witted.
By far the most notable 'soundser' our neighborhood ever bred was my
hero, BILL. Physically, at least, he was a true wonder. He stood full
six feet two, weighed eleven score pounds, and at the same time carried
no more flesh than sufficed to hide the exact outline of his bones.
Another man so strong as he I have never seen. I have repeatedly known
him to lift and walk off with anchors weighing five and six hundred
weight; and those big, thick hands of his could twist any horseshoe as
if it were a girl's wreath. Certainly he was not in the least graceful;
that 'ponderosity' of his could in no way be repressed. But he was still
of rude comeliness, his shape being squarely fitted and tolerably
proportioned, while his broad, red-maned visage wore a constant glow of
plain, though sincere, kindliness and good-humor.