THE LOST TRIBES.
King Solomon, or in oriental vernacular Suleiman, had the honor of
elevating the Jewish nation to the pinnacle of wealth and glory among
the inhabitants of the earth.
His was the proudest name throughout the world, not only as a wise and
moderate ruler, not only as a just and upright judge, but in literary
attainments, in which he had no rival.
In the midst of all his official duties wherein he found time to hear
the case even of two poor harlots, he found time to become a prolific
writer on natural science. He spoke three thousand proverbs and his
songs were a thousand and five. And he spoke of trees from the cedar
tree that is in Lebanon, to “the hyssop that springeth out of the wall.”
He spoke also of beasts and of fowl and of creeping things and of
fishes. But in the midst of the luxuriant foliage of this green bay
tree of power lurked the worm of human frailty. The man of wisdom came
at last to worship at the shrine of self. The vast riches that poured
in upon him blunted his powers to discriminate between good and evil,
and the blandishments of his princesses weakened the fiber of his moral
integrity, and led him away after strange gods.
The reckless extravagance of his splendid court drained the wealth of
toiling subjects. Laying the yoke of servitude at first only on his
subjugated enemies, he soon drained the resources of those nations,
and, in order to maintain the splendor of his royal dissipations
on their former scale of magnificence, he began to lay the hand of
oppression upon his own people. Murmurs began to swell into roars of
discontent; but the name of Suleiman was almost omnipotent in his realm
and beyond it wherever it was known. It almost became the word in
every known tongue to give expression to regal wisdom, and the mighty
prestige of that name was able to overrule every objection and every
murmur against his authority. The fires of discontent were smoldering
through all the substructure of his kingdom, but they did not burst
into flame till the messengers went throughout the kingdom with the
intelligence that Suleiman the mighty, the rich, the powerful, the
wise, the wonder of his age, the envy of the world, was dead.
The humblest and most oppressed of his subjects would not now accept
his fate though all the wealth and power of a score of Suleimans were
attached to it. There remained for him but the pomp and pageantry of
a magnificent burial to console him for the loss of human delights.
Henceforth he could partake of his pristine glory only in the
immortality of fame. He climbed to the proudest heights of ambition
only to fall ignominiously to the depths of weakness and folly.
Hope sprang up fresh in the heart of the Hebrew subjects. Alarming
and general revolt broke out in all but the two tribes of Judah and
Benjamin, and the ten tribes acknowledged allegiance to the house
of David no more forever. But Salmanasser, King of Assyria, carried
the adhering tribes of Judah and Benjamin as well as the revolting
ten tribes away into captivity. Seven hundred and fifty years later,
Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem and carried away the better
population which had been reorganized since the Assyrian captivity
into Babylon. Cyrus in turn overthrew the Babylonian empire and gave
the Jewish people full liberty to return to their beloved Jerusalem;
Judah and Benjamin, nursing the memory of past glory and cherishing the
hope of a deliverer and Messiah “as foretold by their prophets” gladly
availed themselves of the privilege to return to their native country.
But here the world’s record of the remaining ten tribes breaks off
abruptly, and for twenty-five centuries no word or token has come
across the chasm of years to indicate the fate of Israel. But as
Babylon has recently yielded up her secrets to the demand of modern
search and learning, so the beetling cliffs of the Colorado were to
be robbed of the dark and mysterious records of the lost tribes of
Israel, lying concealed so long in their bosom. The captivity of
Israel in Babylon was a tolerable one, being allowed as they were to
preserve their tribal relations and to govern themselves in their own
way, which was in the form of a theocracy, each tribe governing itself
as a separate republic, all being united under the invisible rule of
Jehovah. They came in contact daily with the Accadians, an element in
the Assyrian nation, originating in the mountains of Elon east of the
river Tigris. They were a highly educated and refined people, bringing
with them the knowledge of many fine arts unknown to their captors,
such as the recording of events by a system of characters stamped upon
tablets of brick.
Their mountain home gave them sturdy frames and lithe muscles, and the
maidens of this comely, intelligent people might well be supposed to
have been lovely in form and feature, and what is better, the sparkle
of their eyes was that of intellectual fire, and the glow on their
cheeks was of health. The young men of the ten tribes were not slow to
perceive the superior gifts and attainments of the Accadian damsels,
and intermarriage was the natural result. But while in skilled arts
they were in a position to become their husbands, teachers, in religion
the maids of Elim became their tempters; for their ideas on this
subject were far behind those of the Jews, they being worshipers of
Baal, closely allied to, if not identical with the worship of the sun,
pure and simple.
