L^H
i/s 6^>^
AN
INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS r
OR,
EVIDENCE THAT HWUI SHlN
AND
A PARTY OF BUDDHIST MONKS FROM AFGHANISTAN
gisrofrmb Jmerita
IN THE FIFTH CENTURY, A. D.
BY
EDWARD P. VINING.
" If Buddhist priests were really the first men who, -within the scope of written
history and authentic annals, went from the Old World to the New, it will sooner or
later be proved. Nothing can escape history that belongs to it." LELAND.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
1, 3, AND 5 BOND STEEET.
1885.
.109
COPYBIGHT, 1885,
BY EDWARD P. VINING.
TO
HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT,
AS A TOKEN OF APPRECIATION
OF
THE CONSCIENTIOUS LABOUR BESTOWED UPON HIS
"NATIVE RACES OF THE PACIFIC STATES,"
AND THE OTHER VOLUMES OF HIS
HISTORIES OF THE PACIFIC STATES OF NORTH AMERICA,
THIS WORK IS
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.
t
vi PREFACE.
to explain are far outweighed by the evidence presented by
the numerous details of the account which are proved to be
true. The explanations suggested as to some doubtful points
might seem more plausible if they were confined to that eluci
dation of the difficulty which, upon the whole, appears to be
its most probable solution. I have preferred, however, to
note all possible explanations that have suggested themselves
to me, believing that in some cases the truth which further
investigation will reveal may possibly lie in some interpre
tation which now seems improbable.
Errors will undoubtedly be found in this work, but I have
hoped to excite sufficient interest in the question under ex
amination to induce more competent scholars to bring the
truth to light regarding those points as to which I have
failed. I am confident, however, that, after the elimination of
all errors, it will be found that the great mass of evidence that
is presented that America was discovered in the fifth century
of the Christian era remains practically untouched ; and that
as a whole the work will be much easier to ignore than to
answer by those who may differ from its conclusions.
All attempts to establish a truth which has not been gener
ally received are met by the difficulty that it is almost impos
sible to interest in the subject those who have formerly paid
no attention to it, and that those who have studied it are
strongly tempted by a natural regard for their own self-com
placency to deny that there is anything more in the subject
than they have been able to perceive for themselves. I, there
fore, can not hope that my views will immediately meet with
general acceptance; but that their truth will ultimately be
recognized, I can not doubt.
Some quotations have been made at second-hand, and from
authorities which I would not have given if I had had easy
access to a better library than my own ; and some books which
I desired to consult I have not been able to obtain. Due al
lowance should be made for these facts.
It is proper that I should express my thanks for the kind
responses which I have received to my applications for assist
ance and information from many to whom I was unknown,
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGB
INTRODUCTORY . .. . . . . ; . .1
The birth of Buddha His titles His character His religious belief His
universal charity His life as a hermit The discovery which he imag
ined that he had made Desire that all should share its benefits His
..^command to evangelize the world The compliance of his disciples
The dispersion from India Countries visited Traces of the religion in
Europe Also throughout Asia And in Alaska The wanderings of
Buddhist priests Few records preserved Ease of journey from Asia
to America The Gulf-Stream of the Pacific Shipwrecks on the Kurile
and Aleutian Islands Records of journeys of Buddhist priests Their
reliability and value A Chinese record of a visit to an Eastern country
Reasons for crediting the account Object of this work Previous dis
cussions of the subject Plan of this work The discovery made by de
Guignes Humboldt s views Klaproth s dissent The Chevalier de Par-
avey s essays Neumann s monograph Leland s translation and com
ments Articles by MM. Perez, Vivien de Saint-Martin, d Eichthal, Bras-
seur de Bourbourg, Godron, Jones, Brown, Simson, Bretschneider, Adam,
d Hervey de Saint-Denys, Lobscheid, Channing M. Williams, and S.
Wells Williams.
CHAPTER II.
DE GUIGNES S DISCOVERY . . . . . .18
Chinese voyages Knowledge of foreign lands Work of Li-yen, a Chinese v^
historian The country of Fu-sang The length of^the li Wen-shin
Its identification with Jesso Ta-han Its identification with Kamtchatka
The route to Ta-han by land The country of the Ko-li-han The She-
goei The Yu-che Description of Kamtchatka The land of Lieu-kuci
The description of Fu-sang No other knowledge of the country The
Pacific coast of North America A Japanese map The Kingdom of
Women Its description Shipwreck of a Chinese vessel American
traditions Civilization of American tribes on the Pacific coast The
Mexicans Horses Cattle The fu-sang tree Mexican writing Man
ner in which America was peopled-^Similarity of customs in Asia and
AmericaVResemblances in the people Charlevoix s story Natives
floated upon cakes of ice The kingdom of Chang- jin Voyages of
other nations The Arabs Exploration of the Atlantic The Canaries
Story of their king The Cape Verd Islands Conclusion.
B
x CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
PAGE
KLAPBOTH S DISSENT .
Title of de Guignes s article incorrect Translation of the account of Fu-sang
Vines and horses not found in America Route to Japan Length of
the li Identification of Wen-shin with Jesso Ta-han identified with
""""""Taraikai or Saghalien The route to Ta-han by land The Shy-wei
Lieu-kuei Fu-sang south of Ta-han instead of c^i Fu-sang an ancient
name of Japan Analysis of name " Fu-sang "The paper mulberry-
Metals The introduction of Buddhism Fantastic tales.
CHAPTER IV.
DE PARAVEY S SUPPORT . . . . , . 49
America visited by Scandinavians American tribes emigrants from Asia
Ancient Chinese maps Researches antedating those of Klaproth Let
ter of Pere Gaubil Ta-han Licu-kud Identification of these with
Kamtchatka Size of Fu-sang Views of M. Dumont d Urville Length
of the li America lies at the distance and in the direction indicated
The Meropide of Elien The Hyperboreans The monuments of Guate
mala and Yucatan The Shan-hai-Tcing Identification of the fu-sang
tree with the metl or maguey The Japanese Encyclopaedia says Japan
is not Fu-sang The banana or pisang tree may have been the tree called
fu-sang Grapes in America Milk in America The bisons of America
Llamas Horses Wooden cabins The ten-year cycle The titles of
the king and nobles The worship of images Resemblance of pyramids
of America to those of the Buddhists An image of Buddha The
spread of the Buddhist religion History of the Chichimecas Resem
blance of Japanese to Mexicans Analogies of Asiatic and American
civilizations pointed out by Humboldt Credit due de Guignes Appen
dix Ma Titian-tin s account The fu-sang said to be the prickly poppy
of Mexico Laws punishing a criminal s family have existed in China
Chinese cycle of sixty years existed in India Cattle harnessed to carts
The grapes of Fu-sang wild, not cultivated Another Chinese custom
in Fu-sang The route to Ta-han The route to Japan very indirect
Priests called lamas both in Mexico and Tartary.
CHAPTER V.
DE PARAVEY S NEW PROOFS . . .
De Paravey s researches preceded those of Neumann and d Eichthal Con
nection between the Malay and American languages Fu-sang located near
San Francisco Chinese picture of a native of Fu-sang Spotted deer
Cattle-horns in Mexico Horses Nations of Northern Asia Appendix
^. A Buddhist monuments in America A figure of Buddha in Yucatan
^ The worship of Siva The explorations of Dupaix Foot-print in the
rocks The cause of eclipses Pyramids Appendix B A Buddhist
sanctuary near the Colorado River The name Quatu-zaca The Mexi
cans emigrants from the north Appendix C An engraving of a native
of Fu-mng The natives of Oregon The deer of America Connection
of American and Asiatic tribes Pearl-fishing The cochineal insect and
the nopal The people of Cophene American place-names which ap
pear to contain the name Sakya.
CONTENTS. xi
CHAPTER VI.
PAGl
NEUMANN S MONOGRAPH . . . . . .78
The knowledge of foreign nations possessed by the Chinese Their precepts
The journey of Lao-tse Embassies and spies Knowledge derived
from foreign visitors Its preservation in Chinese records The introduc
tion of Buddhism Its command to extend its doctrines to all nations
Chinese system of geography and ethnology The unity of the Tartars
and Red-skins American languages The Tunguses, or Eastern Barba
rians The Pc-ti, or Northern Barbarians The Ainos^ or Jebis, and the
Negritos The Wen-shin, or Pictured-people Embassies between China
and Japan The Country of Dwarfs The Chinese " Book of Mountains
and Seas " Information given by a Japanese embassador Kamtchatka,
the Tchuktchi, and the Aleuts Lieu-kuei The length of the H Licu-
kuei, a peninsula The land of the Jc-tshay The natives of Kamtchat-
ia Their dwellings Their clothing The climate The animals of the
country The customs of the people The country of the Wen-shin identi
fied with the Aleutian Islands Ta-han, or Alaska The kingdom of Fu-
^_*/pff nin^Jts inhabitantSj^Ihfi Amaggn^ Fu-sang identified" with the
western portion of America called Mexico The fu-sang tree Only one
voyage made Chinese accounts of Fu-sang The distance from Ta-han,
or Alaska, indicates that Fu-sang is Mexico The oldest history of
America Successive tribes The ruins of Mitla and Palenque Some
thing of earlier races to be learned from the condition of the Aztecs
Pyramidical monuments If Buddhism existed in America, it was an im
pure form The myth of Huitzilopochtli Thefu-sang, the maguey, or
Agave Americana Connection between the flora of America and that of
Asia Metals and money Laws and customs of the Aztecs Domestic
animals Horses Oxen Stag-horns Chinese and Japanese in the
Hawaiian group and in Northwestern America Shipwrecks upon the
American coast The voyages of the Japanese.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ARGUMENTS OF MM. PEREZ AND GODKON . . .104
Knowledge of America possessed by the Chinese The Country of Women
Other travelers relate incredible stories Klaproth s argument The
account contained in the Japanese Encyclopaedia Note denying that.
Fu-sang is Japan Weakness of Klaproth s argument Identity of names
of cities in Asia and America American languages Resemblance of
the Tartars to the Aborigines of America Similitude of customs A
Buddhist mission to America in the fifth century The Chinese able to
measure distances, and possessed of the compass The musk-oxen and
bisons of America Horses Names of European animals misapplied to
American animals The "horse-deer" of America Vines The diffi
culty in identifying the fu-sang tree Iron and copper in America and
Japan.
CHAPTER VIII.
D EICHTHAL S "STUDY" . . . 119
The Buddhistic origin of American civilization The geographical relations
between Northeastern Asia and Northwestern America The memoirs of
de Guignes and Klaproth If Fu-sang was in Japan, there is no
for the"" Country of Women "The Japanese deny that
their country De Guignes s map The ease of a voyage Irom Asia t<
xii CONTENTS.
PAGE
America The warm current of the Pacific Ocean The Aleutian Islands
Voyages of the natives The civilization of New Mexico A white
population Cophene Buddhism Ho\v it is modified and propagated
Its absorption of the doctrines of other religions Its proselytism Its
religious communities The route from Cophene to Fu-sang A. Bud
dhist sanctuary at Palenque Description of Stephens An image of
Buddha The lion-headed couch The winged globe The aureola about
the figure Decadence in art The altars upon which flowers and fruits
are offered Reply to observations of M. Vivien de Saint-Martin The
two routes to Ta-han That country located near the mouth of the
Amoor River Traces of Buddhism in that neighbourhood Ease of
voyage to the Aleutian islands Klaproth s theory untenable No other
hypothesis remaining than that Fu-sang must be sought in America.
CHAPTER IX.
COINCIDENCES NOTED BY HUMBOLDT, LOBSCHEID, AND PEESOOTT . 142
Extracts from the " Views of the Cordilleras "Similarity of Asiatic and
American civilizations The struggles of the Brahmans and Buddhists
The divisions of the great cycles The Mexicans designated the days of
their months by the names of the zodiacal signs used in Eastern Asia
Cipactli and Capricornus Table of resemblances The tiger and monkey *
found only in southern countries The Aztec migration from the north
Resemblance between certain Mexican and Tartarian words The
cutting-stones of jhe Aztecs The sign Ollin and the foot-prints of Vish-
nTT^E%eTtrDf^r^TxTm : e~oT % Several nations Changes resulting from
changed circumstances and lapse of time Analogies in religious cus
toms Analogy in the fables regarding the destructions of the universe
Lobscheid s reasons for thinking the American Indians to be one race
with the Japanese and Eastern Asiatics Similarity of customs Tiles
, Anchors The route from Asia to America Shipwrecks of fishing-
boats Head-dresses Languages Religion Customs Marriage sol
emnized by tying the garments together Extracts from Prescott s " His
tory of the Conquest of Mexico " Analogies in traditions and religious
usages Disposal of the bodies of the dead The analogies of science
The calendar General conclusions.
CHAPTER X.
SHORTER ESSAYS . . . . ... . 161
i " Where was Fu-sang? "by the Rev. Nathan Brown, D. D. Difficulties at
tending a decision Horses Grapes Reason for thinking Fu-sang more
I distant than Japan Length of the ft Distances of the route Difficul
ties attending Klaproth s theory The military expeditions of the Japa
nese The introduction of the Buddhist religion The Hans Great
Han Identification of the fu-sang tree with the bread-fruit tree Con
clusion Remarks of the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg The paper and
books of the Mexicans and Central Americans Civilization of New
Mexico Chinese boats Animals Mr. LclandVFusang" An earlier
article Who discovered America ? J. Hanlay s essay The fu-sang tree
identified with the maguey Metals Resemblance in religion and cus
tomsAlso in features Language Civilization on Pacific coast Letter
of Mr. Th. Simson The Mexican aloe The fu-sang tree Japan
Letter of E. Bretschneider, M. D. Accounts of Fu-sang by the Chinese
poets" The Kingdom of Women "Verdict of Father Hyacinth The
distance Horses and deer The fit-sang tree The fung-tree The pa-
CONTENTS. xiii
per mulberry Metals " The Kingdom of Women " and Salt Lake City **
Fu-sang not Japan Ta-han in Siberia Envoys from Fu-sang Contra
dictory fancies Mr. Leland s criticism Letter of Pere Gaubil Unre
liability of Chinese texts The peopling of Japan Chinese knowledge of
surrounding countries Remarks of liumboldt Letter of the Rt. Rev.
Channing M. Williams The Chinese " Classic of Mountains and Seas "
Fabulous stories Translation of extracts therefrom Remarks of M.
Leon de Rosny Passage from Asia to America The distance Char
acter of the Esquimaux An article from a newspaper of British Colum
bia Discovery of Chinese coins in the bank of a creek Evidence that
they had been buried for a long time.
CHAPTER XI.
REMARKS OF MM. VIVIEN DE SAINT-MARTIN AND LTTCIEN ADAM . 185
"An Old Story Set Afloat" The route to Fu-sang Identity of the Ainos
with the Wen-shin Ta-han near the mouths of the Amoor River Route
of Buddhist missionaries to the Amoor Civilization of Buddhist origin
Pillars with Buddhist inscriptions Necessity of accurate translation
Twenty thousand li signify only a very great distance The fu-sang
tree Warlike habits Lack of draught animals Civilization of Mexico
Difficulty of the voyage Conclusion Remarks of M. Adam Chinese
acquainted with America Ease of the journey Travels of Buddhist
monks Points characteristic of American civilization Ten-year cycle
The fu-sang tree The fung tree The hibiscus The Dryanda cordata
The maguey, or agave Zoological objections Punishments Slave
children Absurdities Legend of Quetzalcoatl He came from the East
The legend a myth Colleges of priests Practice of confession The
alleged figure of Buddha The elephant s head Lack of tusks America
for the Americans Theory that ffwui Shan repeated the stories of_h4- -
nese sailors Remarks of M. de HelRaltTand Professor Joly.
CHAPTER XII.
