Chapter 2

But the greatest problem of all is the plantain or banana. Professor Kuntze, an eminent German botanist, asks, "In what way was this plant" (a native of tropical Asia and Africa) "which cannot stand a voyage through the temperate zone, carried to America?" As he points out, the plant is seedless, it cannot be propagated by cuttings, neither has it a tuber which could be easily transported. Its root is tree-like. To transport it special care would be required, nor could it stand a long transit. The only way in which he can account for its appearance in America is to suppose that it must have been transported by civilized man at a time when the polar regions had a tropical climate! He adds, "a cultivated plant which does not possess seeds must have been under culture for a _very long period_ ... it is perhaps fair to infer that these plants were cultivated as early as the beginning of the Diluvial period." Why, it may be asked, should not this inference take us back to still earlier times, and where did the civilization necessary for the plant's cultivation exist, or the climate and circumstances requisite for its transportation, unless there were at some time a link between the old world and the new?

Professor Wallace in his delightful _Island Life_ as well as other writers in many important works, have put forward ingenious hypotheses to account for the identity of flora and fauna on widely separated lands, and for their transit across the ocean, but all are unconvincing, and all break down at different points.

It is well known that wheat as we know it has never existed in a truly wild state, nor is there any evidence tracing its descent from fossil species. Five varieties of wheat were _already cultivated_ in Europe in the stone age--one variety found in the "Lake dwellings" being known as Egyptian wheat, from which Darwin argues that the Lake dwellers "either still kept up commercial intercourse with some southern people, or had originally proceeded as colonists from the south." He concludes that wheat, barley, oats, etc., are descended from various _species now extinct_, or so widely different as to escape identification in which case he says: "Man must have cultivated cereals from an enormously remote period." The regions where these extinct species flourished, and the civilization under which they were cultivated by intelligent selection, are both supplied by the lost continent whose colonists carried them east and west.

_Third._--From the fauna and flora we now turn to man.

_Language._--The Basque language stands alone amongst European tongues, having affinity with none of them. According to Farrar, "there never has been any doubt that this isolated language, preserving its identity in a western corner of Europe, between two mighty kingdoms, resembles in its structure the aboriginal languages of the vast opposite continent (America) and those alone" (_Families of Speech_, p. 132).

The Phoenicians apparently were the first nation in the Eastern Hemisphere to use a phonetic alphabet, the characters being regarded as mere signs for sounds. It is a curious fact that at an equally early date we find a phonetic alphabet in Central America amongst the Mayas of Yucatan, whose traditions ascribe the origin of their civilization to a land across the sea to the east. Le Plongeon, the great authority on this subject, writes: "One-third of this tongue (the Maya) is pure Greek. Who brought the dialect of Homer to America? or who took to Greece that of the Mayas? Greek is the off-spring of the Sanscrit. Is Maya? or are they coeval?" Still more surprising is it to find thirteen letters out of the Maya alphabet bearing most distinct relation to the Egyptian hieroglyphic signs for the same letters. It is probable that the earliest form of alphabet was hieroglyphic, "the writing of the Gods," as the Egyptians called it, and that it developed later in Atlantis into the phonetic. It would be natural to assume that the Egyptians were an early colony from Atlantis (as they actually were) and that they carried away with them the primitive type of writing which has thus left its traces on both hemispheres, while the Phoenicians, who were a sea-going people, obtained and assimilated the later form of alphabet during their trading voyages with the people of the west.

One more point may be noticed, _viz._, the extraordinary resemblance between many words in the Hebrew language and words bearing precisely the same meaning in the tongue of the Chiapenecs--a branch of the Maya race, and amongst the most ancient in Central America. A list of these words is given in _North Americans of Antiquity_, p. 475.

The similarity of language among the various savages races of the Pacific islands has been used as an argument by writers on this subject. The existence of similar languages among races separated by leagues of ocean, across which in historic time they are known to have had no means of transport, is certainly an argument in favour of their descent from a single race occupying a single continent, but the argument cannot be used here, for the continent in question was not Atlantis, but the still earlier Lemuria.

_Ethnological Types._--Atlantis as we shall see is said to have been inhabited by red, yellow, white and black races. It is now proved by the researches of Le Plongeon, De Quatrefages, Bancroft and others that black populations of negroid type existed even up to recent times in America. Many of the monuments of Central America are decorated with negro faces, and some of the idols found there are clearly intended to represent negros, with small skulls, short woolly hair and thick lips. The Popul Vuh, speaking of the first home of the Guatemalan race, says that "black and white men together" lived in this happy land "in great peace," speaking "one language." (See Bancroft's _Native Races_, p. 547.) The Popul Vuh goes on to relate how the people migrated from their ancestral home, how their language _became altered_, and how some went to the east, while other travelled west (to Central America).