Thus far history attends and supports us in the narrative, but from
this point the burden of proof devolves upon our humble agency to prove
the subsequent history of the lost ten tribes, and here our parchment
steps into the breach and points out the circumstances surrounding them
in their captivity that induced them to try the fortunes of unknown
lands, preferably to going to Palestine once more.
The parchment is written in the form of a narrative of Israelitish
events from the time of embarkation from the land of their serfdom till
the time when they were about ready to leave the cliff dwellings for
more permanent ones farther southward, and bears the simple signature
of “Elib the scribe.” The writing is substantially as follows:
The blending of Accadian and Israelitish blood had awakened the
highest activity and ambitions in the tribes of Israel. The cunning
skill of the Accadians to work in brick and stone with the graver’s
tools roused the national pride once more to emulate the magnificent
architecture of King Suleiman’s reign, and their advanced intelligence
in religious matters supplied them with a worthy object upon which to
employ their constructive skill. Their education and prestige as a
nation had taught them to associate the idea of rich stores of gold and
silver for adornment of temples of worship, in their minds, as being
necessary to complete a dwelling acceptable to the Most High.
They resolved that they would once more set up the kingdom of Israel as
an independent government, and to do this they must needs seek a new
country where they should be safe from their old enemies until their
kingdom should be firmly established. Naturally their thoughts turned
toward Ophir as a country rich in treasures, and isolated enough to be
a safe refuge from Judah and Assyria. Their knowledge of this country
had been preserved from the time of Suleiman by the seamen who were the
successors and pupils of those furnished to Solomon by Hiram, King of
Tyre. But the knowledge of this mine had inured to the benefit of their
captors, the Babylonians.
Now they resolved to reap some of these benefits of knowledge
themselves, and availing themselves of the generosity of Cyrus in
granting leave to depart, and in supplying them with a passport among
all people who owed allegiance to Cyrus, King of Persia, and few
in that day would care to ignore his friendly admonitions “to give
comfort and succor to these, my former subjects, wherever their lot
may fall among you,” they made ready their merchantmen and many of
their Accadian allies and kindred by intermarriage secretly prepared to
embark with them, freely furnishing their ships and supplies.
Stratagem or artifice was employed to account for their departure
in the opposite direction from that of Palestine. They expressed a
reluctance to leave a country where they had enjoyed many privileges,
and avowed their intentions of going to the Java Islands on a trading
expedition, thence, with their families and their stuff, they would
sail northward by way of the Red Sea, and build a city on its shores
to the northeastward where their seafaring men could carry on their
commerce both on the great Southern Sea and on the Mediterranean. The
Accadians obtained a commission from Cyrus to accompany the expedition
on their own behalf, and when all was ready their fleet of merchantmen,
which in those days were also warships, for merchantmen on the high
seas were little more or less than privateers, with some of their
ships built with a sharp and powerful brass-shod prow to be used as a
battering ram, also others built for running alongside of an enemy and
boarding her--set sail.
Dropping down the Euphrates to the Persian Gulf they skirted the coasts
of India, doubled the Malay Peninsula, and skirting the coast of China
they reached a latitude about twenty degrees north, which their former
voyages had taught them was the point at which they struck out straight
to the eastward on the Great Sea, guided in their course by Tyrean
and Jewish seamen, skilled in knowledge of the stars, and familiar
with the various constellations of the heavens, the wisest astronomer,
necessity, having been their teacher.
The Tyrean seamen, who were descended from those whom Hiram had so
generously tendered Solomon for his voyage to Ophir were also learned
in the use of the “magician’s hand,” which is believed by scholars
to have been a rude form of the mariner’s compass, and could compute
rudely the problems of latitude and longitude which enabled them with
tolerable accuracy to reach the point for which they had started
out, the land of Ophir, which was no other than the southwestern
coast of North America, to which the port of entrance was the Gulf of
California, thus proving the almost universal fact that men who are
seeking a country turn their eyes east or west, and follow closely
their own native lines of latitude, instead of crossing them. Palestine
has elsewhere no such exact counterpart of climate and products as
California and Mexico. The list of fruits and cereals that grow in
one is almost an exhaustive treatise on those of the other, and it is
natural that these sailors should mark the similarity and bring back to
their people glowing accounts of the fertility of soil, salubrity of
climate, and fabulous mineral wealth of Ophir.