D HERYEY S NOTES *. . . . .204
Bibliography The name of the priest The city of King-chcu Ta-han
Lieu-kuci, a peninsula Earlier knowledge of Fu-sang The construction
of the dwellings The lack of arms and armour The punishment of
criminals The titles of the nobles The title Tui-ht found in Corea The
colours of the king s garments The cycle of ten years Peruvian his
tory The long cattle-horns The food prepared from milk The red
pears Grapes The worship of images of spirits of the dead Its ex
istence in China Cophene The "Kingdom of Women" The legumes
used as food Wen-shin The punishment of criminals The name Ta-
han The country identified with Kamtchatka Two countries of that
name One lying north of China, and one lying east Unwarlike nature
of the people.
CHAPTER XIII.
D HERVEY S APPENDIX. . . . "
Difference between Hod Shin s story and other Chinese accounts An
earlier knowledge of Fu-sang The poem named the Li-sao The Shan-
hai-king The account of Tong-fang-so The immense size of the coun
try The burninf of books in China The origin of the Chinese The
writer Kuan-meiThe arrival of ~ffoei Shin in 499 The civil war then
xi v CONTENTS.
PAGE
raging The delay in obtaining an imperial audience The " History of
the Four Lords of the Liang Dynasty "An envoy from Fu-sang The
presents offered by him Yellow silk A semi-transparent mirror This
envoy was Hod Shin The stories told by Yu-kie The silk found upon
the fu-sang tree The palace of the king The Kingdom of Women
Serpent-husbands The Smoking Mountain The Black Valley The ani
mals of the country The amusement of the courtiers The poem Tong-
king-fu The route to Fu-sang Fu-sang east of Japan Lieu-kaei
The direction of the route.
CHAPTER XIV.
PROFESSOR WILLIAMS S ARGUMENT . . . . . 230
" Notices of Fu-sang and other Countries lying East of China "The ori
gin of American tribes The work of H. H. Bancroft Mr. Leland s book
Ma Twan-lin His " Antiquarian Researches " Hwui-shin s story
Cophene No later accounts of Fu-sang The titles of the nobility The
ten-year cycle Red pears The fu-sang tree No mention of pulque
Brocade Fables Account of the Shih Chau Ki The article of the
Marquis d Hervey de Saint-Denys Criticisms thereon Pang-lai The
distance of Japan and Fu-sang The name Fu-sang sometimes applied
to Japan Mention of the fu-sang tree in a Chinese geography Expedi
tions sent to search for Fu-sang Comparison with Swift s " Voyage to
Laputa " The Kingdom of Women Mention by Maundevile and Marco
Polo of a land of Amazons The country of Wan Shan Tattooing Its
existence among the Esquimaux Quicksilver Two kingdoms of Ta Han
Lieu-kuci and the Lewchew Islands.
CHAPTER XT.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. NATURE OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE . 249
Fu-sang wood Nie-yao-kiun-tiThe Warm Spring Valley The Shin I
King The kingdom Hi-ho-koue The astronomer Hi-ho The story of
a Corean An island of women Pung-lai An expedition to explore
it The colonization of Japan Lang Yuen The Kwun-lun Mountains
A statue of a native of Fu-sang A poem to his memory The tree of
stone Varying translations The peculiarities of the Chinese language
The brevity and conciseness of the written language Its lack of
clearness The meaning of groups of characters, or compounds Proper
names No punctuation Difficulty of translating correctly Preparation
of M. Julien Illustrations of mistakes.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. . . . . 260
The Chinese authorities Variations in the texts The Chinese text A
literal translation Parallel translations of eight authors Hie date of
Hjaii^SMn s arrival in China The location of Fu-sang The fu-sang
trees The derivation of the name of the country The leaves of the
fu-sang tree Its first sprouts Red pears Thread and cloth Dwell
ingsLiterary characters Paper Lack of arms The two places of
confinement The difference between them The pardon of criminals
Marriages of the prisoners Slave-children The punishment of a crimi
nal of high rank The great assembly Suffocation in ashes Punish
ment of his familyTitles of the king and nobles Musicians The
king s garments The changing of their colour A ten-year cycle Lon^
CONTEXTS. xv
cattle-horns Their great size Horse-carts, cattle-carts, and deer-carts
Domesticated deer Koumiss The red pears preserved throughout the
year TO-P U-T AOCS The lack of iron Abundance of copper Gold
and silver not valued Barter in their markets Courtship The cabin
of the suitor The sweeping and watering of the path The ceremonies
of marriage Mourning customs The worship of images of the dead
The succession to the throne A visit from a party of Buddhist mis
sionaries Their labours and success.
CHAPTER XYII.
THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN, THE LAND OF "MASKED BODIES," AND-
THE GEEAT HAN COUNTBY . . . . . 301
The accounts of all these countries derived from the same source The
Chinese text The location of the Kingdom of Women Its inhabitants
Tfreir long locks Their migrations Birth of their young Nursing
the young The acre at which they walk Their timidity Their devotion
to their mates The salt-plant Its peculiarities A shipwreck The
women A tribe whose language could not be understood Men with
puppies heads Their food, clothing, and dwellings The land of
" Marked Bodies " Its location Tattooing with three lines The char
acter of the people Lack of fortifications The king s residence
Water-silver No money used The Country of Great Han Its location
Lack of weapons Its people.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE LENGTH OF THE Li. THE NAME "GEEAT HAN" . . 328
The direction from Japan in which Fu-sang lay Variations in standards
of measure The Chinese li about one diird of a mile in length The
greater length of thcTjapanese li Possibility of still another standard
in Corea Communication between Corea and Japan and between Corea
and China Chinese knowledge of the route to Japan derived from
Corean sources Fu-sang farther from " Great Han " than Japan is
Distances stated with at least approximate accuracy The country of
"Marked Bodies" identified as the Aleutian Islands Allowances for
changes and misunderstandings Caesar s account of the inhabitants of
Britain Maundevile s repetition of the story " Great Han " identified
as Alaska Land found in the regions indicated by Hwui Sh5n Mean
ing of the character "Han" Nature of the Chinese characters The
manner in which they are compounded of two parts Some characters
in which the meaning is affected by that of both parts Application of
the character " Han " to a swirling stream and to the Milky Way
Hence its possible meaning of " dashing water " Meaning of the name
"Alaska" The breakers of the Aleutian Islands The population A
philological myth The hypotheses upon one of which Hwui Shan s
story must be explained the explanation should be consistent.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE CUSTOMS OF THE LAND OF "MAEKED BODIES," AND OF GEEAT
HAN ...
Necessity of examining the account in detail The resemblance of the peo
ple of the two countries Their customs Their languages The marks
upon their bodies Tattooing with three lines Existence of the custom
xv i CONTENTS.
PAGE
in America The marks a sign of the position of their bearer The
merry nature of the people Their feasts and dances Their hospitality
Hospitality of the American Indians The Iroquois The Esquimaux
The Aleutians Absence of fortifications The chiefs The decora
tion of their dwellings The Haidah Indians Other Indian tribes from
British Columbia to Alaska Esquimaux fondness for ornamentation
Ditches The dwellings of the people Water-silver Proof that ice is
meant Quicksilver No country ever had ditches filled with quicksilver
The traffic by means of precious gems No money used Value of
amber The peaceful nature of the people The punishment of crime
Summary of facts mentioned by Hwui Shan Application of the doctrine
of chances The two countries bearing the name of Great Han.
CHAPTER XX.
THE COUNTRY LYING IN THE REGION INDICATED BY Hwui SHAN . 360
The direction from China, Japan, and Great Han in which Fu-sang lay
The trend of the American Pacific coast The distortion of the com
mon maps Mexico lies in the region indicated The nations inhabiting
Mexico in the fifth century Their language Traces of their beliefs and
customs existing one thousand years later Aztec traditions The Tol-
tecs Their character Their civilization The time of their dispersion
Their language The Pacific coast The evidence of place-names The *Y*
Aztec language Limits of the Mexican empire The name of the coun
tryThe city of Tenochtitlan The application of the name " Mexico "
First applied to the country Early maps Late application of the
name to the city Pronunciation of the word Similar names throughout
the country Meaning of the syllable " co " Varying explanations
Real meaning of the term " The Place of the Century-plant " Meaning
of the syllable " ME " Meaning of the syllable " xi " Its meaning in
other compounds Other abbreviations Appropriateness of the designa
tionThe god Mexitli Proof that he was the god of the century-plant
Reason that the Spaniards were misled as to the meaning of " Mexico."
CHAPTER XXI.
THE FU-SANG TREE AND THE RED PEARS . . . 382
Connection between the name of the country and that of the " tree "Ap
plication to smaller plants of the Chinese character translated "tree"
Application of the term " tree " to the century-plant Description of the
"y SE& maguey, agave, aloe, oiicentury-plant The leaves of the fu-sang
Disagreement oFditterent texts The t ung tree Evidence of corruption
in the text Conjecture as to original reading Similarity of the young
sprouts to those of the bamboo Their edibility Thread and cloth from
the fiber of the plant The finer fabric made from it Variation in the
Manufacture of paper The red pear The prickly-pear Resem
blance of the century-plant to the cacti Preserves made from the prickly-
pears Confusion in the Mexican language between milk and the sap of
the century-plant-The Chinese "lo," or koumiss-The liquor made
tronOhe sap i of thft century-plant Its resemblance to koumiss Indians
lever use milk Confusion in other Indian languages between sap and
m l k -^ ? amn " tb m name f u-sang-Variations in the characters with
which it is written The spontaneous reproduction of the century-plant
-The decomposition of the character sang "-The tree of the fergT
wme-jar The tree having a great cloud of blossoms Blooming but
once in a thousand years-The Chinese name of the prickly-plar
Kitel s definition of the term "fu-sang "Professor Gray s statement
CONTENTS. xvii
CHAPTER XXII.
PACK
THE LANGUAGE OF FU-SANG .... . 403
Peculiarities of the Chinese language Difficulty of indicating pronunciation
of foreign words Examples Change in sound of Chinese characters
The pisang or banana tree Names of countries terminated with KWOH
The character SANG The character FU The most distant countries
at the four points of the compass distinguished by names beginning
with FU Mexican dialects FU-SANG-KWOH and Me-shi-co The title of
the king Montezuma s title Title of the noblemen of the first rank
The Mexican Tecuhtli, or Teule The Petty TUI-LU The NAH-TO-SHA, or
Tlatoque The title lower than that of Tecuhtli Its meaning Tran
scription of foreign words by characters indicating both the meaning
and the sound TO-P U-TA OCS, or tomatoes The grape-vine The tree of
stone A Mexican pun Danger of being misled by accidental or fancied
resemblance.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE PEOULIAEITIES OF THE COUNTRY . . . . .418
The construction of the dwellings Adobe walls The " Casas Grandes "
Houses of planks Lack of armour Absence of fortifications Literary
characters The pomp which surrounded the Aztec monarch Musical
instruments The evanescence of Montezuma s pomp Rulers accom
panied by musical instruments Tangaxoan The king of Guatemala
The king of Quiche Homage to the Spaniards and to the Spanish priests
The long cattle-horns The Chinese measure called a HUH Animals
of the New World erroneously designated by the names of those of the
Old World Bisons Their range An extinct species Its gigantic
horns The horns of the Rocky Mountain sheep Use of horns by the
Indians Herds of tame deer The lack of iron The use of copper
Gold and silver not valued Their markets Barter Customs attending
courtship Sprinkling and sweeping the ground as an act of homage
The customs of the Apaches The fastened horse The Coco-Maricopas
Serenades Huts built in front of those of the parents The length
of the " year " The punishment of criminals of high rank The sweat-
house, or estufa Indian councils Severe punishment of men of distinc
tion Custom in Darien Punishment witnessed by Cortez Smothering
in ashes.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE NARRATOR OF THE STORY . . 439
The condition of China at the time The reign of a Buddhist emperor
The bhikshus, or mendicant priests Their duties Rules for their con
duct The name Hwui ShSn Frequency with which the name Hwui
occurs Meaning of the characters The nationality of Hwui Shan
Cophene Struggle between Brahmanism and Buddhism The route
from India to China The command that at least three should go to-
"" gether when traveling Persecution in China in the year 458 The
journey to America by water Ease of the trip Probability that Ilwui
Shan was but slightly acquainted with the Chinese language Yu Kie s
criticism of Hwui Shan s statements Causes of errors Use of the term
"water-silver" Accounts given by first explorers seldom ^free from
error Absurdities narrated by other Chinese travelers Pliny Hero
dotus Marco Polo Maundevile Caesar The unicorn Elks without
joints in their legs The Icelandic account of Vinland Difficulties in
xv iii CONTENTS.
PAGE
the account The Unipeds The Zeno brothers Ignorance of geography
in the fifteenth century Marvelous tales of early explorers Allowances
to be made Hwui Shkn entitled to equal charity.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE INTRODUCTION OF ASIATIC CIVILIZATION . . . .456
The former ignorance of the people The introduction of Buddhism The
changes of a thousand years The two places of confinement Meaning
of the character FAH two species of prisons One for those sentenced
to death The other for minor criminals The Mexican Hades The
future abode of the Aztec hero The sojourn but temporary The dark
and dismal " Place of the Dead," in the north Confinement here eternal
The slave children Treatment of illegitimate children and of orphans
Age at which children were taken to the temple Boys at seven years
of age Girls at eight Chinese custom of calling children a year older
than they would be considered by us The punishment of the family of a
criminal Mourning customs Fasts Funerals Images of the deceased
Reverence of these images and offerings to them The custom in
China The absence of mourning-garments The king not fully crowned
until some time after his accession to the throne.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE INTRODUCTION OF ASIATIC CIVILIZATION. (Concluded.) . 470
The colour of the king s garments Colours in Asia Green and blue con
founded The dyes used by the Mexicans Changes of the king s gar
ments Dresses of different colours for different occasions Various
species of mantles worn Changes because of superstitious ideas Length
of the " year " Divisions of the day The marriage ceremonies Chinese
customs Mexican customs attributed to Quetzalcoatl Mexican weddings
The horse-carts, cattle-carts, and deer-carts Difficulties of this passage
Explanations suggested The introduction of the horse into America
Extinct species of horses in America Indian traditions Name may
have been applied to some other animal Mirage The Buddhist descrip
tion of the " three carts " or " three vehicles."
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE COUNTRY OF WOMEN AND ITS INHABITANTS . . 487
Stories of Amazons Account of Ptolemy That of Maundevile Marco
K Polo The Arabs The Chinese Similar stories in America Explana
tions of these accounts 4 Cihuatlan," the Place of Women The account
given by Cortez Nuno de Guzman The expedition to Cihuatlan The
monkeys of Southern Mexico Their resemblance to human beings-
Stones of pygmies Classical tales Pliny s account That of Maunde
vile fhe worship of Hanuman in India Chinese stories The Wran^-
hng People The Eloquent Nation The Long-armed People Chu-iu!
or the Land of Pygmies Pygmies in America-Mexican monkeys Their
ig locks, queues, or tails Their migration Their bickering or chatter-
-Their ruttmg-season-The period of gestation-The beginning of
the year m China Tartary, and Mexico-The absence of breads-Nurs
ing children over the shoulderYoung monkeys carried on their mothers
- rT A ng + a \- V 1 ? back f the head - A different translation sug-
l ~-p. ^SE th m y can walk ~That at which they become fully
grown Their timidity Their devotion to their mates
CONTENTS. xi x
CHAPTER XXVIII.