Professor Retzius, in his _Smithsonian Report_, considers that the primitive dolichocephalæ of America are nearly related to the Guanches of the Canary Islands, and to the population on the Atlantic seaboard of Africa, which Latham comprises under the name of Egyptian-Atlantidæ. The same form of skull is found in the Canary Islands off the African coast and the Carib Islands off the American coast, while the colour of the skin in both is that of a reddish-brown.

The ancient Egyptians depicted themselves as red men of much the same complexion as exists to-day among some tribes of American Indians.

"The ancient Peruvians," says Short, "appear from numerous examples of hair found in their tombs to have been an auburn-haired race."

A remarkable fact about the American Indians, and one which is a standing puzzle to ethnologists, is the wide range of colour and complexion to be found among them. From the white tint of the Menominee, Dakota, Mandan and Zuni tribes, many of whom have auburn hair and blue eyes, to the almost negro blackness of the Karos of Kansas and the now extinct tribes of California, the Indian races run through every shade of red-brown, copper, olive, cinnamon, and bronze. (See Short's _North Americans of Antiquity_, Winchell's _Pre-Adamites_, and Catlin's _Indians of North America_; see also _Atlantis_, by Ignatius Donnelly who has collected a great mass of evidence under this and other heads.) We shall see by and by how the diversity of complexion on the American continent is accounted for by the original race-tints on the parent continent of Atlantis.

_Fourth._--Nothing seems to have surprised the first Spanish adventurers in Mexico and Peru more than the extraordinary similarity to those of the old world, of the religious beliefs, rites, and emblems which they found established in the new. The Spanish priests regarded this similarity as the work of the devil. The worship of the cross by the natives, and its constant presence in all religious buildings and ceremonies, was the principal subject of their amazement; and indeed nowhere--not even in India and Egypt--was this symbol held in more profound veneration than amongst the primitive tribes of the American continents, while the meaning underlying its worship was identical. In the west, as in the east, the cross was the symbol of life--sometimes of life physical, more often of life eternal.

In like manner in both hemispheres the worship of the sun-disk or circle, and of the serpent, was universal, and more surprising still is the similarity of the word signifying "God" in the principal languages of east and west. Compare the Sanscrit "Dyaus" or "Dyaus-pitar," the Greek "Theos" and Zeus, the Latin "Deus" and "Jupiter," the Keltic "Dia" and "Ta," pronounced "Thyah" (seeming to bear affinity to the Egyptian Tau), the Jewish "Jah" or "Yah" and lastly the Mexican "Teo" or "Zeo."

Baptismal rites were practised by all nations. In Babylon and Egypt the candidates for initiation into the Mysteries were first baptized. Tertullian in his _De Baptismo_ says that they were promised in consequence "regeneration and the pardon of all their perjuries." The Scandinavian nations practised baptism of new-born children; and when we turn to Mexico and Peru we find infant baptism there as a solemn ceremonial, consisting of water sprinkling, the sign of the cross, and prayers for the washing away of sin (see Humboldt's _Mexican Researches_ and Prescott's _Mexico_).

In addition to baptism, the tribes of Mexico, Central America and Peru resembled the nations of the old world in their rites of confession, absolution, fasting, and marriage before priests by joining hands. They had even a ceremony resembling the Eucharist, in which cakes marked with the Tau (an Egyptian form of cross) were eaten, the people calling them the flesh of their God. These exactly resemble the sacred cakes of Egypt and other eastern nations. Like these nations too, the people of the new world had monastic orders, male and female, in which broken vows were punished with death. Like the Egyptians they embalmed their dead, they worshipped sun, moon, and planets, but over and above these adored a Deity "omnipresent, who knoweth all things ... invisible, incorporeal, one God of perfect perfection" (see Sahagun's _Historia de Nueva Espâna_, lib. vi.).

They too had their virgin-mother goddess, "Our Lady" whose son, the "Lord of Light," was called the "Saviour," bearing an accurate correspondence to Isis, Beltis and the many other virgin-goddesses of the east with their divine sons.

Their rites of sun and fire worship closely resembled those of the early Kelts of Britain and Ireland, and like the latter they claimed to be the "children of the sun." An ark or argha was one of the universal sacred symbols which we find alike in India, Chaldea, Assyria, Egypt, Greece and amongst the Keltic peoples. Lord Kingsborough in his _Mexican Antiquities_ (vol. viii. p. 250) says: "As among the Jews the ark was a sort of portable temple in which the deity was supposed to be continually present, so among the Mexicans, the Cherokees and the Indians of Michoacan and Honduras, an ark was held in the highest veneration and was considered an object too sacred to be touched by any but the priests."