Their perilous voyage was accomplished without the loss of a single
vessel which, though small and able to accommodate only four score
souls each, were of exceedingly sturdy build and buffeted the waves
of the Pacific heroically and triumphantly, the fleet consisting of a
hundred of these little vessels.
Here the narrator diverges to inform us that this small number was the
flower of the ten tribes, they having been winnowed by Nebuchadnezzar
who carried away only the most comely of their maidens, and the wisest
of their men, and their families. What Nebuchadnezzar had effected by
arbitrary power was repeated in their embarkation to Ophir, many of
those who were “faint hearted” remaining at Babylon or joining the
tribes of Judah and Benjamin to return with them to Jerusalem; so that
the colony was made up of the stout-hearted young men and their wives
and little ones, and the most learned and ambitious of their Accadian
allies. Continuing, the scribe relates how they entered the “haven of
Ophir” (the Gulf of California) with songs of praise to Jehovah for
his mercies in delivering them from the angry waves, and with joyful
hearts went forward to possess this new Canaan, “sailing up the River
of Ophir.”
Landing upon the shores of the gulf they found a country so similar in
climate and products to their own, that they were charmed and delighted
with the prospect, and set up their temporary dwellings, tents, covered
with the skins of their domestic animals, and prepared to feast their
flocks and herds upon the unlimited extent of verdure all around them,
and rejoiced in the shadow of cedars as stately and comely as those of
the Lebanon of their native land.
Wild grapes hung in dense profusion from the vine-covered trees, and
coffee trees bloomed luxuriantly, and wild oranges and lemons testified
that they had touched upon no desert coast. The climate was such a
salubrious one that they found no urgent reason for more substantial
dwellings and, added to the pleasure of liberty, they enjoyed the happy
freedom of a pure pastoral life.
In solemn conference it was unanimously agreed that henceforth the God
of Israel alone should be their ruler, each tribe forming a separate
republic connected by the invisible rule of Jehovah--a pure theocracy,
which all the tribes entered into a solemn covenant to support, and
judges were appointed from each tribe to act as lawyers, priests were
ordained to administer their holy religion, and a temporary place of
worship or tabernacle was set up.
These weighty matters being decided and settled thus satisfactorily,
“a company of ten men from each tribe, who were valiant and skilled in
the finding of paths in the wilderness, and learned in all the symbols
and images on parchment by which King Suleiman had perpetuated the
knowledge of the mines of Ophir, were appointed to journey to Ophir
which was in the mountains of Ophir northward and eastward, and bring
back treasures of gold, that they might begin to build a temple for
the worship of Jehovah. Another company of ten men from each of the
ten tribes was sent forth to the southward to spy out the country and
choose a place where they might establish Israel once more. But the
remainder of the people, with the women and children, remained in camp
till all the men of the two companies should return.
“So the companies that were sent out into Ophir journeyed by water
toward Ophir, partly sailing and partly rowing, till they came into
the ‘great whirlpool and cataracts in the river that cometh down from
Ophir,’ and there they took every man a store of provisions and his
tools to work withal and journeyed on foot to the westward of the river
that floweth from Ophir, for its waters were too strong for them, and
came at last to the entrance of the caves of Ophir, according to the
symbols on parchment, delivered unto the fathers by the servants of
King Solomon, and the testimony of some of our company who had sailed
from Babylon in the fleet of Nebuchadnezzar. And behold we found
the secret caverns of King Solomon as they were in the days of King
Solomon, for the most secret caves and the richest gold of Ophir were
hidden to King Nebuchadnezzar and his servants so that they brought
back a report that the gold of Ophir was exhausted; for Solomon had
guarded the most secret places with cunning doors, and divers passages
too hard for the servants of Babylon. And we found the holy temple of
King Solomon that he had hewn in the rock that his servants who dwelt
here to dig the gold of Ophir might worship the God of their fathers,
and the treasures of King Solomon in the secret chamber of the temple
were as in the days of King Solomon, and behold the servants of King
Solomon were left to themselves when Solomon died, and behold their
bodies we found in the tombs of the temple, for they perished while
they waited for succor which came not, and for the ships of Solomon
which returned not again, for the wise King of Israel was no more.