PAGE
THE COUNTRY OF WOMEN AND ITS INHABITANTS. (Concluded.} . 505
The habit of standing erect The colour of the inhabitants Albinos
Aztlan, " the White Land " The mountain Iztaccihuatl, or " the White
Woman" The Iztauhyatl, or "salt-plant" The salt of the Mexicans
and Chinese References of Sahagun to the Iztauhyatl An erroneous
identification References to it by Hernandez The salt- weed The sage
brush The characteristic vegetation of Mexico Food of the monkeys
Cattle and game fattened upon the white sage Its value in Asia The
Mexican rainy season The preceding month of " hard times" Difficulty
of obtaining food at this season Animals coming to lowlands in the
spring to feed upon the early vegetation A sweet variety of sage
The use of an herb to sweeten meat Chinese description of monkeys
An Aztec pun Shipwreck of a Chinese fishing-boat Corean fishing-
boats Japanese vessels wrecked on the American coast The laud
reached thought to be that mentioned by Hwui Sh2n The women of
the country The language that could not be understood Heads like
those of puppies The Cynocephali Their voices Barking Indians
Their food Their clothing Their dwellings The doorways.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Yu KIE S STATEMENTS REGARDING FU-SANG . . . .519
The envoy from the kingdom of Fu-sang The commission of Yu Kie
Hwui Shan the envoy mentioned Yu Kie s story The presents given
to the emperor The custom of offering tribute The yellow silk The
term applied to vegetable fibers Sisal hemp Its strength Probability
that the agave fiber would be brought home by a traveler The semi-
transparent mirror Mexican obsidian mirrors Nature of obsidian
The " Palace of the Sun " The Chinese zodiac Their horary cycle
Concave and convex mirrors Obsidian mirrors peculiar to Mexico The
silk taken from the agave Lack of cocoons The seeds of the century-
plant carried to Corea The use of agave leaves as fuel The ashes
used for obtaining lye The agave fiber steeped in an alkaline solution
The feast of Huitzilopochtli Intercourse between Corea and China The
Corean records Possibility that further information may be found in
them The palace of the king The glitter of obsidian in the morning
light The Country of Women again Serpent husbands The expedi
tion of Nuno de Guzman The Smoking Mountain Volcanoes Hairy
worms The "nopal de la tierra " The fire-trees The fire-rats The
Black Valley The Snowy Range Huitzilopochtli The intoxicating liq
uor The "Sea of Varnish" Petroleum Mineral springs Hot springs
The extent of the land Animals Winged men Birds that bear hu
man beings.
CHAPTER XXX.
MEXICAN TRADITIONS . . . ^36
Mexican hieroglyphics The tradition regarding Wixipecocha His arrival
His appearance His conduct His teachings Persecution His de
partureSurvival of the doctrines he taught The " Wiyatao "Another
version of the tradition The written account preserved by the Mijcs
The " Taysacaa " Identity of the term Wixipecocha with the name and
title "Hwui Shin, bhikshu" The Mexican language Huazontlan
Quetzalcoatl His history not a myth The epoch at which he hved-
His arrival His garments His attendants Their knowledge of arts
xx CONTENTS.
PAGE
Another account Customs introduced Religious penances The founda
tion of monasteries and nunneries Belief that he was a Buddhist priest
Brahmanism and Buddhism The worship of Siva The religion of
Nepal The goddess Kali The worship of Mictlancihuatl QuetzalcoatPs
horror of bloodshed The arts he taught The calendar His promise
to return His vow to drink no intoxicating liquor His temptation and
fall His sorrow Etymology of his name Its true meaning not " the
Plumed Serpent," but "the Revered Visitor" Term applied to the
priests of Nepal The Mexican " Cihuacoatl " The arrival of Quetzal-
coatl from the east Possible explanations The crosses on his mantle
Explanation of occurrence of crosses in Yucatan Intercourse with
the West Indian Islands The god Hurakan Oracles and prophecies
Veneration of the cross in ancient times Its occurrence in India and
Egypt Its use in Asia as a symbol of peace The patchwork cloaks of
the Buddhist priests Buddha s commands The mark of a foot-print
in the rocks Occurrence of such foot-prints in America and Asia
Veneration shown them.
CHAPTER XXXI.
VARIOUS AMERICAN TRADITIONS. BUDDHISM . . . .- 555
White and bearded men wearing long robes The great numbers of coun
tries in which such traditions exist Non-intercourse between them
Traditions of Yucatan Zamna and Cukulcan The introduction of the
alphabet Attendants The name Cukulcan The three brothers of
Chichen Itza The buildings erected The teachings of Cukulcan His
departure The survival of his doctrines Votan His long-robed attend
ants Resemblance of name " Votan " to Asiatic perversions of " Gau
tama" The time of these visits The "katuns" of Yucatan South
American traditions The Muyscas Their civilization The arrival of a
white stranger His names The arts he taught His doctrines The
veneration of the people for him Resemblance of his names to Buddhist
titles A Pachcheko The Updsakas The Chinese Ho Shang Tradition
of the Guaranis Tamoi, Tamu, Tume, or Zume His teachings The
impress of his foot-prints The tradition in Paraguay His promise to
return Adventure of the fathers de Montoya and de Mendoza The
Brazilian tradition The great road Foot-prints Another tradition
The story in Chili Tonapa in Peru His appearance His mildness
His teachings His departure Viracocha The pyramids of Peru Con,
or Contice The Buddhist decalogue Avoidance of women Buddhist
practices The dress of the priests Hats not worn by the Indians
Resemblance of teachings of the American culture-heroes to those of the
Roman Catholics Resemblances between Buddhism and Roman Catholi
cism Their monasteries Their doctrines The costume of the Grand
Lama Belief in an early mixture of Christianity and Buddhism A Cen
tral American image The calendar The arts practiced by Buddhist
priests The art of casting metals Sculptured vases.
CHAPTER XXXII.
EELIGIOTJS CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS . . . . . 574
The incongruity of the religious system of the Aztecs The Toltecs Con
tentions between rival sects Monasteries The " Tlamacazqui " The
herb-eaters Their asceticism The monastery and nunnery attached to
the chief temple of the city of Mexico The duties of the devotees The
clothing The discipline The differences in rank Other ascetics Pro
bation of candidates Vows not for life Married priests The monas-
CONTENTS. ^
tery of the Totonacas The pontiff of Mixteca The title " Taysacaa "
Auricular confession The practice of bearing a calabash The dress of
the priests Continence Prayers Fasting The early disciples of Sakya
Muni The Buddhist monasteries Candidates for the priesthood Edu
cation of children Food and clothing Penances Nunneries Life of
the inmates Punishment of incontinence Time for meals Clothing of
idols Absence of vital points of Christian doctrine Marriage of the
priests Vegetarianism Failure of the Buddhists to strictly comply with
the tenets of their religion The eating of flesh A curious anomaly in
Buddha s teachings Religious terms The name Sakya Its occurrence
in Mexico Otosis Gautama Guatemala Quauhtemo-tzin Tlama and
lama Teotl and Deva Refutation of a negative argument Religious
tenets The road to the abode of the dead The divisions of the abode
of the dead Transmigration Yearly feast for the souls of the dead
The tablet at Palenque The lion-headed couch Seated figures An
image of Quetzalcoatl The story of Camaxtli Preservation of his
blonde hair.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE PYRAMIDS, IDOLS, AND ARTS OF MEXICO .... 597
Temples built upon truncated pyramids Mounds antedating Aztec occupa
tion Speculations as to the date of their erection The Place of the
House of Flowers The monuments of San Juan Teotihuacan Their size
Their construction Mexican "teocallis" Their proportions Re
semblances to the pyramids of India Pyramids found wherever Bud
dhism prevails The tumulus or tope Its occurrence at Nineveh, in
China, and Ceylon Resemblances noticed by several authors The tem
ple of Boro-Budor in Java The palace at Palenque Dome-shaped
edifices The dome at Chichen The construction of the pyramids The
layer of stone or brick The layer of plaster The false arch Decora
tive paintings The priests the artists The ornament upon the breast
The name Chaacmol Cornices Friezes Representation of curved
swords An elephant s head as a head-dress Other ornaments in shape
of an elephant s trunk The elephant the symbol of Buddha The tapir
Remains of the elephant or mastodon in America Their possible con
temporaneity with man Pipes carved in the shape of elephants Their
discovery An inscribed tablet The elephant-mound of Wisconsin A
Chippewa tradition Ganesa Teoyaomiqui Their resemblance The
conception of Huitzilopochtli The story of Cuaxolotl Tezcatlipoca
The mirror held by him Similar idols in Asia The imprint of the hand
The cataclysms by which the human race has been destroyed The
cardinal points Their connection with certain colours The temples of
Thibet The palace of Quetzalcoatl A small green stone buried with
the dead Sweeping the path before the monarch The use of garments
and dishes but once The breech-cloth Quilted armour Suspension-
bridges Books Marriage ceremonies and customs Tying the gar
ments together Postponement of the consummation of marriage Po
lygamy Children carried on the hip Children s toys The cakes used
as food A game Practices of many Asiatic countries Milk not used
Authors led to believe in a connection between Asiatic and Mexican
civilization Differences between the Mexicans and other American tribes
Erroneous criticism.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE HISTORY OF JAPAN , . . 623
Records reaching back nominally to 660 B. c. Gaps in the history Great
age of sovereigns A giant Absence of exact dates The introduction
xx ii CONTENTS.
PAGE
of writing Manufacture of paper Chinese records of embassies Men
tion of a Japanese sovereign whose name does not appear in the Japa
nese annals Translation of extracts from the Japanese history Inter
course with Corea and China Embassies Wars Introduction of Bud
dhism Titles of nobility Copper, silver, and gold Intercourse of Corea
with Japan and China The Chinese account of Japan The route from
China to Japan The distance Cattle and horses not raised Tattooing
Clothing Cities Polygamy Laws Burial of the dead The " Chi-
shuai " An envoy A later embassy A Japanese princess The king
dom of Kiu-nu ; that of Chu-ju The Eastern Fish-People A Chinese
expedition to seek for P ung-lai Tan-cheu Route to Japan The divis
ions of Japan Titles of the officers Embassies Tattooing Absence
of writing Mourning-garments Buddhism Route to Japan Discovery
of gold, silver, iron ore, and copper The Country of Women Reasons
why Fu-sang can not have been situated in Japan Consideration of
other theories Proof that Hwui Shan had visited some unknown land
Had the Chinese any earlier knowledge of America ? The Shan Hai King.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE CHINESE " CLASSIC OF MOUNTAINS AND SEAS " . . . 643
Preface SUH-CHU Mountain The Mountain of Creeping Plants Aspen
Mountain Hairy birds The Foreign Range KAN fish KU-MAO, KAO-
SHI, Lofty, Wolf, Lone, Bald, and Bamboo Mountains K UNG-SANG,
TS AO-CHI, YIH-KAO, and Bean Mountains An excessively high peak
TU-FU, KANG, LU-K I KU-SHE, Green Jade-stone, WEI-SHI, KIT-FUNG,
FU-LI, and YIN Mountains SHI-HU, K I, CHU-KEU, Middle Fu, HU-SHE,
MANG-TSZ , K I-CHUNG, MEI-YU, and WD-KAO Mountains The Fu-tree (or
FU-SANG) North HAO, MAO, Eastern SHI, NU-CHING, K IN, TSZ -TUNG,
YEN, and T AI Mountains The CHA Hill The Great Men s Country
SHE-PI S body The Country of Refined Gentlemen HUNG-HUNG The
Valley of the Manifestation of the Dawn The Green Hills Country The
journey of SHU-HAI The Black-Teeth Country The Warm Springs Ra
vine FU-SANG The Place where the Ten Suns bathe An account of
the Ten Suns Yu-sm s concubine The Black-Hip Country The Hairy
People s Country A boat upon the sea-shore The Distressed People s
Country K KU-WANG A great valley SHAO-HAO PI-MU-TI Hill Place
where the Sun and Moon rise The Great Men s Country Giants and
dwarfs The Great People s Market The Little People KUEH Mount
ainThe Country of Plants HOH-HU Mountain The Mountain of the
astern Pass The Mountain of the Bright Star The White People s
Country The Green Hills Country The Nation of Courteous Vassals
1 he Black-Teeth Country Summer Island The KAI-YU Country CHEH-
TAN and the Place of the Rising of the Sun YU-KWOH Qualdno- Mount
ain The Black-Hip Country The Needy Tribe King HAI NU-CHEU
YEH-YAO-KIUN-TI Mountain The Fu-tree Warm Springs Valley
I-TiEN-su-MAN Mountain The YING Dragon The Mountain of the
1 lowing Waves.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
COMMENTS UPON THE "CLASSIC OF MOUNTAINS AND SEAS" . . 669
T1 ions ld rrof^ 1 ?^ 7 f - the rld -Article by M. Bazin, Sr.-Its divis-
.roups of mountams-Taoists of the fourth century-The spirits
bonT Th v e *r th -? XtraVagancies of the work-First mention of the
or co7nted ami T ar D ? COUrs Q cs of Confucius-Thought to be apocryphal
- Tseu-hia Sse-ma-ts ien Sse-ma-ching Chao-shi
CONTENTS. xxiii
Wang-chong Tso-sse The " Book of Waters " Chang-hoa Consider- **
ation of the western and southern kingdoms Summaries of the geogra
phy of Tu-yu Lo-pi Kia-ching-shi Cheu-pang Tsu-tse-yu The En
cyclopaedia of Tu-yeu Conclusion of M. Bazin The imperial academy
of the Han-lin The Shan Hai King read as a romance or pastime
Particularly by young men Opinions of commentators Notes Gaps
or omissions The "Bamboo Books" Length of the work Xo transla
tion heretofore made M. Burnouf s intention to translate it Change
of opinion among scholars as to its value Monsters mentioned by other
writers Tacitus Men clothed in skins A river with eight mouths
The compass The T ien Wu : Lord of the Water Seals, sea-lions, and
sea-otters The Islands of the Flowing Stream Cuttle-fish Birds with
hairy legs Serpents as ear-ornaments The Shan Hai King a compila
tion of a number of distinct accounts Regions mentioned twice or more
Description of Japan The genii who once ruled the earth The state
of civilization Tigers and bears A poisonous insect The Ravine of
the Manifestation of the Dawn The Hairy People Fu-sang and the
Black-Teeth Country The Malay custom of blackening the teeth The
Philippine or Luzon Islands The banana or plantain (pisany) The
"ten suns."
CHAPTER XXXVII.
BECAPITULATIOX . . . . ... . 684
Summary of reasons for thinking that Hwui ShSn visited Mexico The com
mand of Buddha The ease of the journey The " silk " and mirror
brought back by him The belief of his contemporaries Fu-sang must
have been in Japan or America, and was not in Japan Hwui Shan s
story paralleled with accounts of the countries by other authors The
Country of Marked Bodies Great Han Fu-sang The Country of Wom
en Summary of facts mentioned by Hwui Sh&n The transparent
mirror could not have been obtained elsewhere than in Mexico The
Mexican tradition of Hwui Sh&n s visit Coincidences between Asiatic
and American civilizations Pyramids Architecture Arts Religious
structures Religious customs and beliefs Idols Marriage ceremonies
Dress Food Books Games The working of metals Suspension-
bridges The calendar Civilized nations of America all upon the Pacific
coast Allowances to be made Errors of first explorers Hwui Shan
not a Chinaman Errors of manuscripts Changes in language Changes
in customs Our imperfect knowledge of Mexican civilization The ar
gument stronger than its weakest parts Conclusion.
APPENDIX.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES AND KEFERENCES . . 711
INDEX . .... 741
2 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
mentioned in history either under his family name of Gautama,
or under the appellation of Buddha, "the Enlightened"; or,
from the fact that he was of the race called Sakya, he is re
ferred to as Sakya-muni, "the hermit of the Sakyas."
This prince, although handsome, strong, and heroic sur
rounded by pleasures and tempted by the most brilliant worldly
prospects 1278 took little part in the sports of his mates, and
used frequently to retire by himself into solitude, where he
seemed lost in meditation. 1890 Educated in the belief that death
was immediately followed by a new birth, and that all living
creatures were chained to a never-ending series of transmigra
tions, he, as he grew in age, was more and more oppressed by
the conviction that all is vanity, and that a man hath no profit
of all his labour which he taketh under the sun. Possessed of
wealth and power, and lacking no earthly good, but saddened
by the knowledge that age must follow youth, and that death
would soon put an end to all his possessions ; and believing that
he must then commence a new life which death would again
end, and that so for all eternity he must struggle on, being able
to retain for but a moment all that seemed good to his eyes, and
then being compelled to abandon it the prospect thus stretch
ing out before him so appalled him that he finally determined to
devote his life to the endeavour to find some escape from this
eternal series of deaths.