As to religious architecture, we find on both sides of the Atlantic that one of the earliest sacred buildings is the pyramid. Doubtful as are the uses for which these structures were originally intended, one thing is clear, that they were closely connected with some religious idea or group of ideas. The identity of design in the pyramids of Egypt and those of Mexico and Central America is too striking to be a mere coincidence. True some--the greater number--of the American pyramids are of the truncated or flattened form, yet according to Bancroft and others, many of those found in Yucatan, and notably those near Palenque, are pointed at the top in true Egyptian fashion, while on the other hand we have some of the Egyptian pyramids of the stepped and flattened type. Cholula has been compared to the groups of Dachour, Sakkara and the step pyramid of Médourn. Alike in orientation, in structure, and even in their internal galleries and chambers, these mysterious monuments of the east and of the west stand as witnesses to some common source whence their builders drew their plan.

The vast remains of cities and temples in Mexico and Yucatan also strangely resemble those of Egypt, the ruins of Teotihuacan having frequently been compared to those of Karnak. The "false arch"--horizontal courses of stone, each slightly overlapping the other--is found to be identical in Central America, in the oldest buildings of Greece, and in Etruscan remains. The mound builders of both eastern and western continents formed similar tumuli over their dead, and laid the bodies in similar stone coffins. Both continents have their great serpent-mounds; compare that of Adams Co., Ohio, with the fine serpent-mound discovered in Argyleshire, or the less perfect specimen at Avebury in Wilts. The very carving and decoration of the temples of America, Egypt and India have much in common, while some of the mural decorations are absolutely identical.

_Fifth._--It only remains now to summarize some of the evidence obtainable from ancient writers, from early race traditions, and from archaic flood-legends.

Aelian in his _Varia Historia_ (lib. iii. ch. xviii.), states that Theopompus (400 B.C.) recorded an interview between the King of Phrygia and Silenus, in which the latter referred to the existence of a great continent beyond the Atlantic, larger than Asia, Europe and Libya together.

Proclus quotes an extract from an ancient writer who refers to the islands in the sea beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar), and says that the inhabitants of one of these islands had a tradition from their ancestors of an extremely large island called Atlantis, which for a long time ruled over all the islands of the Atlantic Ocean.

Marcellus speaks of seven islands in the Atlantic, and states that their inhabitants preserve the memory of a much greater island, Atlantis, "which had for a long time exercised dominion over the smaller ones."

Diodorus Siculus relates that the Phoenicians discovered "a large island in the Atlantic Ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules several days' sail from the coast of Africa."

But the greatest authority on this subject is Plato. In the _Timæus_ he refers to the island continent, while the _Critias_ or _Atlanticus_ is nothing less than a detailed account of the history, arts, manners and customs of the people. In the _Timæus_ he refers to "a mighty warlike power, rushing from the Atlantic sea and spreading itself with hostile fury over all Europe and Asia. For at that time the Atlantic sea was navigable and had an island before that mouth which is called by you the Pillars of Hercules. But this island was greater than both Libya and all Asia together, and afforded an easy passage to other neighbouring islands, as it was likewise easy to pass from those islands to all the continents which border on this Atlantic sea."

There is so much of value in the _Critias_ that it is not easy to choose, but the following extract is given, as it bears on the material resources of the country: "They had likewise everything provided for them which both in a city and every other place is sought after as useful for the purposes of life. And they were supplied indeed with many things from foreign countries, on account of their extensive empire; but the island afforded them the greater part of everything of which they stood in need. In the first place the island supplied them with such things as are dug out of mines in a solid state, and with such as are melted: and orichalcum, which is now but seldom mentioned, but then was much celebrated, was dug out of the earth in many parts of the island, and was considered as the most honourable of all metals except gold. Whatever, too, the woods afforded for builders the island produced in abundance. There were likewise sufficient pastures there for tame and savage animals; together with a prodigious number of elephants. For there were pastures for all such animals as are fed in lakes and rivers, on mountains and in plains. And in like manner there was sufficient aliment for the largest and most voracious kind of animals. Besides this, whatever of odoriferous the earth nourishes at present, whether roots, or grass, or wood, or juices, or gums, flowers or fruits--these the island produced and produced them well."

The Gauls possessed traditions of Atlantis which were collected by the Roman historian, Timagenes, who lived in the first century, B.C. Three distinct peoples apparently dwelt in Gaul. First, the indigenous population (probably the remains of a Lemurian race), second, the invaders from the distant island of Atlantis, and third, the Aryan Gauls (see _Pre-Adamites_, p. 380).

