 | Showing the great Difficulty Philosophers have had in
peopling America—and how the Aborigines came to be
begotten by Accident, to the great Relief and Satisfaction
of the Author. The beauties of Washington Irving, author of "The sketch-book," "Knickerbocker," "Crayon miscellany," &c. |  |
Showing the great Difficulty Philosophers have had in
peopling America—and how the Aborigines came to be
begotten by Accident, to the great Relief and Satisfaction
of the Author.
The next inquiry at which we arrive in the regular course
of our history, is to ascertain, if possible, how this country
was originally peopled; a point fruitful of incredible
embarrassments; for unless we prove that the aborigines
did absolutely come from somewhere, it will be immediately
asserted in this age of scepticism, that they did not
come at all; and if they did not come at all, then was this
country never populated—a conclusion perfectly agreeable
to the rules of logic, but wholly irreconcilable to every
feeling of humanity, inasmuch as it must syllogistically
prove fatal to the innumerable aborigines of this populous
region.
To avert so dire a sophism, and to rescue from logical
annihilation so many millions of fellow creatures, how
many wings of geese have been plundered! what oceans
of ink have been benevolently drained! and how many
capacious heads of learned historians have been addled
and for ever confounded! I pause with reverential awe,
with which they have endeavoured to solve this
question, so important to the happiness of society but so
involved in clouds of inpenetrable obscurity. Historian
after historian has engaged in the endless circle of hypothetical
argument, and after leading us a weary chase
through octavos, quartos, and folios, has let us out, at the
end of his work, just as wise as we were at the beginning.
It was doubtless some philosophical wild-goose chase of
the kind, that made the old poet Macrobius rail in such a
passion at curiosity, which he anathematizes most heartily
as “an irksome, agonizing care, a superstitious industry
about unprofitable things, an itching humour to see what
is not to be seen, and to be doing what signifies nothing
when it is done.” But to proceed:
Of the claims of the children of Noah to the original
population of this country I shall say nothing, as they
have already been touched upon in my last chapter. The
claimants next in celebrity are the descendants of Abraham.
Thus Christoval Colon (vulgarly called Columbus,)
when he first discovered the gold mines of Hispaniola,
immediately concluded, with a shrewdness that would
have done honour to a philosopher, that he had found the
ancient Ophir, from whence Solomon procured the gold
for embellishing the temple at Jerusalem: nay, Colon
even imagined that he saw the remains of furnaces of veritable
Hebraic construction, employed in refining the
precious ore.
So golden a conjecture, tinctured with such fascinating
extravagance, was too tempting not to be immediately
snapped at by the gudgeons of learning; and accordingly,
there were divers profound writers, ready to swear to its
correctness, and bring in their usual load of authorities
and wise surmises, wherewithal to prop it up. Vatablus
and Robertus Stephens declared nothing could be more
clear: Arius Montanus, without the least hesitation, asserts
that Mexico was the true Ophir, and the Jews the
early settlers of the country: while Possevin, Becan, and
several other sagacious writers, lug in a supposed prophecy
of the fourth book of Esdras, which being inserted
in the mighty hypothesis, like the key stone of an arch,
gives it in their opinion perpetual durability.
Scarce, however, have they completed their goodly
superstructure than in trudges a phalanx of opposite authors,
with Hans de Laet, the great Dutchman, at their
their ears. Hans, in fact, contradicts outright all the
Israelitish claims to the first settlements of this country.
attributing all those equivocal symptoms, and traces of
Christianity and Judaism, which have been said to be
found in divers provinces of the New World, to the Devil,
who has always affected to counterfeit the worship of the
true Deity. “A remark,” says the knowing old Padre
d'Acosta, “made by all good authors who have spoken
of the religion of nations newly discovered, and founded
besides on the authority of the fathers of the church.”
Some writers again, among whom it is with great regret
I am compelled to mention Lopes de Gomora and Juan
de Leri, insinuate that the Cananites, being driven from
the land of promise by the Jews, were seized with such a
panic that they fled, without looking behind them, until
stopping to take breath, they found themselves safe in
America. As they brought neither their national language,
manners, nor features with them, it is supposed
they left them behind in the hurry of their flight. I
cannot give my faith to this opinon.
I pass over the supposition of the learned Grotius, who
being both an ambassador and a Dutchman to boot, is
entitled to great respect; that North America was peopled
by a strolling company of Norwegians, and that
Peru was founded by a colony from China—Manco, or
Mungo Capac, the first Incas, being himself a Chinese.
Nor shall I more than barely mention, that father Kircher
ascribes the settlement of America to the Egyptians,
Budbeck to the Scandinavians, Charron to the Gauls,
Juffredus Petri to a skating party from Friesland, Milius
to the Caltæ, Marinocus the Sicilian to the Romans,
Le Comte to the Phœnicians, Postel to the Moors, Martin
d' Angleria to the Abyssinians, together with the sage
surmise of De Laet, that England, Ireland and the Orcades
may contend for that honour.
Nor will I bestow any more attention or credit to the
idea that America is the fairy region of Zipangri, described
by that dreaming traveller Marco Polo the Venetian; or
that it comprises the visionary island of Atlantis, described
by Plato. Neither will I stop to investigate the heathenish
assertion of Paracelsus, that each hemisphere of the
globe was originally furnished with an Adam and Eve:
or the more flattering opinion of Dr. Romayne, supported
by many nameless authorities, that Adam was of the Indian
and Darwin, so highly honourable to mankind,
that the whole human species is accidentally descended
from a remarkable family of the monkeys!
