The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, April, 1862

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 person10 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 sunshineOnce a fire more deadly knew,And a bloodier color reddenedWhere the red June roses blew;—Where the moon of the early harvestLooked down through the shimmering leaves,And saw where the reaper of battleHad 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 middleFrom their buried shroud of clay,I saw, through the damp of agesAnd the thick disfiguring grime,The buckle-heads and the rowelOf 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 ridersOf the 'times that tried men's souls.'What if, in the day of battleThat 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 dizzyWith the thoughts of the rusted spur;What if it had fled with Clinton,Or charged with Aaron Burr?But bravely the farmer's urchinHad 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 PatrioeWear that spur like a belted knight—Wear it through gain and disaster,From Cambridge to Monmouth flight?Did it press his steed in hot angerOn 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 lightningThe 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 silentThat could send an answer back;And the spur, all broken and rusted,Has forgotten its rider's track!I only know that the pulsesLeap hot, and the senses reel,When I think that the Spur of MonmouthMay 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 evilIn 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 unheededShall fall from the nation's head.Old bones of the saints and the martyrsSpring up at the church's call:—God grant that the Spur of MonmouthProve 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.

As his physical man was uncommon, so he had uncommon mental endowments. He was the only 'soundser' I ever knew who understood farming. He had inherited a farmstead of some twenty-five or thirty acres, and this he soon had blooming as the rose. When occasion required, he wrought on it, day and night. He divided it, with truest judgment, into proper fields, experimented successfully with various kinds of novel manures (most of which he obtained from the sea), grew stock, planted, in rotation, and, with only here and there a sympathizer, gave in his full adherence to the theory of root culture. And he was a mechanic. He could build house or barn to the last beam, and ship or boat to the last joint; nay, he once devised the model of a self-righting life-boat, which I have often heard shipmasters, and even real shipwrights, descant upon in the highest terms of praise. Moreover, I can affirm that he was a navigator. It is true that the science of seamanship, as set forth in books, he had never mastered. But he knew right well what winds of a certain force and direction foretold, what waves of a certain height and aspect meant; and this knowledge, combined with a squint, now and then, at his pocket compass, sufficed to enable him to take a vessel with safety anywhere along our coast.

But while my old pal showed high abilities in other arts, as a 'soundser' and wrecker he was not to be matched. He brought to the first of these pursuits a clearness of observation which would have met the approbation of many an acknowledged man of science. He knew every sort of food which bird and fish fed upon, where it was to be found, and the circumstances favorable to its production. He knew why the game resorted to certain spots yesterday, and avoided them to-day; what circumstances—and they are very many—impelled it to joyousness or quietude; and what were most of its minor instincts. And all this was done thoroughly, withal. There was no haphazard or uncertainty in any of his conclusions. Taking thought of sundry conditions, he could tell at any time when such a thing was applicable; how many sheepsheads one could catch in the sounds; whether the honk of the wild goose, flying overhead, announced that he was on his way to a fresh-water pool or a bar of gravel; whether the black ducks were cooling their thirsty gizzards in a woodland pond, sitting scattered about the marshes, or huddling together on the bosom of the sea. In a word, his mind had gathered unto itself every law, of the least importance, affecting the existence of such wild creatures about us as cost any pains to bring to hand; and thus he was literally master over them, and held their lives subject to his will. That this power was really surprising, will hardly be disputed; and since we, his associates, could in no way possess ourselves of the like, it passed among us for something almost miraculous.

Still, brilliant 'soundser' as old Bill was, he was far greater as a wrecker; since I am now about to relate an occurrence in the line which proves him a veritable hero. As is perfectly well known, our American coast is often the scene of fearful storms, which deal out wide-spread destruction to mariners. With us, these gales are commonest in February, and hence this month is held in marked dread. Some years ago, in the season referred to, a storm burst upon our shores, whose like only a few of the older among us had ever known. After fitfully moaning from the northward and eastward for a day or two, the wind, one morning, finally settled due north-east,—thus sweeping directly upon the land,—and blew a hurricane. It was excessively cold, too, yet not so cold but that a fine, dry snow was falling, though from the fury of the wind this could settle nowhere, but was driven, whirling and surging, before the blast in dense clouds. In short, it was a time of truly unearthly wildness; and our hearts sank the deeper in us, since we knew what ere long must inevitably occur. At last, within an hour or two of nightfall, the sound of a ship's bell, rung hurriedly, pealed towards us along the uproar of the tempest, and by this we were made aware that a vessel had been wrecked on a certain shoal rising up in the ocean, about two miles from that part of the beach nearest our village. To go to the rescue of this vessel, at this time, was absolutely impossible. For, to say nothing of the wrath of the winds, the air was so thick with snow that, in the speedily advancing hours of darkness, in which we should not fail to be entrapped, we would be powerless to find our way at sea a foot. There was no help for it; the poor victims of the shipwreck must that very night know death in one or another most terrifying shape, 'if it was the will of the Lord.' With this mournful conviction, about twenty of us gathered at old Bill's house with the closing in of a darkness as of Tartarus, and kept its watches. The anger of the storm abated in no way whatever till morning, and then the sole change that took place was a somewhat thinner aspect of the driving snow. Yet, even when this was discerned, every man of us hastened to draw over his ordinary winter garb an oil-cloth suit which enveloped him from head to foot, and soberly announced himself ready to do his duty in the strait. That we should be exposed to the greatest dangers was absolutely certain; and whether a single survivor of the terrors of that awful night yet clung to the few frail timbers in the sea, for us to rescue, none but Heaven knew; still, the manhood of each demanded that what was possible to be done in the matter we should at least attempt.

And so we started; the leader being old Bill, who to some end, that I could not then divine, bore a boat-sail bundled on his back. Our first business was to make way to our surf or life boat. This lay about three miles from the village, reckoning as the crow flies, and was sheltered under a rude house which stood on the shores of a bay opening by an inlet into the sea. Our common way of gaining this house was through a circuitous passage of the sounds; but these we soon discovered, in consonance with a previous prediction of old Bill's, were entirely frozen over save in certain parts of their channels; and hence, this route being unnavigable for such boats as were at hand, which, without exception, were light gunning and fishing skiffs, we were forced to avail ourselves of a barely practicable land track of which we knew, and which, as it led about among the marshes, was also circuitous. And the necessity of choosing this land path added to our difficulties, in that we were forced to provide ourselves with a small batteau and drag it behind us, to be able to cross many ditches and sloughs with which it was barred, and which, particularly along their edges, were never really frozen. After toiling and battling for a long period, and at the same time having to face the most painfully cutting wind that burst unobstructedly over the level area of the marshes, we at last reached the house wherein the life-boat lay, and when old Bill had scrutinized its oars, and stored it with a mingled collection of cordage, canvas and spars, we ran it into the water. But now another trouble arose. The bay, like the sounds of which indeed it formed a part, was covered with ice,—either in solid sheets, or that thick slush, peculiar to ocean estuaries, which is chiefly known as 'porridge ice,'—and, from its comparative shallowness, covered so densely, too, that if we had trusted to getting our boat out of it by sheer rowing, it would have taken us the entire day so to do. In this emergency nothing would serve but that we must advance bodily into the water, and, crushing and clearing away the ice with our feet, drag the boat, in a depth at least sufficient for her to float, to the entrance of the inlet, where the current ran so strongly that no ice could gather. After a severely trying amount of labor, this point was finally gained, and we stood fairly in front of the tall, thundering breakers; whereupon each man nimbly jumped to his place in the craft, that of steersman being the post of old Bill.