The Toltecs of Mexico traced themselves back to a starting-point called Atlan or Aztlan; the Aztecs also claimed to come from Aztlan (see Bancroft's _Native Races_, vol. v. pp. 221 and 321).

The Popul Vuh (p. 294) speaks of a visit paid by three sons of the King of the Quiches to a land "in the east on the shores of the sea whence their fathers had come," from which they brought back amongst other things "a system of writing" (see also Bancroft, vol. v. p. 553).

Amongst the Indians of North America there is a very general legend that their forefathers came from a land "toward the sun-rising." The Iowa and Dakota Indians, according to Major J. Lind, believed that "all the tribes of Indians were formerly one and dwelt together _on an island_ ... towards the sunrise." They crossed the sea from thence "in huge skiffs in which the Dakotas of old floated for weeks, finally gaining dry land."

The Central American books state that a part of the American continent extended far into the Atlantic Ocean, and that this region was destroyed by a series of frightful cataclysms at long intervals apart. _Three_ of these are frequently referred to (see Baldwin's _Ancient America_, p. 176). It is a curious confirmation that the Kelts of Britain had a legend that part of _their_ country once extended far into the Atlantic and was destroyed. Three catastrophes are mentioned in the Welsh traditions.

Quetzalcoatl, the Mexican Deity, is said to have come from "the distant east." He is described as a white man with a flowing beard. (N.B.--The Indians of North and South America are beardless.) He originated letters and regulated the Mexican calendar. After having taught them many peaceful arts and lessons he sailed away _to the east_ in a canoe of serpent skins (see Short's _North Americans of Antiquity_, pp. 268-271). The same story is told of Zamna, the author of civilization in Yucatan.

The marvellous uniformity of the flood legends on all parts of the globe, alone remains to be dealt with. Whether these are some archaic versions of the story of the lost Atlantis and its submergence, or whether they are echoes of a great cosmic parable once taught and held in reverence in some common centre whence they have reverberated throughout the world, does not immediately concern us. Sufficient for our purpose is it to show the universal acceptation of these legends. It would be needless waste of time and space to go over these flood stories one by one. Suffice it to say, that in India, Chaldea, Babylon, Media, Greece, Scandinavia, China, amongst the Jews and amongst the Keltic tribes of Britain, the legend is absolutely identical in all essentials. Now turn to the west and what do we find? The same story in its every detail preserved amongst the Mexicans (each tribe having its own version), the people of Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, and almost every tribe of North American Indians. It is puerile to suggest that mere coincidence can account for this fundamental identity.

The following quotation from Le Plongeon's translation of the famous Troano MS., which may be seen in the British Museum, will appropriately bring this part of the subject to a close. The Troano MS. appears to have been written about 3,500 years ago, among the Mayas of Yucatan, and the following is its description of the catastrophe that submerged the island of Poseidonis:--"In the year 6 Kan, on the 11th Muluc in the month Zac, there occurred terrible earthquakes, which continued without interruption until the 13th Chuen. The country of the hills of mud, the land of Mu was sacrificed: being twice upheaved it suddenly disappeared during the night, the basin being continually shaken by volcanic forces. Being confined, these caused the land to sink and to rise several times and in various places. At last the surface gave way and ten countries were torn asunder and scattered. Unable to stand the force of the convulsions, they sank with their 64,000,000 of inhabitants 8060 years before the writing of this book."

But enough space has now been devoted to the fragments of evidence--all more or less convincing--which the world so far has been in possession of. Those interested in pursuing any special line of investigation are referred to the various works above named or quoted.

The subject in hand must now be dealt with. Drawn as they have been from contemporary records which were compiled in and handed down through the ages we have to deal with, the facts here collected are based upon no assumption or conjecture. The writer may have failed fully to comprehend the facts, and so may have partially misstated them. But the original records are open for investigation to the duly qualified, and those who are disposed to undertake the necessary training may obtain the powers to check and verify.

But even were _all_ the occult records open to our inspection, it should be realized how fragmentary must be the sketch that attempts to summarize in a few pages the history of races and of nations extending over at least many hundreds of thousands of years. However, any details on such a subject--disconnected though they are--must be new, and should therefore be interesting to the world at large.

Among the records above referred to there are maps of the world at various periods of its history, and it has been the great privilege of the writer to be allowed to obtain copies--more or less complete--of four of these. All four represent Atlantis and the surrounding lands at different epochs of their history. These epochs correspond approximately with the periods that lay between the catastrophes referred to above, and into the periods thus represented by the four maps the records of the Atlantean Race will naturally group themselves.

Before beginning the history of the race, however, a few remarks may be made about the geography of the four different epochs.