It was not for himself alone that he desired to find this relief,
but for his dearly loved wife and infant child as well ; and, fur
thermore, his heart was filled with an anxious yearning to be the
saviour of mankind, no matter what the cost to himself might be.
Born at a time when tyranny and the oppression of the law
of castes had become as intolerable in the civil world of India as
the dogma of eternal metempsychoses had become in its relig
ion ; 1879 when woman was looked upon, as she still is in Oriental
countries, as but the plaything of the stronger sex ; when
throughout the world the citizens of each petty nation consid
ered all other tribes as barbarians or wild beasts he, being the
first of the human race 1882 to rise above the accidents of fate,
looked upon all mankind as his brothers and sisters, and would
fain save them all from the woe of the innumerable deaths that
awaited them. High and low, bond and free, rich and poor,
male and female, old and young, countrymen and foreigners,
INTRODUCTORY. 3
for all he felt the same tender pity, and no living creature was
so mean as to be beneath his all-embracing love and sympathy.
Filled with this anxious devotion, he stole softly away from
his home by night, and adopted the life of a Brahmanical her- \
mit. For years he tortured himself, often fasting until life was
almost extinct ; striving, vainly, but with an inextinguishable
desire, to find the path which led away from eternal misery.
Finally, light, as he believed, dawned upon him. Misery was
merely the result of unsatisfied desire. If all desire could be
extinguished, unhappiness would perish with it.
By sitting in a state of inward contemplation, it was possible
to arrive at a condition of mind when, for a time, all surrounding
objects would fade aw r ay and be forgotten. In this state of
ecstasy, neither hunger nor cold nor any bodily want could be
the source of discomfort, for the mind would be so fixed upon
its meditation that it would not know that these existed. Be
yond this state, however, another condition could be reached, in
which, after attaining to a forgetfulness of everything but self-
existence, the abstraction would become so great that even the
consciousness of self-existence would be lost. From this state of
entire unconsciousness, a state neither of existence nor of non-
existence, there would be no awakening forever. The dreary
round of transmigrations would be forever over with ; the
dreamless sleep would never end.
It was only after continual striving through myriads of ex
istences that this end could be reached, but he who set out upon
the path to Nirvana would never turn back ; and ultimately the
extinction of consciousness, which was held to be the supreme
good, would be attained.
There was only one thing of such importance that even the
state of quiescence and meditation, which was the foretaste of
the final beatitude, could be abandoned for it, and that was the
desire to preach the glad tidings to others, that they too might
set out upon the happy path. The love of one s neighbours was
recognized as the most sacred law, and it was to be only by the
exercise of this virtue that it should be possible to reach the
rank of the perfect Buddha. 1885 As he himself had come for self-
sacrifice, and only by surrendering himself had learned how the
world might be saved, so all who desired to follow him must
tread in these footprints. Charity and love must extinguish all
4 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
egotism in the heart, and so fill the possessor with a spirit of
devotion that he would surrender himself utterly, and forget
everything personal, his own existence even, in order to save
others. 1896
In the Chinese liturgy there is recorded a vow of the Bod-
hisattva Kwan Yin the Great Compassionate Heart, or Mercy
which is characteristic of this religion : * " Never will I seek or
receive private, individual salvation ; never enter final peace
alone, but forever and everywhere will I live and strive for the
universal redemption of every creature throughout all worlds.
Until all are delivered, never will I leave the world of sin, sor
row, and struggle, but will remain where I am." im
Buddha declared that the good news was for all the world ;
and his disciples were commanded to hasten to preach it to every
creature. " Let us part with each other," the legend reports him
as saying, " and proceed in various and opposite directions. Go
ye now and preach the most excellent law, expounding every
point thereof, and unfolding it with care. Explain the begin
ning and middle and end of the law to all men without excep
tion" 1 * 91 "Since the doctrine which I proclaim is altogether
pure, it makes no distinction between high and low, rich and
poor. Like water it is, which washes and purifies all alike.
It is like the sky, for it has room for all ; men, women, boys,
girls, rich and poor." 1892
This command was faithfully obeyed by his disciples. Max
Milller states 196 that at a very early period a proselytizing
spirit awoke among the disciples of the Indian reformer an ele
ment entirely new in the history of ancient religions. No Jew,
no Greek, no Roman, no Brahman, ever thought of converting
people to his own national form of worship. Religion was
looked upon as private or national property. It was to be
guarded against strangers. Here lay the secret of Buddha s
success. He addressed himself to castes and outcasts. He
promised salvation to all ; and he commanded his disciples to
preach his doctrine in all places and to all men. A sense of
duty, extending from the narrow limits -of the house, the vil
lage, and the country, to the widest circle of mankind, a feel
ing of sympathy and brotherhood toward all men the idea,
in fact, of humanity were first pronounced by Buddha. In the
* See Bell s " Catena," pp. 4C5, 406, and 409.
INTRODUCTORY. 5
third Buddhist council, the acts of which have been preserved
to us in the " Mahavanso," we hear of missionaries being sent to
the chief countries beyond India.
Some centuries after the days of Buddha, upon the death of
Asoka, a powerful king of India, who had been an ardent devo
tee of the Buddhist faith, his immense empire was dismem
bered, 1883 and, profiting by this opportunity, the Brahmans raised
their heads, stirred up the smouldering hatred in the hearts of
the castes that were formerly privileged, and by such aid recon
quered the land which they had lost, and commenced a war of
bloody persecution against Buddhism, which resulted in the
complete expulsion of that sect from Central India. Ceylon,
Burmah, Siam, and Gamboge gave them asylum. Some of the
proscribed sect went even to the distant islands and founded a
church in Java, which, judging from the ruins that still remain,
must at one time have flourished. Others went to the north,
were arrested by the deserts of Persia, and, after halting in
Nepal, crossed the mountains, and carried their religion and
their arts into China, whence they soon passed into Japan and
Thibet.
This religion was introduced into China about A. D. 66, 251J
and reached Corea in the year 372. 1964 There is no part of
Northern Asia to which it did not make its way. There is
reason to believe that its missionaries penetrated into Europe.
Mr. Leland mentions a Buddhistic image 1717 discovered in an
excavation in London, at a depth of fifteen feet, nine feet of
which consisted of loose soil or debris of a recent character, but
the remaining six feet were hard, solid earth, of a character
which indicated a probability that the image might have been
left a thousand years or more ago where it was found. Profes
sor Holmboe has written a work 1555 in which strong grounds are
adduced for believing that Buddhist devotees reached Norway,
or at least that part of Europe which was then occupied by the
ancestors of the Norwegians of to-day. Professor Max Miiller 195
refers to the existence of Buddhism in Russia and Sweden, as
well as in Siberia, and throughout the north of Asia, and says
that a trace of the influence of Buddhism among the Kudic
races, the Finns, Lapps, etc., is found in the name of their
priests and sorcerers, the Shamans " Shaman " being supposed
to be a corruption of ^ramana, the name of Buddha, and of
6 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Buddhist priests in general. The suppression of the "r" is
probably owing to the influence of the Pali, which shows a great
delicacy, 851 or, if the term is preferred, an extreme poverty, in
the combinations of two or more consonants, and which always
drops the letter " r " when it follows an initial consonant of a
Sanskrit word. 862 Thus, for instance, 1897 the Sanskrit words
"prakrama" and "pratikrama" became in Pali "pakkama" and
" parikkama."
It is a singular fact that this word " Shaman," applied to a
priest or magician, is found, not only throughout nearly every
part of Asia, but that it passed over into America so long ago
as to become so thoroughly incorporated into the Yakut lan
guage of Alaska, that it and its derivatives were thought by Dall
to have belonged originally to that language, 1167 and he claims
that those authors who have thought it to be an (East) Indian
word are mistaken. The religious ideas of some of the tribes of
Alaska strongly point to an earlier knowledge of some more or
less impure form of Asiatic Buddhism, and thus indicate that
the word was really borrowed from the disciples of that faith,
and is not a mere case of accidental resemblance in sound and
meaning. Pinart 2045 says that the belief in metempsychosis is
generally spread abroad among the Koloches ; they believe that
the individual never really dies, and that apparent death is but
a momentary dissolution, the man being reborn in another form:
sometimes in the body of a human being, and sometimes in that
of certain animals, such as the bear, the otter, or the wolf ; of
certain birds, such as the crow or the goshawk ; and of certain
marine animals, but principally the cachalot. Veniaminoff, in
his great work, commits an error in saying that the Koloches do
not believe in any other form of metempsychosis than a change
into the body of another human being. This purely human
metempsychosis is not exclusive, although it predominates.
Pinart also states that 2042 the primitive religion of the Ka-
niagmioutes and the western Esquimaux in general appears to
present an order of ideas much superior to those of the Koloches,
or other American tribes. This religion, if the conjecture may be
permitted, is the remains of a religious system now lost, but in
dicating a very elevated order of ideas. . . . They divided the
heaven into five regions, superposed one upon another. . . . We
find in these different heavens, as we rise from one to another.
INTRODUCTORY. 7
successive transformations and purifications. Each individual,
if he lives an honourable life and conforms to their religious ideas,
can rise to the highest of these heavens by means of these dif
ferent transformations. Every individual, in their belief, dies
and returns to life five times, and it is only after having died
for the fifth time that he quits the earth forever and passes into
another existence.
It can not be denied that these dogmas are strikingly analo
gous to those of the Buddhist faith, and, when added to other
reasons for believing that this religion may have been preached
in Alaska, the existence of these religious ideas, and of the Bud
dhist designation for a priest, furnishes reasonable grounds for
at least entertaining the question whether there was not some
early communication of the Buddhists of Asia with America.
Even at the present day, the Buddhist priests, or lamas, of
Central Asia, are divided into three classes, comprising not
only 2093 the religious, who devote themselves to study and ab
straction, and become teachers and eventually saints, and the
domestic, who live in families or attach themselves to tribes
and localities, but also the itinerant, who are always moving
from convent to convent, and traveling for travel s sake, often
without aim, not knowing at alt where they are going. Prin-
sep says that there is no country that some of these have not
visited, and that when they have a religious or partisan feeling
they must be the best spies in the world.
Hue also speaks 1566 of those lamas who live neither in lama
series nor at home with their families, but spend their time
vagabondizing about like birds of passage, traveling all over
their own and the adjacent countries, and subsisting upon the
rude hospitality which, in lamasery and in tent, they are sure
to receive, throughout their wandering way. They take their
way, no matter whither, by this path or that, east or west,
north or south, as their fancy or a smoother turf suggests, and
lounge tranquilly on, sure at least, if no other shelter presents
itself by-and-by, of the shelter of the cover, as they express it,
of that great tent, the world ; and sure, moreover, having no
destination before them, never to lose their way.
The wandering lamas visit all the countries readily accessi
ble to them China, Mantchooria, the Khalkhas, the various
kingdoms of Southern Mongolia, the Ouriaughai, the Koukou-
g AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
noor, the northern and southern slopes of the Celestial Mount
ains, Thibet, India, and sometimes even Turkestan. There is
no stream which they have not crossed, no mountains they have
not climbed.
It should be remembered that the journeys of these wander
ing priests have been going on for more than two thousand
years, and that, so far as known, no records of them have been
preserved, except those which have been kept in China, and
which will be mentioned a little farther on. Hence it is impos
sible to define the limits which they may have reached ; but, if
it is shown that the journey to America, from some of the regions
(such as that at the mouth of the Amoor River), which it is well
known that they did reach, is neither longer nor more difficult
than many of the journeys that they undertook, this fact will
give reasonable ground for the conjecture that they may, in
some one or more instances, have even extended their wanderings
as far as to the American Continent.
Mr. Leland, in his book, entitled "Fusang," 1715 embodies
a long letter from Colonel Barclay Kennon, formerly of the
United States North Pacific Surveying Expedition, in which the
ease of the voyage from Northern Asia to Northern America is
fully described. It is hardly necessary to quote additional au
thorities, for the fact mentioned by Mr. Bancroft, 103 that on the
shore of Behring s Strait the natives have constant commercial
intercourse with Asia, crossing easily in their boats ; but the
facts mentioned by Captain Cochrane, 1086 that two natives of a
nation on the American Continent, called the Kargaules, were
present at a fair held at Nishney Kolymsk, a town situated in
Asia, on an island in the Kolyma River, and that large armies
of mice 1087 occasionally migrate from Asia to America, or in
the other direction, make it evident that there is no great diffi
culty in the passage.
Lewis H. Morgan calls attention to the fact that mi the Ja
panese Islands sustain a peculiar physical relation to the north
west coast of the United States. A chain of small islands
the Kurilian breaks the distance which separates Japan from
the peninsula of Kamtchatka ; and thence the Aleutian chain
of islands stretches across to the peninsula of Alaska upon
the American Continent, forming the boundary between the
North Pacific and Behring s Sea. These islands, the peaks of a
INTRODUCTORY. 9
submarine mountain-chain, are thickly studded together within
a continuous belt, and are in substantial communication with
each other, from the extreme point of Alaska to the Island of
Kyska, by means of the ordinary native boat in use among the
Aleutian islanders. From the latter to Attou Island the greatest
distance from island to island is less than one hundred miles.
Between Attou Island and the coast of Kamtchatka there are
but two islands, Copper and Behring s, between which and
Attou the greatest distance occurs, a distance of about two hun
dred miles ; while from Behring s Island to the mainland of Asia
it is less than one hundred miles. These geographical features
alone would seem to render possible a migration in the primitive
and fishermen ages from one continent to the other. But, su-
peradded to these, is the great thermal ocean-current, analogous
to the Atlantic Gulf-Stream, which, commencing in the equato
rial regions near the Asiatic Continent, flows northward along
the Japan and Kurilian Islands, and then, bearing eastward, di
vides itself into two streams. One of these, following the main
direction of the Asiatic coast, passes through the Straits of
Behring and enters the Arctic Ocean ; while the other, and the
principal current, flowing eastward, and skirting the southern
shores of the Aleutian Islands, reaches the northwest coast of
America, whence it flows southward along the shores of Oregon
and California, where it finally disappears. This current, or
thermal river in the midst of the ocean, would constantly tend,
by the mere accidents of the sea, to throw Asiatics from Japan
and Kamtchatka upon the Aleutian Islands, from which their
gradual progress eastward to America would become assured.
It is common at the present time to find trunks of camphor- wood
trees, from the coasts of China and Japan, upon the shores of the
Island of Unalaska, one of the easternmost of the Aleutian
chain, carried thither by this ocean current. It also explains
the agency by which a disabled Japanese junk with its crew was
borne directly to the shores of California but a few years since.
Another remarkable effect produced by this warm ocean-current
is the temperate climate which it bestows upon this chain of
islands and upon the northwest coast of America. These con
siderations assure us of a second possible route of communica
tion, besides the Straits of Behring, between the Asiatic and
American continents.
10 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
The " Histoire de Kamtchatka " 1638 mentions a report that a
Japanese vessel was wrecked upon Kituy, one of the Kurile
Islands; and M. Pinart 2038 states that a number of Japanese
junks, borne by the currents, and probably by the great Ja
panese current, the Kuro-siwo, or " Black Stream," have been
shipwrecked upon the Aleutian Islands one such case having
occurred in 1871 : thus showing that if a boat were merely
allowed to drift with the current along the eastern shore of
Asia, it would pass by the way of the Kurile and Aleutian Isl
ands, and, if not stopped by these, would soon drift to the
American coast.
