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MYTHICAL MONSTERS.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration]
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.
PREFACE.
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.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
LIST OF AUTHORS CITED 27
CHAPTER I.--ON SOME REMARKABLE ANIMAL FORMS 31
CHAPTER II.--EXTINCTION OF SPECIES 42
CHAPTER III.--ANTIQUITY OF MAN 78
CHAPTER IV.--THE DELUGE NOT A MYTH 101
CHAPTER V.--ON THE TRANSLATION OF MYTHS BETWEEN
THE OLD AND THE NEW WORLD 137
CHAPTER VI.--THE DRAGON 159
CHAPTER VII.--THE CHINESE DRAGON 212
CHAPTER VIII.--THE JAPANESE DRAGON 248
CHAPTER IX.--THE SEA-SERPENT 260
CHAPTER X.--THE UNICORN 338
CHAPTER XI.--THE CHINESE PHŒNIX 366
APPENDICES 375
MYTHICAL MONSTERS.
INTRODUCTION.
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.
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
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]
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 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 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]
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 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 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 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."
[Illustration: 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 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]
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 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
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
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 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 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]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--PTERODACTYLUS. (_After Figuier._)]
[Illustration: 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 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?
[Illustration: 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.
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 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]
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 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 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]
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]
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.
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.
_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.
_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.
_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.
CHAPTER I.
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.
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:--
_Amphibia._
REPTILES CLASSIFIED BY HUXLEY.
---------------------------------------------------
ORDER. | ---- | SUB-ORDER. |GROUPS. |
| | | |
-----------|----------|------------------|--------|
Chelonia. |Land |1. Testudinea | |
| tortoises| | |
" |River and |2. Emydea |a Terra-|
| marsh do.| | penes|
| | |b Chelo-|
| | | dines|
|Mud |3. Trionychoidea | |
| tortoises| | |
" |Turtles |4. Euereta | |
| | | |
Plesiosaur-| |5. |Post |
ia. | | | Trias- |
| | | sic |
" | |6. |Triassic|
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
Lacertilia.|Geckos |7. Ascalabota | |
| | | |
" | |8. Rhynchocephala | |
| | | |
" | |9. Homœosauria | |
| | | |
| | | |
" | |10. Protosauria | |
| | | |
" |Monitor |11. Platynota | |
| | | |
" | |12. Eunota | |
| | | |
" | |13. Lacertina | |
| | | |
" | |14. Chalcidea | |
| | | |
" | |15. Scincoidea | |
" | |16. Dolichosauria | |
" | |17. Mosasauria | |
" | |18. Amphisbænoida | |
" | |19. Chamæleonida | |
Ophidia. |Non-vene- |20. Aglyphodontia | |
| mous con-| | |
" | stricting|21. Opisthoglyphia| |
" | |22. Proteroglyphia| |
" |Vipers and|23. Solenoglyphia | |
| Rattle- | | |
" | snakes |24. Typhlopidæ | |
Icthyosaur-| | . . . . | |
ia. | | | |
Crocodile. |Alligator |26. Alligatoridæ | |
| | | |
| | | |
" |Crocodiles|27. Crocodilidæ | |
| | | |
" |Gavials |28. Gavialidæ | |
" | | | |
| |29. Teleosauidæ | |
" | |30. Belodontidæ | |
Dicynodont-| |31. . . . | |
ia. | | | |
Ornitho- | |32. Dinosauria | |
scelida | | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| |33. Compsognatha | |
| | | |
Pterosaur- |Flying |34. Pterodactylidæ| |
ia. | reptile | | |
| | | |
| | | |
---------------------------------------------------
_Aves._
-------------------------------
ILLUSTRATIVE | RANGE OF THE
GENERA. | ORDER.
--------------|----------------
Pyxis, Cinyxis|}The
|} Chelonia
Emys, Cistudo |} are first
|} known to
Chelys, |} occur in
Chelodina |}
Gymnopus |} the Lias.
Cryptopus |}
Sphargis, |}To recent.
Chelone |
Plesiosaurus |}
Pliosaurus |}Trias to
|} Chalk
Nothosaurus |} inclu-
Simosaurus |} sive.
Pistosaurus |}
|
|recent }
| }
Sphenodon or | }
Rhyncocepha-| }
lus |Solenhofen}
| slates to}
| Trias }
|Permian }
| }Permian
|recent }to
| }recent.
| " }
| }
| " }
| }
| " }
| }
|Recent }Permian
Dolichosaurus|Chalk }to
Mososaurus |Chalk }recent.
Chirotes | }
Amphisbæna |
Python, |}
Tortrix |}
|}
|} Older
Crotalus |} Tertiary
|} to recent.
|}
Icthyosaurus |Trias(?) to
|chalk inclusive.
Alligator |}
Caiman |}
Jacare |}
Crocodilus |}
Mecistops |}
Rhynchosuchus |} Trias to
Gavialis |} recent.
Teleosaurus |}
Belodon |}
Dicynodon | } Trias.
Oudenodon | }
Thecodonto- |Trias }
saurus | }Mesozoic
Scelidosaurus |Lias }forma-
Megalosaurus {| Middle & } tions.
Iguanodon {| Upper }
{| Mesozoic }
|Solenhofen}
|slates }
Ornithopterus |}
Pterodactylus |}Lias to Chalk
Rhamphorynchus|}inclusive.
Dimorphodon |}
----------------------------------
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 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 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 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 of the discovery
of the remains of another form, of such Titanic proportions as to possess
a thigh-bone over twelve feet in length.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--MONSTER BONES OF EXTINCT GIGANTIC SAURIANS FROM
COLORADO, SHOWING RELATIVE PROPORTIONS TO CORRESPONDING BONE IN THE
CROCODILE (A). (_From the "Scientific American."_)]
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 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--SIVATHERIUM (RESTORED), FROM THE UPPER MIOCENE
DEPOSITS OF THE SIWALIK HILLS. (_After Figuier._)]
On the other hand, the Ornithopterus is only provisionally 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.
[Illustration: 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 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]