“And we opened the chamber of pure gold in the mountain and digged
plentiful treasure therefrom; and we took of the treasures therefrom,
and we took of the treasure that we had digged, and every man bearing
of the gold according to his strength, we prepared to return to our
tribes. But I, Elib the scribe, who have written all these things
concerning the voyage of Israel and the landing of Israel in the land
of Ophir--a pleasant land of grass and pure water and of bountiful
fruits and tall cedars of Lebanon--am commanded by the judges appointed
from among the ten tribes to make all this writing and to place it
in the secret chamber of the treasures of King Solomon, even in the
chamber which opened from the Holy of Holies, and to seal it privately
with cement that it may abide secretly in the shelf of the rock forever.
“And now I, Elib the scribe, am prepared to fulfill all these things
faithfully and truly as I am commanded, and will now, by the blessing
of Jehovah and the grace of our judges, establish these writings
together with the symbols of the mines of Ophir in the shelf of the
rock, and do secretly seal it with cement so that none of our company
are privy to its hiding or know aught of the secret shelf of the rock
for so I am commanded to do.”
This was the substance of the writing on the parchment. A very lame
and broken version of which I reproduced in Abner’s ears in the Garden
of Ophir as we lolled in the shade of the semi-tropical foliage
overshadowing us, and shielding us from the heat which was almost
unendurable at high noon, and for a brief time afterward. Not a breath
of air stirred in the high-walled area, and but for the great height
of the walls which effectually broke the sun’s rays during the greater
part of the day, the heat would have been greater than flesh and blood
could endure.
But these former inhabitants had, as also had we, a convenient refuge
from the heat in the cool recesses of the rocks, which were singularly
free from dampness, the arid climate of that region making itself felt
even in the bowels of the mountains, and in all our researches we had
found no sign of mold or decay in any of the remains of fabrics in the
temple or in the records in the niche in the wall of the “treasure
chamber of the temple.”
Within the larger parchment whose contents we have just described,
was a smaller one which we knew on sight must be the “symbols of the
mines of Ophir,” referred to by Elib the scribe in the records of their
people.
It was a system of picture writing or hieroglyphics, together with
a complete diagram or ground plan of all the vaults, passages,
galleries, and stairways that we have already described, of which the
hieroglyphics seemed to be further descriptive, and with the help of
the information already gained from the record we had no trouble to
recognize in it a complete ideographic guide to the various apartments
of the mine itself, and also a rough draft of the country along the
Mexican and Californian coast with the configuration of the gulf and a
diagram of the Colorado and its branches between the mine and the gulf,
and minute information to the initiated to enable them to find the
outer entrance to the mine, which was the same one we had discovered
along the cavernous bed of the subterranean river. Even the method
of transporting the gold to the coast was typified as being by rafts
or rude boats down the current of the stream we had followed from
its underground source to the outer surface which was represented as
a placid stream emptying into the Colorado at the foot of the Grand
Canyon, near the “great whirlpool,” utilizing all its tremendous fall
and recompensing itself for its placid current by leaping down a sheer
precipice hundreds of feet into the Colorado.
Here the raft voyage ended and a portage of a few furlongs brought
them to their ships at anchor in the Colorado, whence they sailed with
the current to the ocean. The plan of the mine showed us, however,
that our exploring labors were far from being ended, for in addition
to the apartments we had discovered, the plan showed that many more,
especially the ledge, or the miner’s drifts or rooms where their gold
was found, remained to be explored. It also proved the sagacity of
Abner’s judgment in declaring that another passage than that of the
spiral stairway to the underground river existed. It was shown that a
straight ascending gallery, beginning near the open-air passage, led
along the river, terminating in a branched passage, one fork of which
led to the mines and one to a vault in the rear of the treasure vault,
and which was marked “The Chamber of Records;” thence it was shown to
connect with the treasure chamber itself.
It is needless to say that we were fired anew with a greater zeal
than ever for exploring “The Chamber of Records,” but we had been
stretching every nerve and straining every faculty to circumvent the
skill and cunning of hands and brains that had bestowed their records
so safely and we were obliged to own that we must rest and refresh
ourselves until the morrow before entering upon any new discoveries, or
unraveling any new mysteries.