It has already been mentioned that records have been pre
served in China of a number of journeys made by the devo
tees of the Buddhist religion. The "Encyclopaedia Britanni-
ca" 1 !11 gives the following list of clerical travelers, the accounts
of which are now known to us, and adds : " The importance of
these writings, as throwing Tight on the geography and history
of India and adjoining countries, during a very dark period, is
great."
Shi Tao-an (died A. D. 385) wrote a work on his travels to the
" western lands " (an expression applying often to India), which
is supposed to be lost.
Fa Hian traveled to India in 399, and returned by sea in 414.
Hwai Seng and .Sung Yun, monks, traveled to India to col
lect books and relics, 518-521.
Hwen Tsang left China for India in 629, and returned in 645.
To which should be added :
" The Itinerary of Fifty-six Religious Travelers," compiled
and published under imperial authority, 730 ; and
" The Itinerary of Khi Nie," who traveled (964-976) at the
head of a large body of monks to collect books, etc. Neither of
the last two has been translated.
The Rev. Mr. Edkins 1271 says that both Fa Hian and Hwen
Tsang will be admitted by every candid reader to deserve the
reputation for patience in observation, perseverance in travel,
and earnestness in religious faith, which they have gained by
the journals and translations they left behind them.
It should not be forgotten that these men were influenced by
the same motives which actuate our Christian missionaries of
recent times. They went, seeking not for glory or riches for
INTRODUCTORY. n
themselves, but either to preach their faith, in accordance with
Buddha s command, in countries in which it was not known, or
to meet their brethren in foreign lands, or that they themselves
might obtain more complete information as to the details of the
teachings of their master than they could find in their own
country. Hence it may fairly be claimed that the accounts of
these men, w T ho braved all dangers from a devotion to their re
ligious duty, are entitled to far more than the ordinary degree
of credit, and that their statements should be very carefully
weighed before we undertake to reject them or to brand their
authors as romancers. We can well afford the same degree of
charity toward them that was shown by Sir John Maundevile 1836
in darker days than our own :
" And alle be it that theyse folk han not the Articles of cure
Fythe, as w r ee han, natheles for hire gode Fey the naturelle, and
for hire gode entent, I trowe fulle, that God lovethe hem, and
that God take hire Servyse to gree, right as he did of Job, that
was a Paynem, and held him for his trewe Servaunt. And there
fore alle be it that there ben many dy verse Lawes in the World, yit
I trowe, that God lovethe alweys hem that loven him, and serven
him mekely in trouthe ; and namely, hem that dispysen the veyn
Glorie of this World ; as this folk don, and as Job did also :
And therf ore seye I of this folk, that ben so trewe and so f eythe-
f ulle, that God lovethe hem."
With this prelude, as to the motives which have led the fol
lowers of Buddha to undertake numerous, difficult, and hazardous
journeys to countries previously unknown, and as to the degree
of credence to which their accounts are, as a rule, entitled, we
come to the object of this book.
There is, among the records of China, an account of a Bud- vf
dhist priest, who, in the year 499 A. D., reached China, and stated /
that he had returned from a trip to a country lying an immense
distance east. In the case of the other travelers to whom we ,
have referred, the accounts which we possess of their journeys
were either written by themselves or their followers ; but, in the i
case of Hwui Shan, the interest excited in his story was so great yKw
that the imperial historiographer, whose duty it was to record
the principal events of the time 2417 (each dynasty having its
official chronicle concerning the physical and political features
of China and the neighbouring countries 1306 ), entered upon his
12 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
official records a digest of the information obtained from this
traveler as to the country which he had visited. It is this offi
cial record, or rather a copy of it, contained in the writings of
Ma Twan-lin, one of the most celebrated scholars that the Chi
nese Empire ever knew, which is discussed in this work.
It is certainly no more than reasonable to start with the pre
sumption that the account may be true, and that the story should
not be rejected as false because of any slight difficulties, which
further investigation might remove.
All the reasons which lead us to accept the accounts of other
Buddhist missionaries apply with equal force to this record, and
we have, in addition, the fact that Hwui Shan succeeded in
convincing the Chinese Emperor, and the scholars by whom he
was surrounded, of the truth of his tale, and that he also ob
tained the belief of the people of China and of all Eastern Asia
so thoroughly that even now, after the lapse of some fourteen
centuries, there is scarcely a man in China, Japan, or Corea, who
does not have at least some slight knowledge of the account of
the marvelous land of Fusang that was visited by him. The
fact that he obtained such universal credence is certainly one of
some weight. An impostor would not be likely to be so suc
cessful. Among those whom Hwui Shan convinced were many
c.areful scholars and bright, intelligent men, who knew well how
to weigh and sift evidence, and who would have found the flaw
in his story if one had existed.
It is the object of this book to show that the land visited by
Hwui Shan was Mexico, and that his account, in nearly all its
*. details, as to the route, the direction, the distance, the plants of
the country, the people, their manners, customs, etc., is true of
Mexico, and^f^n^other country in the world ; such a multitude
of singular facts being named, that it is inconceivable that such
a story could have been told in any other way than as the result
of an actual visit to that country. It is true that there are a few
difficulties to be surmounted ; but the author believes that he has
succeeded in removing a number upon which some of his prede
cessors have stumbled, and that the few that remain can not
outweigh the immense volume of evidence that is presented as
to the general truth of the account.
After giving translations of all that is known to have been
written in French or German upon the subject, and also includ-
INTRODUCTORY.
13
ing a full statement of substantially all that has been written
about it in English (with the exception of Mr. Leland s book
which the reader is recommended to obtain, if he has failed so
far to do so, and if he finds the subject at all interesting), the
original Chinese account will be given, with copies of the several
translations that have heretofore been made, and with a new
translation by the present author. Each statement made by
Hwui Shan will then be carefully examined in connection with
the histories of Mexico, to see whether the statement was or was
not true of that country prior to the time of its conquest by the
Spaniards.
After a full discussion of his account, the histories of Mexico
and other parts of America will be examined to determine, if
possible, whether any traditions as to his visit, or any results of
his teachings, still lingered in the country at the time when the
Spaniards, more than a thousand years later, entered it, and
whether any such coincidences were found in the civilization of
these two regions of the world, in their customs, religious be
liefs, arts, architecture, etc., as to lead to a reasonable presump
tion that they may have had an early connection with each
other. As it has been claimed that the country visited by Hwui
Shan may have been located in some part of Japan, its history
will also be reviewed for the same purpose. The book will con
clude with a consideration of the question as to whether the
Chinese had any earlier knowledge of America, or any further
information regarding it than that which was given them by
Hwui Shan.
The first detailed information which was given to European
scholars, as to the existence of this account among the Chinese
records, was afforded them in an article published by M. de
Guignes, in the " Literary Memoirs extracted from the Registers
of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres," Vol.
XXVIII, published in Paris in 1761, and entitled "Investigation
of the Navigations of the Chinese to the Coast of America, and
as to Some Tribes situated at the Eastern Extremity of Asia"; 14:
a translation of which article is given in the following chapter.
It would appear, however, that de Guignes must have given
some earlier account of his discovery of this relation, among the
Chinese books which he had read in preparing for his great
work upon the " General History of the Huns, the Turks, the
14; AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Mongolians, and other Western Tartars," as (unless there is an
error in the date) we find a letter written by the Pere Gaubil 1409
to M. de 1 Isle, dated at Pekin, August 28, 1752, in which he
mentions M. de Guignes s discovery of this account, but states
his disbelief of the reliability of the Chinese works from which
his translations were made. An extract from this letter is given
in Chapter X.
V Philippe Buache, 1543 in a work entitled "Considerations Geo-
graphiques et Physiques sur les Nouvelles Descouvertes au Nord
de la Grande Mer," published at Paris in 1753, in which he cor
rectly advanced the opinion of the existence of the Strait of
Anian (since called Behring s Strait), evidently borrowed from
de Guignes, when he stated that in the year 458 a colony of Chi
nese was established on the coast of California, in a region called
Fusang, which he placed at about 55 north latitude. Her-
vas, 1543 in commenting upon this statement, says that this colony
has not been found, and that it is certain that none of the lan
guages which are spoken along that coast, between the forty-
ninth and sixty-fourth degrees (a number of the words of which
are to be found in the account of Cook s third voyage), have
any close connection with the Chinese language.
Alexander von Humboldt, in his "Views of the Cordille
ras," 1 2 mentions a number of surprising coincidences be
tween the Asiatic and Mexican civilizations, of such a nature
and of such importance as to lead him to the conclusion that
there must have been an early communication between these
two regions of the world ; but he makes no reference in this
work to the history brought to light by de Guignes ; and in his
"Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain" he says 1607
that, according to the learned researches of Father Gaubil, it ap
pears doubtful whether the Chinese ever visited the western
coast of America at the time stated by de Guignes.
^ No further attention seems to have been paid to the subject
until the year 1831, when M. J. Klaproth published, in Vol.
LI of the "New Annals of Voyages," an article entitled "Re
searches regarding the Country of Fusang, mentioned in Chi
nese Books, and erroneously supposed to be a Part of Amer
ica," 1 47 in which he took the ground that the country mentioned
Chinese account was probably located in some part of
Japan. A translation of this article is given in Chapter III.
INTRODUCTORY. ,~
For some reason, which it seems difficult to explain, Klap-
roth s assertions and assumptions (for of argument there is but
little, and that is partly based upon mistaken premises) seem to
have been generally accepted as a settlement of the question.
This did not deter the Chevaliejxdfi^aavey, however, from ^T
publishing 2015 two pamphlets, 2017 one in 1844 and the other at a
somewhat later date, in which he argued that the country of
Fusang should be looked for in America, and not in Japan.
Translations of these pamphlets are given in Chapters IV and V.
De Paravey also published two other essays, 2011 in which he at
tempted to prove that the natives of Bogota must have derived
from Asiatic sources such partial civilization as they possessed. 2012 /
The next to discuss the subject was Professor Karl Friedrich K
Neumann, who published his views in the " Zeitschrift fur
Allgemeine Erdkunde," Vol. XVI of the new series, 1966 under
the title of " Eastern Asia and Western America, according to
Chinese Authorities of the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Centuries."
Mr. Leland published a translation of this opuscule in his book,
entitled " Fusang," and a translation is also given in the present
volume, Chapter VI.
Since that time, articles upon the subject have followed each
other so thick and fast that it is difficult to give a complete list
of them. I
In 1850 Mr.J^lad 172 published a resume of the arguments W
upon this subject, in the New York " Knickerbocker Maga-
zine " ; and in 1862 this was republished, with additions, in the
New York " Continental Magazine." In 1875 Mr. Leland pub
lished a much fuller work, entitled " Fusang, or the Discovery
of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth Century."
This treats the subject at much greater length than any other
work, and hence it is impossible for the present author to do
more than refer to it ; but it adxlucesjnuch new and valuable
evidence as to the true location of Fusang, and well merits care
ful perusal.
In 1862 M. Jose Jkcez 2026 published a "Memoir upon the Re
lations of the Americans in Former Times with the Nations of
Europe, Asia, and Africa," one section of which related to the
knowledge of America possessed by the Chinese.
In 1865 1277 M. Gustave d Eichthal published a "Study con- r\
cerning the Buddhistic Origin of American Civilization." n
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
In the same year M. Vivien de Saint-Martin, 2458 in a chapter
of his " Geographical Annual " for that year, entitled " An Old
Story Set Afloat," combated the idea that the Chinese had any
early knowledge of America.
In 1866 the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, in the work en
titled "Ancient Monuments of Mexico," 763 argued against the
views of the author of the " Geographical Annual."
In 1868 Dr. A. Godron, President of the Academy of Sci
ences at Nancy, published, in the " Annals of Voyages of Geog
raphy, History, and Archaeology," 1411 an article entitled "A
Buddhist Mission to America in the Fifth Century of the Chris
tian Era."
According to the "American Philological Magazine" for
August, 1869, the Rev. N. W. Jones published in his " Indian
Bulletin " an able argument to show that the Chinese Fusang
was America.
In the same number of the " American Philological Maga
zine " there appeared an article 85 upon the subject, by the Rev.
Nathan Brown, under the heading, " Where was Fusang ? "
In May, 1869, a letter upon the subject from Mr. Theos.
Simson 1719 was published in the " Notes and Queries for China
and Japan"; and in October, 1870, a letter by E. Bretschneider,
Esq., M. D.j" 4 was published in the " Chinese Recorder and Mis
sionary Journal." Both of these letters were copied by Mr. Le-
land in his work.
At the first session of the International Congress of Ameri
canists, held at Nancy in 1875, M. Lucien Adam read an argu
ment against the identification of Fusang with America.
These various articles, some of them more or less condensed,
are, with the exception of the argument by the Rev. N. W.
Jones (of which I have been unable to find a copy), given in
Chapters VII to XI of this work.
In 1876 M. the Marquis d Hervey de Saint-Denys published
a " Memoir regarding the Country known to the Ancient Chi
nese by the Name of Fusang " ; 1544 but as his views, and the
exceedingly valuable new material that he presents, are given
more fully in his notes to his translation of Ma Twan-lin s work,
entitled " Ethnography of Foreign Nations," and as, moreover,
much of the " Memoir " is quoted by Professor Williams in his
comments upon it, it has not seemed necessary to copy the " Me-
INTRODUCTORY. 17
moir" in this work. The substance of the notes upon the
" Ethnography " is, however, given in Chapters XII and XIII.
Mr. Bancroft, in his "Native Races of the Pacific States," 404
gives Klaproth s translation of the story of Fusang, and com
ments briefly upon it.
Professor S. Wells Williams presented to the American Ori- /
ental Society, on October 25, 1880, an article entitled "Notices
of Fusang and Other Countries lying East of China," in which
he urges some new grounds for adopting the conclusion of Klap-
roth that Fusang should be decided to have been located in
Japan. This article, slightly condensed, is copied in Chapter
XIV.
The last article on the subject is contained in the " Maga
zine of American History," for April, 1883, in which there is
given a letter from the Rt. Rev. Channing M. Williams, refer
ring to the accounts of Fusang contained in the Shan Hal King,
the Chinese classic of lands and seas. This will be found in
Chapter X ; and a translation of all that portion of the Shan
ffai King which relates to Eastern regions will be found in
Chapter XXXY.
An extract from the Introduction to the " Grammar of the
Chinese Language," by the Rev. W. Lobscheid, 1759 in which
many singular coincidences are mentioned between the civiliza
tions of Mexico and China ; and some extracts from Mr. Pres-
cott s " History of the Conquest of Mexico," in which he ex
presses his conviction of a connection between the civilizations
of the two countries, are also given (in Chapter IX), as having a
bearing upon the subject.
CHAPTER II.
DE GUIGNES S DISCOVERT.
Chinese voyages-Knowledge of foreign lands-Work of Li-yen, a Chinese histo
rianThe country of Fu-sang The length of the li- Wen-shin Its identifi
cation with Jesso Ta-han Its identification with Kamtchatka The route to
Ta-han by land The country of the Ko-li-han The She-goei The Yu-che
Description of Kamtchatka The land of Lieu-kuci The description of Fu-
sang No other knowledge of the country The Pacific coast of North America
A Japanese map The Kingdom of Women Its description Shipwreck
of a Chinese vessel American traditions Civilization of American tribes
on the Pacific coast The Mexicans Horses Cattle The fu-sang tree-
Mexican writing Manner in which America was peopled Similarity of cus
toms in Asia and America Resemblances in the people Charlevoix s story
Natives floated upon cakes of ice The kingdom of Chang-jin Voyages of
other nations The Arabs Exploration of the Atlantic The Canaries
Story of their king The Cape Verd Islands Conclusion.