This last conjecture, I must own, came upon me very
suddenly and very ungraciously. I have often beheld the
clown in a pantomime, while gazing in stupid wonder at
the extravagant gambols of a harlequin, all at once electrified
by a sudden stroke of the wooden sword across his
shoulders. Little did I think at such times that it would
ever fall to my lot to be treated with equal discourtesy,
and that while I was quietly beholding these grave philosophers
emulating the eccentric transformations of the
hero of pantomime, they would on a sudden turn upon me
and my readers, and with one hypothetical flourish metamorphose
us into beasts! I determined from that moment
not to burn my fingers with any more of their theories,
but content myself with detailing the different methods by
which they transported the descendants of these ancient
and respectable monkeys, to this great field of theoretical
warfare.
This was done either by migrations by land or transmigrations
by water. Thus Padre Joseph d'Acosto enumerates
three passages by land, first by the north of Europe,
secondly by the north of Asia, and thirdly by regions
southward of the straits of Magellan. The learned Grotius
marches his Norwegians by a pleasant route across
frozen rivers and arms of the sea, through Iceland, Greenland,
Estotiland, and Naremberga. And various writers,
among whom are Angleria, De Hornn, and Buffon, anxious
for the accommodation of these travellers, have fastened
the two continents together by a strong chain of deductions—by
which means they could pass over dryshod.
But should even this fail, Pinkerton, that industrious old
gentleman, who compiles books and manufactures Geographies,
has constructed a natural bridge of ice, from
continent to continent, at the distance of four or five miles
from Behring's straits—for which he is entitled to the
grateful thanks of all the wandering aborigines who ever
did or ever will pass over it.
It is an evil much to be lamented, that none of the worthy
writers above quoted, could ever commence his work,
without immediately declaring hostilities against every
writer who had treated on the same subject. In this particular,
authors may be compared to a certain sagacious
the nests of all the birds in its neighbourhood. This unhappy
propensity tends grievously to impede the progress
of sound knowledge. Theories are at best but brittle
productions, and when once committed to the stream,
they should take care that like the notable pots which
were fellow voyagers, they do not crack each other.
For my part, when I beheld the sages I have quoted
gravely accounting for unaccountable things and discoursing
thus wisely about matters for ever hidden from their
eyes, like a blind man describing the glories of light, and
the beauty and harmony of colours, I fell back in astonishment
at the amazing extent of human ingenuity.
If, cried I to myself, these learned men can weave whole
systems out of nothing, what would be their productions
were they furnished with substantial materials—if they can
argue and dispute thus ingeniously about subjects beyond
their knowledge, what would be the profundity of their
observations, did they but know what they were talking
about! Should old Rhadamanthus, when he comes to
decide upon their conduct while on earth, have the least
idea of the usefulness of their labours, he will undoubtedly
class them with those notorious wise men of Gotham, who
milked a bull, twisted a rope of sand, and wove a velvet
purse from a sow's ear.
My chief surprise is, that among the many writers I
have noticed, no one has attempted to prove that this
country was peopled from the moon—or that the first inhabitants
floated hither on islands of ice, as white bears
cruise about the northern oceans—or that they were conveyed
hither by balloons, as modern aeronauts pass from
Dover to Calais—or by witchcraft, as Simon Magus
posted among the stars—or after the manner of the renowned
Scythian Abaris, who, like the New-England
witches on full blooded broomsticks made most unheard-of
journeys on the back of a golden arrow, given him by
the Hyperborean Apollo.
But there is still one mode left by which this country
could have been peopled, which I have reserved for the
last, because I consider it worth all the rest; it is—by
accident! Speaking of the islands of Solomon, New-Guinea,
and New-Holland, the profound father Charlevoix
observes, “in fine, all these countries are peopled,
and it is possible, some have been so by accident. Now
if it could have happened in that manner, why might it
with the other parts of the globe?” This ingenious mode
of deducing certain conclusions from possible premises, is
an improvement on syllogistic skill, and proves the good
father superior even to Archimedes, for he can turn the
world without any thing to rest his lever upon. It is only
surpassed by the dexterity with which the sturdy old Jesuit,
in another place, cuts the gordian knot—“Nothing,”
says he, “is more easy. The inhabitants of both hemispheres
are certainly the descendants of the same father.
The common father of mankind received an express order
from Heaven to people the world, and accordingly it has
been peopled. To bring this about, it was necessary to
overcome all difficulties in the way, and they have also
been overcome!” Pious Logician! How does he put all
the herd of laborious theorists to the blush, by explaining
in five words, what it has cost them volumes to prove
they know nothing about!
They have long been picking at the lock, and fretting
at the latch, but the honest father at once unlocks the door
by bursting it open, and when he has it once ajar, he is
at full liberty to pour in as many nations as he pleases.
This proves to a demonstration that a little piety is better
than a cart-load of philosophy, and is a practical illustration
of that scriptural promise—“By faith ye shall move
mountains.”
From all the authorities here quoted, and a variety of
others which I have consulted, but which are omitted
through fear of fatiguing the unlearned reader—I can
only draw the following conclusions, which, luckily however,
are sufficient for my purpose—First, That this part
of the world has actually been peopled (Q. E. D.:) to
support which we have living proofs in the numerous
tribes of Indians that inhabit it. Secondly, That it has
been peopled in five hundred different ways, as proved
by a cloud of authors, who from the positiveness of their
assertions, seem to have been eye-witness to the fact—
Thirdly, That the people of this country had a variety of
fathers, which as it may not be thought much to their
credit by the common run of readers, the less we say on
the subject the better. The question, therefore, I trust is
for ever at rest.
| Showing the great Difficulty Philosophers have had in
peopling America—and how the Aborigines came to be
begotten by Accident, to the great Relief and Satisfaction
of the Author. The beauties of Washington Irving, author of "The sketch-book," "Knickerbocker," "Crayon miscellany," &c. | |