To revert to Herodotus. This ancient historian was a great traveler, the
first, perhaps, to visit the region of the blacks and their empire.
He says, somewhere in his history: “The Ethiopians were the first men
who ever lived.”
There is more astounding evidence of the civilization of the black men
to be found in recent excavations.
Lying north of Egypt and a little southeast of Greece, in the
Mediterranean Sea, is the famous Island of Crete, or Candia, embracing
3,326 square miles, and at the present time it has a population of about
300,000 people all told.
This island was anciently regarded as the spot where Jove himself was
cradled, and it became the center or reservoir of the highest forms of
ancient civilization. All the ancient Greek and Roman gods had their
origin or birthplace on this island, and under the famed King Minos,
nothing disgraceful or monstrous was permitted to find a resting place.
It has always been a mysteriously unknown island, and the great aim of
delvers into antiquities.
Within the last ten years, there has been dug out in this island of
Crete, the remains of a civilization two thousand years more ancient
than any hitherto known in Europe.