Investigation of the Navigations of the Chinese to the Coast of
America, and as to some Tribes situated at the Eastern Ex
tremity of Asia by M. de Gruignes. ul5
THE Chinese have not always been confined within the bound
aries which Nature appears to have established to the country
in which they dwell ; they have often crossed the deserts and
the mountains which shut them in on their northern side, and
sailed the Indian and Japanese seas which bound their kingdom on
the east and the south. The principal object of these voyages has
been, either commerce with foreign nations, or the intention to
extend the limits of their empire. In these voyages observations
have been made that are important, as well in regard to history
as to geography. Several of their generals have rectified the
maps of the countries which they reconnoitered, and their histo
rians have reported some details as to routes, bearings, and dis
tances, which can be made useful.
In the enumeration of all the different foreign nations that
DE GUIGNES S DISCOVERY. ^9
the Chinese have known, it appears that some of them must
have been situated easterly from Tartary and Japan, in a region
which was included within the limits of the American Continent.
A knowledge of this region of the world could have been
obtained only by means of a cruise that is very remarkable and
unusually daring for the* Chinese who have always been con
sidered as but mediocre sailors, hardly capable of undertaking
long voyages, and whose vessels are constructed of so little
strength as to be poorly adapted to resisting the hardships of a
sail over a distance so great as that from China to Mexico.
These voyages have appeared to me to be so important, and to
have so intimate a relation with the history of the tribes of
America, as to induce me to devote myself to collecting and
placing in order all that could contribute to their elucidation.
I intend this memoir to establish the voyages of the Chi
nese to Jesso, to Kamtchatka, and to that part of America which
is situated opposite the easternmost coast of Asia. I dare flatter
myself that these researches will be the more favourably received,
inasmuch as they are novel, and rest wholly upon authentic facts,
and not upon conjectures, such as those which we find in the
works of Grotius, Delaet, and other writers who have investi
gated the origin of the American tribes. It is surprising to see v
that Chinese vessels made the voyage to America many centuries
before Christopher Columbus that is to say, more than twelve
hundred years ago. This date, anterior to the origin and the es
tablishment of the Mexican Empire, leads us to inquire whence
these nations, and some other nations of America, received that
degree of civilization which distinguishes them from the barbar
ous tribes of the continent.
Li-yen, a Chinese historian, who lived at the commencement
of the seventh century, speaks of a country called Fit-sang, more
than forty thousand li distant from China, toward the east. He
says that, in order to reach it, one should set forth from the coast
of the province of Leao-tong, situated to the north of Pe-ltin,
and that, after having traveled twelve thousand li, one reaches
Japan ; that from that country, toward the north, after a voy
age of seven thousand li, the country of Wen-shin is attained ;
that at a distance of five thousand li eastwardly from the last
the country of Ta-han is found, from which Fit-sang may be
reached, which is at a distance of twenty thousand li from Ta-
20 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
han. Of all these countries we know no others than Leao-tong,
a northerly province of China, the point of embarkation, and
Japan, which was the principal halting-place for the Chinese
vessels. The three other places at which they arrived in suc
cession are Wen-shin, Ta-han, and Fu-sang. I shall show that
the first must be understood as Jesso; and the second as Kam-
tchatka, and that the third must be a country situated near Cali
fornia. But before examining this route particularly, I wish to
give an idea of the li which the Chinese geographers employed
as the standard for measuring the distance between these places.
It is very difficult to determine the true length of this measure.
To-day, two hundred and fifty li make a geographical degree,
which gives ten li to each French league of about three English
miles. But the length of the li, like that of the French league,
has varied under the different imperial dynasties and in the dif
ferent provinces of the empire. Pere Gaubil, who has made able
researches concerning the astronomy of the Chinese, does not
dare to attempt to prove the true length of this measure. He
informs us that the majority of the scholars of the reign of the
Han dynasty maintained that a thousand li, measured from the
south to the north, gave a difference of an inch in the length of
the shadow of an eight-foot hand of a sun-dial, when measured
at noon. The scholars of later days have believed this deter
mination to be wrong, because they have been guided in their
judgment by the measure of the li in use in the times in which
they lived. If we cast our eyes upon the li adopted by the
astronomers of the Liang dynasty, which flourished at the com
mencement of the sixth century, we find a material difference,
since two hundred and fifty li, measured from the north to the
south, give a similar difference in the length of the shadow. In
order to judge of the distance of the countries by the statement
as to the number of li between them, it is therefore necossary to
know the length of the li at the time of the author. We may
be assured that he has considered the length of this measure, and
has given the distances with precision. The difficulty in deter
mining the length of the li may be avoided by considering the
report of the same author regarding two places that are well
known. The distance which is reported from the shore of Leao-
tong to the island of Tui-ma-tao is seven thousand li. In con
formity with the length of the li established by this distance,
DE GUIGNES S DISCOVERY. 21
the twelve thousand U from. Leao-tong to Japan terminate at
about the center of the island, near Meaco, which is the capital,
and which then bore the name of Shan-ching, or the City of the
Mountain. Wen-shin, which is found seven thousand li from
Japan toward the northeast, can not be anything else than
Jesso, situated to the northeast of Japan, and at which the seven
thousand li terminate. A Chinese historian, who has given us a
very curious memoir concerning Japan, has furnished us with
additional proofs. In speaking of the limits of this empire, he
says that to the northeast of the mountains which bound Japan
is placed the kingdom of the Mao-jin, or of hairy men, and be
yond them that of Wen-shin, or the country of painted bodies,
about seven thousand U from Japan. The first are the inhab
itants of Matsumai; the latter are their neighbours on the north,
the people of Jesso, which, as a consequence, must be Wen-shin.
This country, according to the Chinese historian, was made
known about 510 or 520 A. D., its inhabitants having figures
similar to those of animals. They traced different lines upon
their faces, the form of which served to distinguish the chief
men of the nation from the common people. They exposed
their condemned criminals to wild beasts, and they deemed those
innocent from whom the animals took flight. Their towns or
villages were unwalled. The dwelling of the king was orna
mented with precious things. They added, again, that a ditch
might be seen there which appeared to be filled with quicksilver,
and that this matter, esteemed in commerce, became liquid and
flowing when it had imbibed water from the rain. It was, for
the rest, a fertile country, where all that is necessary to sustain
life might be found in abundance.
This description agrees with what we read in the accounts of
those who have explored the island of Jesso. The Japanese, who
were formerly sent there by an emperor of Japan, found hairy
men there who wore their beards in the manner of the Chinese,
but who were so rude and brutish that they would not receive any
instruction. When the Hollanders discovered Jesso, in 1 643, the
same barbarians were living there that had been described by the
Chinese and Japanese, and their country appeared to abound in
mines of silver. But that which agrees the most remarkably
with the account of the Chinese is, that the Hollanders found
there a mineral earth which glistened in the sun as if it consisted
22 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
of silver. This earth, mixed with a very friable sand, they found
where water had been placed. It is this which the Chinese had
taken for quicksilver. These proofs, and the situation of Wen-
shin, and its distance from Japan according to the Chinese
writers, do not permit us to doubt that it must be the island of
Jesso. At a distance of five thousand li from this country, toward
the east, the ancient Chinese navigators found Ta-han. They
declared that the inhabitants of this country had no military
weapons ; that their customs were essentially the same as those of
the people of Wen-shin, but that they had a different language.
At almost exactly the distance of five thousand li, indicated
by the Chinese, we find upon our maps the southern coast of an
island which Don Jean de Gama discovered when going from
Mexico to China. Because of the agreement as to distance, I at
first believed that this coast was that of Ta-han y but the details
of the route which was taken to reach that country by land, a
route which can not be reconciled with the island of Gama, which
is said to be separated from Asia, has compelled me to seek else
where for the true location of the country, and to place it in the
easternmost part of Asia. The statements of our navigators who
have sailed these seas have contributed not a little to confirm me
in this opinion. They have remarked that, in the route from
China to California, they usually took the wind carrying them
to the north of Japan and into the sea of Jesso, from which they
sailed to the east, but that at the Strait of Uries the current car
ried them rapidly toward the north. Thus the Chinese, for the
purpose of keeping close to the coast, have entered into the Strait
of Uries, beyond which they have found a number of islands
which extend as far as the southernmost point of Kamtchatka,
where the five thousand li, the distance between Jesso and Ta-
han, also terminate ; that is to say, they have reached the port of
Avatcha, at which the Russians recently embarked, to attempt
the discovery of the western coast of America, and whence they
have taken the route of Captain Spanberg, who was commis
sioned by the Russian empress, in 1739, to reconnoitre the coast
of Japan. But, in order to leave no doubt as to this point,
I believe that we should be able to show by the route indi
cated by the Chinese author that Ta-han is more to the north
than the place discovered by Gama, and that it forms a part of
Siberia,
DE GUIGNES S DISCOVERY. 23
I shall not examine in full detail all the Tartarian tribes men
tioned by the Chinese historian, but shall confine myself to
speaking only of those that are situated in the easternmost part
of Asia, and shall devote myself to relating the customs of the
inhabitants, so that they may be compared with those of the
nations whom I place in America, and that it may be conclu
sively shown, by the differences which are found, that these last
can not be placed in Kamtchatka. Moreover, this circumstantial
account has seemed very interesting to me, because of the infor
mation that it gives in regard to the condition of Eastern Siberia.
The Chinese travelers, who desired to reach the country of
Ta-han, set forth from a city situated to the north of the river
Hoang-lio toward the country of the Tartar Ortous. This city,
which the Chinese called Ckung-sheu-kiang-ching, must be the
same as that which now bears the name of Piljotaihotun. The
great desert of Shamo was then passed, and Caracorum was
reached, which was the principal encampment of the Iloei-ke^
important Tartarian tribes, from which they came into the coun
try of the Ko-li-han and of the Tu-po, situated to the south of
a large lake, upon the frozen surface of which the travelers were
obliged to cross. To the north of this lake, great mountains
were found, and a country where the sun, says one, is not above
the horizon longer than the length of time that it takes to cook a
breast of mutton. This is the singular expression of which the
Chinese author makes use to describe a country situated very
far to the north. The Tu-po, neighbours of the Io-li~han, have
their dwelling-places upon the south of the same lake. These
people, who do not distinguish the different seasons of the year,
shut themselves up in cabins made of interlaced brush- wood,
where they live upon fish and birds and other animals which are
found in their country, and upon roots. They neglect to feed
herds, and do not apply themselves at all to the cultivation of the
earth. The richest among them clothe themselves in the skins
of sables and of reindeers, others being clad in birds -feathers.
They attach their dead to the branches of trees. They thus leave
them to be devoured by wild beasts, or to fall from putrefaction,
which is a practice also found among the Tunguses who live in
the same country.
Another Chinese historian informs us as to where we may
look for the true abode of the Eb-li-han, which appears to us Ux
2 AN" INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
be the same as the country of the ICerkis or Kergis. He men
tions the rivers Obi and Angara under the names of 0-pu and
Gang-ko-la. We must conclude from this that the lake placed
to the north of the Ko-li-han is the famous Lake Baikal, which
those who come from Russia, or from Siberia, to China, are
obliged to cross upon the ice when they arrive there in winter.
The Chinese employed eight days in crossing it. Less time is
taken at present ; but it is still as dangerous as ever, because of
the force of the winds and the abundance of snow. It follows
from this account that the country of Ko-li-han is that of the
KerJcis, a warlike people, who lived among the mountains, and
who have been regarded as the ancestors of the Circassians, who,
among themselves, call themselves l&rkez, and who live to the
north of Georgia, where they have finally penetrated. The an
cient country of the Kerkis is situated in the provinces which
we now call Selinginskoy and Irkutskoy, between the Obi and
the Selinga. This is what it was necessary to determine in
order to arrive at an exact knowledge of the route which led to
Ta-han. Upon leaving the country of the Ko-li-han, one comes
into that of the She-goei. These people are situated to the east
of Lake Baikal and of the country of the KerJcis, upon the north
ern bank of the river Amoor. From the detailed description
which has been preserved for us by the Chinese historians, it
may be seen that these barbarians extended in the north of Siberia
along the Lena River up to the neighbourhood of the sixtieth
degree. This important tribe was divided into five principal
hordes, which appeared as so many different nations. The first,
called Nan She-goei, that is to say, Southern She-goei, were situ
ated to the north of the Tartarian Niu-che and Khi-tans, in the
vicinity of the river Amoor, in a country marshy, cold, and ster
ile, where no sheep were raised, and where but few horses were
found, but which produced swine and cattle in great numbers,
and even a greater number of wild beasts, from which the in
habitants protected themselves with difficulty. The barbarians
were clothed in hog-skins, and at the summer solstice they re
tired into the midst of the mountains. They had wagons cov
ered with felt, such as are used by the Turks, which were drawn
by cattle. They built their cabins of wood, with some reeds.
Their writing was by means of small pieces of wood, and the
manner in which they disposed them expressed their different
DE GUIGNES S DISCOVERY. 25
ideas. He who wished to marry, commenced by carrying
away the destined bride by force, and afterward sent a present
of cattle or horses to her parents. After the death of her hus
band, the laws of the country compelled the woman to pass the
remainder of her life in widowhood, and the family continued
the mourning for three years, as is the custom among the Chi
nese. The corpses of the dead were placed upon piles of wood
and abandoned. The other branches of the same nation con
sisted of the She-goei of the north (which were called Po She-
goei) and the Great She-goei. They were clothed in fish-skins,
and had no other industry than fishing and hunting sables, and
during the winters they retired into caverns. At the north of
the last there lived another nation, whose excursions carried
them to the Arctic Ocean.
This is the account given by the Chinese historians of the
ancient inhabitants of the north of Asia, across whose country
those who wished to go to Ta-han were obliged to pass. In fact,
after having left the country of the She-goei and traveling east
ward for five days, the Yu-che are found, a people who derive
their origin from the She-goei ; from there, after ten days jour
ney toward the north, the country of Ta-han is reached, which
is the terminus of the route which I have undertaken to exam
ine. Ta-han may be reached by sea also, as I have shown above,
and by setting sail from Jesso ; from which we must necessarily
conclude that the country of the Yu-che, which makes part of
Siberia, is situated toward the river Ouda, which discharges
itself into the Sea of KamtchatJca, and that Ta-han, placed to the
north of the Yu-che, is the easternmost part of Siberia, and not
the island of Gama, which is entirely detached from the conti
nent, and is situated more to the south and nearer to Jesso.
This part of Siberia, called Kamtchatka, is the region which
the Japanese call OJcu-jesso, or Upper Jesso. They place it upon
their maps to the north of Jesso, and represent it as being twice
as large as China, and extending much farther to the east than
the eastern shore of Japan. This is the country which the Chi
nese have named Ta-han, which may signify " as large as China,"
a name which corresponds with the extent of the country and
to the idea which the Japanese have given us of it. But, ac
cording to the more detailed accounts given by the Russians,
the country is a tongue of land which extends from north to
V\
J
26 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
south, from the Cape of Suetoi-noss as far as to the north of
Jesso, with which several writers have confounded it. It is a
part of Siberia which is separated from the rest by a gulf of the
Eastern Sea, which runs from the south to the north. Toward
the northern extremity it is inhabited by very savage tribes.
Those who live in the southern part are more civilized, and have
much in common with the Japanese, which has occasioned the
belief that they were originally colonists from that country. It
is probable that their commerce with the Chinese and Japanese,
who traded upon their coasts, has contributed to render them
more friendly and affable than those of the north, to whom these
two civilized nations penetrated but very rarely.
The southern part of Kamtchatka, or Ta-han, has also been
known to the Chinese by the name of Lieu-kuei. Formerly, the
Tartars who lived in the neighbourhood of the river Amoor
reached the country after five days navigation toward the north.
The Chinese historian reports that this country is surrounded
by the sea upon three sides, that the people dwell along the
coast and in the neighbouring islands, and that they have their
dwellings in deep caverns and woody thickets. They make a
species of cloth from dog-hair. The skins of swine and reindeer
serve for their clothing during the winter, and fish-skins during
the summer. The weather of the country is cold, because of
the fogs and snows which they have in abundance. The rivers
are frozen over, and several lakes are found, supplying fish, which
the people salt in order to preserve them. They have no knowl
edge of the division of the seasons. They love to dance, and
wear their mourning-garments for three years. They have large
bows, and arrows pointed with bone or stone. In the year 640
A. D. the king of this country sent his sons to China.
These long details have been necessary to arrive at an exact
understanding of the situation of the country of Fti-sang, which
is the utmost limit of the navigations of the Chinese. The fol
lowing is the description of it which their historians have pre
served for us. It was given by a priest who went to China in
the year 499 A. D., in the reign of the Ti dynasty :
" The Kingdom of Fu-sang is situated twenty thousand li to
the east of the country of Ta-han. It is also east of China. It
produces a great number of a species of tree called fu-sang, from
which has come the name borne by the country. The leaves of
DE GUIGNES S DISCOVERY.
27
ihefu-sang are similar to those of the tree which the Chinese call
fung. When they first appear, they resemble the shoots of the
reeds called bamboos, and the people of the country eat them. V
The fruit has the form of a pear, and inclines toward red in
colour ; from its bark they make cloth and other stuffs, with
which the people clothe themselves, and the boards which are
made from it are employed in the construction of their houses.
No walled cities are found there. The people have a species of
writing, and they love peace. Two prisons, one placed in the
south and the other in the north, are designed to confine their
criminals, with this difference, that the most guilty are placed in
the northern prison, and are afterward transferred into that of
the south if they obtain their pardon ; otherwise they are con
demned to remain all their lives in the first. They are per
mitted to marry, but their children are made slaves. When
criminals are found occupying one of the principal ranks in the
nation, the other chiefs assemble around them ; they place them
in a ditch, and hold a great feast in their presence. They are
then judged. Those who have merited death are buried alive
in ashes, and their posterity is punished according to the mag
nitude of the crime.
"The king bears the title of noble Y-chi ; the nobles of the
nation after him are the great and petty Tui-lu and the Na-
to-sha. The prince is preceded by drums and horns when he
goes abroad. He changes the colour of his garments every year.
The cattle of the country bear a considerable weight upon their
horns. They are harnessed to wagons. Horses and deer are
also employed for this purpose. The inhabitants feed hinds as
in China, and from them they obtain butter. A species of red
pear is found there, which is kept for a year without spoiling ;
also the iris, and peaches, and copper in great abundance. They
have no iron, and gold and silver are not valued. He who
wishes to marry, builds a house or cabin near that of the maid
whom he desires to wed, and takes care to sprinkle a certain
quantity of water upon the ground every day during the year ;
he finally marries the maid, if she wishes and consents ; other
wise he goes to seek his fortune elsewhere. The marriage cere
monies, for the most part, are similar to those which are prac
ticed in China. At the death of relatives, they fast a greater or
less number of days, according to the degree of relationship, and
28 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
during their prayers they expose the image of the deceased
person. They wear no mourning-garments, and the prince who
succeeds to his father takes no care regarding the government
for three years after his elevation. In former times the people
had no knowledge of the religion of Fo; but in the year 458 A. D.,
in the Sung dynasty, five priests of Samarcand went preaching
their doctrine in this country, and then the manners of the peo
ple were changed."
The historian from whom Ma Twan-lin has copied this rela
tion adds that there was no knowledge of the country of Fu-
sang before the year 458 A. D., and, up to the present time, I
have not seen any other than these two writers who speak of it
with full details. Some writers of dictionaries, who have also
made mention of it, content themselves by saying that it is situ
ated in the region where the sun rises.
This account informs us that Fa-sang is twenty thousand li
from Ta-han or Kamtchatka, a distance almost as great as that
from the shore of Leao-tong to Kamtchatka. So, in setting forth
from one of the ports of this last-named country, as that of
Avatcha, and sailing eastward for a distance of twenty thousand
li (which presents to us a great expanse of sea), the route termi
nates upon the westernmost coast of America, not far from the
spot where the Russians landed in 1741. In all this vast waste
of waters we do not find any land, not even an island, to which
the distance of twenty thousand li could be applied, and we can
not suppose that the Chinese had followed the coast of Asia and
landed upon its most easterly extremity, and there found the land
of Fu-sang. The excessive coldness of the weather which exists
in Kamtchatka and the neighbouring northern regions renders
them almost uninhabitable. The distance is far from sufficient,
and the unfortunate inhabitants appear to be given over to
barbarism, when their customs are compared with those of the
people of Fu-sang.
In vain we flatter ourselves that we know the western coast
of America perfectly ; we know nothing of the country situated
to the west and northwest of Canada. Our first geographers,
from conjectures, as to the foundation of which we are ignorant,
have prolonged the western shores of America so that they ap
proach Asia, supposing that they are not separated, otherwise than
by a strait to which they have given the name of Anian. Fran-
/
DE GUIGNES S DISCOVERY.
29
9ois Gualle, who endeavours to prove the existence of this strait,
calls our attention to the changing of the currents and the waves,
and to the whales and other Arctic fish that are found in the north
ern part of the Pacific Ocean ; but, since the publication of M. de
PIsle s map of this part of the globe, we have learned the results
of the explorations of the Russians, who, without giving us the
contour of the coasts of America with precision, have made
known to us, in general, that the coast of California trends toward
the west and approaches quite near to that of Asia, leaving noth
ing between the two countries except a strait of small width, re
establishing the shape of the American Continent as it was given
by the earliest geographers, apparently from a knowledge more
exact than we have thought, and which has been lost to us.
The Japanese, who have also cultivated the arts, and naviga
tion in particular, appear not to have been ignorant of the situa
tion of the countries which lie to the north of their empire.
Kaempfer claimed to have seen in Japan a map, made by the
people of that country, upon which they represented Kamtchatka,
which extends farther east than Japan. Upon the eastern shore,
opposite to America, there is a gulf of a square form, in the mid
dle of which a small island is seen ; farther to the north a second
may be perceived, which appears to touch the two continents
with its two extremities. Upon a map which this celebrated
traveler brought to Europe, and which has passed into the collec
tion of the late M. Hans Sloan, along the eastern coast of Kam
chatka a strait is seen, and beyond it a large country which is
America. In the northern part of the strait is an island which
extends toward the two continents. M. Hans Sloan has wished
me to call attention to this curious map, and Mr. Birch, Secre
tary of the Royal Society of London, has sent me an exact copy
of it.
This map agrees quite closely with our old maps of America,
and with the new discoveries of the Russians. No island is seen
where M. de 1 Isle has placed the coast which the Russians have
discovered ; but, in the neighbourhood of this strait, America ap
pears to advance considerably, and to form a long tongue of land
which extends nearly to Asia. I am led to believe that this coast
must form part of the continent of America, from the fact that
M. de 1 Isle states that a large number of the inhabitants came
to meet the Russians with boats similar to those of the Green-
30 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
landers or Esquimaux, which indicates some relationship be
tween the people, and at the same time a connection of this land
with America. In this case it is readily seen that the Chinese
could reach Fu-sang much more easily than would otherwise be
possible, for they could follow the coasts almost all the way.
I think that I have given sufficient proof that, at a distance of
twenty thousand li from Kamtchatka, there is found a land where
Fa-sang may be placed ; that this land is that of the continent
of America, from which it results that Fu-sang is situated in this
continent. The Chinese historians speak also of a country a
thousand li farther east than Fu-sang. They call it the " King
dom of Women." But their account is filled with fables, similar
to those which our first explorers have related concerning newly
discovered countries.
"The inhabitants of this kingdom are white. They have
hairy bodies, and long locks that fall down to the ground. At
the second or third month the women come to bathe in a river,
and they become pregnant. They bear their young at the sixth
or seventh month. Instead of breasts, they have white locks at
the back of the head, from which there issues a liquor that serves
to nourish their children. It is said that, one hundred days after
their birth, the children are able to run about, and appear fully
grown when three or four years of age. The women take flight
at sight of a stranger, and they are very respectful toward their
husbands. These people feed upon a plant which has the taste
^ wnic h f r this reason bears the name of the
ves are similar to those of the plant which
the Chinese call Sie-hao, which is a species of absinthe."
It is easy to perceive from this tale that, as is the custom in
several places in the Indies, the women of the country nursed
their children over their shoulders, and the fable reported above
must have originated from this practice.
We also find in the same authors that, in the year 507 A. D.,
in the reign of the Liang dynasty, a Chinese vessel, which was
sailing the ocean, was driven by a tempest to an unknown island.
The women resembled those of China, but the men had a figure
and a voice like those of dogs. These people fed upon small
beans, and had clothing made of a species of linen cloth, and the
walls of their houses were constructed of earth built up in a cir
cular form. The Chinese could not understand their language.
DE GUIGNES S DISCOVERY. 31
There is room for the belief that the beans that are mentioned
are grains of maize ; and the Chevalier de Tonti, in his accounts
of Louisiana, reports that the Taen9as, when speaking to their
king, have the custom of making a great howling, by means of
which they intend to show their respect and admiration for him.
A similar practice among the people of the last-mentioned island
may have led the Chinese to say that their voices resembled
those of dogs. *
We can not doubt at present that the Chinese had penetrated
very far into the ocean toward the south, sailing back and
forth across it, and that, in consequence, they had sufficient
boldness and experience in navigation to enable them to sail to
California direct. The examination of the route which they
took, and the distances which they have given, prove that they
went there in the year 458 A._p. In fact, we find some traces
of this commerce in our own accounts. George Home tells that,
at the west of the country of the Epiceriniens, neighbours of the
Hurons, there lived a people among -whom there arrived foreign
merchants who had no beards and who were carried by large
vessels. Francisco Yasquez de Coronado states also that, at Qui-
vira, vessels were found of which the sterns were gilded ; and
Pierre Melendez, in Acosta, speaks of the wrecks of Chinese
vessels seen upon the coast. It is also an unquestionable fact
that foreign merchants clothed in silk formerly came among the
Catualcans. All these accounts, added to those which we have
adduced, become so many proofs that the Chinese traded at the
north of California, near the country of Quivira. We may also
notice, as a necessary consequence of such commerce, that, of all
the American tribes, the most civilized are situated near the
coast which faces China. In the region of New Mexico there
are found tribes that have houses of several stories, with halls,
chambers, and bath-rooms. They are clothed in robes of cotton
and of skin ; but that which is most unusual among savages is, that
they have leather shoes and boots. Each village has its public
criers, who announce the orders of the king, and idols and tern-
* The Chinese geographers have also made mention of an island, called Kia-y,
which is situated to the east of Japan. In the year 659 some of these islanders
came to China with the Japanese. The Japanese map, which has been sent to
me by M. Sloan, places the island of Kia-y to the east of Japan and of Jesso, in
the midst of twelve other smaller islands.
32 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
pies are seen everywhere. Baron de la Hontan speaks also of
the Morambecs, who lived in walled cities situated near a great
salt lake, and made woolen cloth, copper hatchets, and various
other manufactures. Some writers have maintained that the
civilized people situated to the north are the remnants of the
Mexicans who took flight at the time when Hernando Cortez
penetrated into Mexico, and who fled to the north and founded
several considerable kingdoms, among others that of Quivira.
Although this conjecture appears not to be devoid of some
foundation, we read, nevertheless, in Acosta, that the Mexicans
themselves, a long time before the Spanish invasion, came to
Mexico from the north, which leads me to believe that the Chi
nese who landed in northern America had contributed to their
civilization. The foundation of the Mexican Empire does not
date back of the year 820 A. D., a time several centuries later
than the navigations of the Chinese, of which the first occurred
in 458. The people who inhabited Mexico before 820, and who
bore the name of Chichimecas, were savages, who retired into
the mountains, where they lived without laws, without religion,
and without a prince to govern them. About the year 820 the
Nahuatalcas, a wise and civilized nation, came to Mexico, from
which they drove the inhabitants, and there founded the power
ful empire which the Spaniards destroyed. The Nahuatalcas
did not bring from the north the custom of sacrificing human
victims. These barbarous sacrifices were not instituted until
after their arrival in Mexico, and upon the occasion of a circum
stance which is related in full by Acosta.
Before terminating this essay, it is necessary to make some
remarks regarding the description of the country of Fu-sang, and
to reply to some objections that may be raised, particularly as to
the occurrence of horses, which have not been found in an^-part
of America. The great advantages which are derived from the
possession of these animals would appear to be sufficient to in
sure their preservation. We observe upon this subject that all
nations do not seem to have been equally persuaded of their use
fulness. Tartary, which is filled with horses, is near to Siberia,
where, in several places, they have not been found at all, and
where the dog or the reindeer is used instead. Nevertheless,
horses could have been taken to these places no difficulty, such
as that of crossing the sea, preventing their transportation and
DE GUIGNES S DISCOVERY. 33
these tribes have known of them among their neighbours without
having made use of them. Possibly the Chinese vessels formerly
carried a few of them to America, and some tribes then used
them. But it is well known to what a point the savages of Amer
ica carried their cruelty toward conquered tribes. Their wars
caused frequent migrations and the complete annihilation of
several nations, and consequently the destruction of the usages
which these exterminated tribes may have received by means
of commerce. Finally, no one undertakes to guarantee all that
is contained in the relations of Marco Polo, of Plan Carpin, and
of Rubruquis. These ancient travelers have sometimes wan
dered from the truth ; and yet we can not, merely upon this ac
count, sweepingly condemn all of their statements. The Chinese
traveler may have allowed himself to be deceived by something
that he saw, and may have applied the name of horses to certain
animals of the country of Quivira and of Cibola, which resembled
them in size, and which the Spaniards have called sheep, on ac
count of the wool that they bear.* In the same way we have
given the names of European animals to several animals of
America, notwithstanding the fact that they are of a different
species. In regard to the cattle mentioned in the account : since
we have discovered the country of Quivira, Hudson s Bay, and
the Mississippi, a species of cattle has been found with large
horns, so that no difficulty remains regarding this point, and we
may conclude that the Chinese navigators landed to the north
of California, where they found these animals.
A more exact description of the tree called fu-sang would
contribute toward enabling us to determine the region more
definitely. All that is said of it agrees rather with some tree of
America than with any that occurs in the frozen land of Kam-
tchatka; and the uses that are made of it, such as the manufact
ure of the stuffs, the cloth, and the paper spoken of in the^
account, appear to indicate a civilized people inhabiting a tem
perate country, such as that in the neighbourhood of Calif ornia^
rather than a country like Kamtchatka, the inhabitants oT which
retire into caverns, and are clothed in skins, and are too barbar
ous to make cloth or paper, or to have letters or true literary
characters for the expression of their ideas a thing unknown
* " These animals," says Acosta, " are of as great use to the Indians aa asses
are among us, and are used to carry heavy burdens."
3
34 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
even to several nations in the southern part of Kamtchatka,
who, as we have previously observed, are, from their southerly
location, much nearer to China than Fu-sang can be supposed
to be, if we locate it in the northern part of Kamtchatka, or any
where upon the northeastern coast of Asia ; in America, on the
contrary, and particularly among the Mexicans, there is found a
species of writing which consists not of alphabetical characters,
but hieroglyphic characters or representations of ideas, such as
the oldest characters of China were.
Be it as it may, it is not my design to produce a multitude
of conjectures as to the people of Fu-sang and as to the Ameri
cans. I confine myself to that which appears to me to be sol
idly confirmed. The Chinese penetrated to a country very far
from the shores of the Orient. I have examined the distances
stated by them, and the length of the standard of measure used
by them, and they have led me to the coast of California. I
have concluded from this that they have known America since
the year 458 A. D. In the countries near to the spot where they
landed were found the most civilized nations of America. I
have thought that they are indebted for their civilization to the
commerce which they have had with the Chinese.* This is all
that I proposed to establish in this essay.
It is now easy to perceive the manner in which America has
been peopled. There is much probability that several colonies
have passed to it from the north of Asia, in the place where the
two continents are the nearest together, and where a great island
that extends from the east to the west, and which appears to
unite them, renders the passage still easier. They may have
reached it either by means of the ice, which in these seas some
times lasts two or three years, as we have seen examples in our
own days, or by the help of the canoes in use among the Green-
landers and other northern barbarians living in the easternmost
part of Siberia.
A certain agreement in the manners and customs which are
found among the Tunguses and the Samoyedes with those of the
tribes of Hudson s Bay, of Mississippi, and of Louisiana, adds a
* George Home, 1, iv, c. 13, goes further. He affirms that the Mexicans are
a colony of Chinese who came into America in 1279 A. D. with their emperor
named Ti-pun, after the conquest of China by the Mongols. But this statement
is erroneous, since Ti-pun with his fleet was swallowed up by the waters.
DE GUIGNES S DISCOVERY. 35
new force to these reflections. It is known that in general all
the nations of the same country are distinguished by peculiari
ties of countenance, and by an exterior, that proclaims their com
mon origin. Such are the Chinese, for example, who are easily
recognized among other nations. The nations of Europe have a
long and bushy beard, while that of the Chinese, the Tartars,
and the people of Siberia is but slight ; in which point they re
semble the Americans, from which it might be inferred that
these last came from Tartary. In examining the animals, we are
compelled to make the same reflection. Several are found in
America which are not met with elsewhere, except in the north
of Asia as the hairy cattle, and the reindeer, so common in
Siberia and in the northern part of America.
A number of additional facts can also be stated which con
firm the ease of the passage. We extract them from Charlevoix,
who reports that Pere Grellon, after having laboured for some
time in the missions of New France, went from there to China,
and thence to Tartary, where he met a Huron woman whom
he had known in Canada. She had been captured in war, and
taken from one nation to another until she had reached Tartary.
Another Jesuit, upon returning from China, related also that a
Spanish woman from Florida, who met with the same misfortune,
after having passed through extremely cold regions was finally
met in Tartary.
However remarkable these accounts may be, it is neverthe
less not impossible to reconcile them with geography. The
women reached the shore of the sea that washes the western
coast of America, whence they first passed by canoes to the
island that is found in the strait, from which they landed upon
the continent of Asia, and finally, taking the route from Ta-han,
to which I have referred, they approached China.
There is room for the belief that this is one of the ways by
which America has been peopled ; but it is not at all likely
that it has been the only one on the side of the north. Some
among the writers who have investigated the origin of the
Americans have made some conjectures upon the subject which
seem not to be destitute of foundation. At the mouth of the
river Kolyma, in Siberia, is found a thickly peopled island, which
is often frequented by those who come to hunt for the fossil
ivory of the mammoth, which is more beautiful than that of the
36 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
elephant, and is used for making different objects. They arrive
there, with all their families, by crossing the ice, and it frequently
happens that, surprised by a thaw, they are carried away upon
large cakes of ice toward the opposite point of America, which
is not very far distant. That which seems to give more weight
to this conjecture is the fact that the Americans who inhabit this
country have the same physiognomy as the unfortunate island
ers, who, from too great a desire for gain, expose themselves to
the danger of thus being transported to a strange country. It can
not be doubted that floating ice has sometimes carried men, and,
even more frequently, animals, to neighbouring countries. Great
cakes of ice, detached from more southerly lands, have been seen
to arrive upon the coast of Iceland, laden with wood and with
animals, of which the Icelanders take so great advantage that
they neglect the interior of the island, and remain more willingly
upon the coast, in order to be on hand to profit by them. It is
in this manner that a number of ferocious animals have pene
trated into regions where men would never wish to have brought
them.
I conclude, from all these observations, that a part of Amer
ica has been peopled by the barbarians who inhabit the north of
Asia. Adding also that the commerce of the Chinese has not
only carried new inhabitants to them, but has also contributed
much to the civilization of the American people, and to give
them a knowledge of the, most useful arts. And if, upon the
evidence of the Japanese map, we place the kingdom of Chang-
jin to the south of the Strait of Magellan, it is certain in that
case that the Chinese and the Coreans have known the southern
part of America ; that their navigators have frequented it ; and
that by this means they have civilized the Peruvians, among
whom certain arts flourished, and who felt themselves not to be
barbarians in anything.
Other nations, less civilized than the Chinese, have also had
means for reaching America no less easily at the south. Those
who have populated the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, the
Moluccas, and the Philippines, are connected with the inhab
itants of India and of China ; they have been from island to
island in their canoes ; they have penetrated successively to New
Guinea, New Holland, and New Zealand, immense countries of
which we do not know the extent. In that way they have ap-
BE GUIGNES S DISCOVERY. 37
preached the American Continent. Some of them may have
reached the islands which are found between the tenth and twen
tieth degrees of south latitude islands so near to each other
that they form, as it were, a chain, which they could have fol
lowed. They have been peopled one after another, until those
most distant from their original starting-point, and the nearest to
America, have received their colonies.
Perhaps the same reasoning might be applied to some parts
of Europe. The British Islands, Norway, Iceland, and Green
land may have been the places of passage of American colonies,
and, as these regions became more thickly peopled, some of the
inhabitants would go to seek new and more distant habitations.
But without stopping here to make conjectures regarding the
navigation of the ancients, history furnishes us with a proof that
civilized nations have attempted to discover new lands to the
west of Europe, and to penetrate far into this vast sea. It is
true of the Arabs.
It is known that under the dynasty of the Ommiades these
tribes made the conquest of a part of Africa. Thence, under
the leadership of Tharic, they passed into Spain, which they re
duced to a province of their empire ; but after the Ommiades
had been destroyed in Syria, a prince of that house escaped the
general massacre made by the Abbassides, and fled to Spain,
where he was proclaimed caliph, and founded a powerful mon
archy, which was destroyed by other princes coming from Africa.
These possessed the greater part of Spain, until they were driven
out by the Christians. It was during the reign of the Arabs in
Spain that some of their sailors, setting sail from Lisbon, where
they then were masters, embarked upon the gloomy sea or West
ern Ocean, with the intention of penetrating as far as they could
toward the west, and of discovering the islands and lands which
existed there. But their enterprise did not meet with the suc
cess with which they flattered themselves. After eleven days of
navigation before a favourable wind, they found a thick sea,
which exhaled a bad odor, where they met a number of rocks,
and where the darkness commenced to make itself perceived.
They were not so bold as to penetrate any farther. Making sail
then to the south, they, after twelve days of navigation, ex
plored the Canaries, where they met a man who spoke Arabic.
They traveled about among the islands, and landed upon one,
38 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
where they were stopped by the islanders. Questioned by the
king of the country as to the object of their voyage, they an
swered him that their design had been to penetrate to the end of
the world. The king informed them that his father had ordered
some of his subjects to make the same attempt, but that, after
having sailed the sea for a month without discovering anything,
they had returned to the Canaries. These strange voyages of
the Arabs, and particularly that of the inhabitants of the Cana
ries, cause us to suspect that others of the islanders, equally
bold and more fortunate, may have reached America ; since they
had the courage to abandon themselves, with their vessels, to the
mercy of this vast sea, although they had no knowledge of the
compass, and, as we regard them, were but little skilled in the
art of navigation.
Other Arabs, and the people of Senegal, knew also at the
same time of the Cape Verd Islands. We have not found in
any writer that the Arabs penetrated any farther. Nevertheless,
they approached at least this near to the lands of America, and,
if they were not bold enough to sail directly to it, some of those
who sailed the sea may have been carried by the tempests to the
islands of the Azores, which are in the same degree of latitude,
where pieces of wood and dead bodies from America are often
found. It is this which gave birth to the belief of Christopher
Columbus that there must be, and were, lands near the Azores.
After this recital, we see that even the most barbarous people
have had sufficient skill in the art of navigation to reach very
distant islands, and, as a necessary consequence, to go even as far
as to America ; but it is not my intention to exhaust the subject.
We shall not be able to succeed in doing that until after we have
obtained an exact knowledge of all the globe, and have discov
ered all the southern lands. I must stop with having collected
the facts which are scattered in the Chinese geographies con
cerning the voyages of the Chinese in the South Sea and to
America, and with having made, in consequence, some reflections
concerning the passage of colonies to America.
CHAPTER III.
KLAPROTH S DISSENT.
Title of de Guignes s article incorrect Translation of the account of Fu-sang
Vines and horses not found in America Route to Japan Length of the li
Identification of Wen-shin with Jesso Ta-han identified with Taraikai or
Saghalien The route to Ta-han by land The Shy-ivd Li&i-kuei Fv^sang
south of Ta-han instead of east Fu-sang an ancient name of Japan Analy
sis of name " Fu-sang " The paper mulberry Metals The introduction of
Buddhism Fantastic tales.
Researches regarding the Country of Fu-sang, mentioned in
Chinese Books, and erroneously supposed to be a Part of
America. By J. Klaproth.
THE celebrated de Guignes, having found in Chinese books
a description of a country situated a great distance to the east
of China, and thinking it probable that this country, called Fu-
sang, must be a part of America, set forth this opinion in an
essay read before the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres,
entitled " Investigation of the Navigations of the Chinese to the
Coast of America, and as to some Tribes situated at the Eastern
Extremity of Asia."
It should be first observed that this title is incorrect. Noth
ing is said in the Chinese original, which de Guignes had before
his eyes, concerning any voyage undertaken by the Chinese to
Fu-sang, but, as is shown farther on, it is simply a question of a
description of this country, given by a priest who was a native
of it, and who had come to China. This notice is found in that
part of the Great Annals of China * entitled Nan-szu, or " His-
* These are the Nan-eul-szu, or the "Twenty-two Historians," of which the
works form a collection of more than six hundred Chinese volumes, and which
should not be confounded with the annals entitled T ung-kian-kang-mu, which
are known in Europe by the meager extracts which Pere Mailla has given in
twelve volumes, in 4.
40 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
tory of the South." After the destruction of the dynasty of
Tain, in 420 A. D., China was overwhelmed with troubles, which
resulted in the establishment of two empires, one in the northern
provinces, the other in those of the south. The last was succes
sively governed, from 420 to 589 A. D., by the four dynasties of
Sung, Tsi, Liang, and Cfiin. The history of the two empires
was written by Li-yan-cheu, who lived about the commencement
of the seventh century. This is what he says about Fu-sang :
" In the first of the years yung-yuan, of the reign of Fe-ti, of
the dynasty of Tsi, a shaman (or Buddhist priest), called Hoei
Shin, arrived from the country of Fu - sang at King - cheu*
He related what follows : Fu-sang is twenty thousand li to the
east of the country of Ta-han, and equally to the east of China.
In this country there grow many trees called fu-sang,\ of which
the leaves resemble those of the fung (Bignonia tomentosa),
and the first shoots those of the bamboo. The people^ of the
country eat them. The fruit is red and of the shape of a pear.
The bark of this tree is prepared in the same way as that of
hemp, and cloth and clothing are made of it. Flowered stuffs
are also manufactured from it. Wooden planks are used for the
construction of their houses, for in this country there are no
cities and no walled habitations. The inhabitants have a species
of writing, and make paper from the bark of ilaefu-sang. They
have no weapons or armies, and do not make war. According
to the laws of the kingdom, there are a southern prison and a
northern prison. Those who have committed crimes that are
not very serious are sent to the southern prison, but great crimi
nals are shut up in the northern one. Those who may receive
pardon are sent to the first ; those, on the contrary, to whom
it can not be accorded are confined in the northern prison.];
The men and the women who are shut up in the latter are per
mitted to marry each other. The male children, born from
these unions, are sold as slaves at the age of eight years ; the
* King-clieu is a city of the first order, situated upon the left side of the
great Kiang, in the present province of Hu-pe.
\ Fu-sang in Chinese, or, according to the Japanese pronunciation, Fouls-sob,
is the shrub which we call " Hibiscus rosa Chirunsis"
t De Guignes has very badly translated this passage, as follows : " The most
guilty are placed in the northern prison and afterward transferred into that of
the south if they obtain their pardon ; otherwise they are condemned to remain
all their lives in the first."
KLAPROTH S DISSENT. 41
girls at the age of nine years. The criminals who are confined
there never come forth alive. When a man of high rank com
mits a crime, the people assemble in great numbers. They sit
down face to face with the criminal, who is placed in a ditch,
and regale themselves with a banquet, and take leave of him as
of a dying man.* Then he is surrounded by ashes. For an
offense of little gravity the criminal alone is punished, but for a
great crime, the culprit, his sons, and grandsons are punished ;
finally, for the greatest offenses his descendants to the seventh
generation are included in the punishment. The name of the
king of the country is Y-k i (or 7tt-k*t)J The nobles of the
first class are called Tui-lu ; those of the second, little Tui-lu ;
and those of the third, Na-tu-sha. When the king goes forth,
he is accompanied by drums and horns. He changes the color
of his garments at different epochs. In the years of the cycle
Ma and y \ they are blue ; in the years ping and ting, red ; in
the years ou and ki, yellow ; in the years keng and sin, white ;
finally, in those which have the characters jin and kuei, they
are black.
" The cattle have long horns, upon which burdens are loaded
which weigh as much, sometimes, as twenty ho (of one hundred
and twenty Chinese pounds). In this country they make use of
carts harnessed to cattle, horses, and deer. They rear deer there
as they raise cattle in China, and make cheese from the milk of
the females. || A species of red pear is found there, which is
preserved throughout the year. There are also many vines. 4 *
* Do Guignes translates the last words by " He is then judged."
f De Guignes has wrongly read " Y-chi."
\ The years 1, 11, 21, 31, 41, and 51 of the cycle of sixty years bear the char
acter Ida; the years 2, 12, 22, 32, 42, and 52 have the character y.
Ping, 3, 13, 23, 33, 43, and 53; ting, 4, 14, 24, 34, 44, and 54.
Ou, 5, 15, 25, 35, 45, and 55 ; Id, 6, 16, 26, 36, 46, and 56.
Kmg, 7, 17, 27, 37, 47, and 57 ; sin, 8, 18, 28, 38, 48, and 58.
Jin, 9, 19, 29, 39, 49, and 59 ; kuei, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60.
1 De Guignes translates : " The inhabitants feed hinds, as in China, and from
them they obtain butter."
* In the original, To-p it-t ao. De Guignes, having decomposed the wor<
p u-t ao, translates: "A great number of iris-plants and peaches are found
there." Nevertheless, the word p u alone never means the iris ; it is the r
of rushes and other species of marshy reeds which are used for making ^mats.
T ao is, in fact, the name of the peach, but the compound word p u-t ao, in
Chinese, signifies the vine. At present, it is written with other characters u e.,
42 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Iron is lacking, but copper is found. Gold and silver are not
esteemed. Commerce is free, and they do not baggie at all.
" Their practices regarding marriage are as follows : He who
desires to wed a girl establishes his cabin before her door ; he
sprinkles and sweeps the earth every morning and every night.
When he has practiced this formality for a year, if the maid
will not give her consent, he desists ; but, if she is pleased
with him, he marries her. The ceremonies of marriage are
nearly the same as in China. At the death of father or
mother they fast seven days. At that of a grandfather or
grandmother they refrain from eating for five days ; and only
for three days at the death of brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts,
and other relatives. The images of spirits are placed upon a
species of pedestal, and prayers are addressed to them morning
and evening.*
" The king does not occupy himself with the affairs of gov
ernment during the three years which follow his accession to
the throne.
" Formerly the religion of Buddha did not exist in this coun
try, but in the fourth of the years ta-ming, of the reign of
Jfiao-iou-tiy of the dynasty of Sung (458 A. D.), five pi-k ieu,
or priests, of the country of Ki-pin (Cophene), came to Fu-sang,
and there spread abroad the law of Buddha. They carried with
them their books and sacred images and the ritual, and estab
lished monastic customs, f and so changed the manners of the
inhabitants."
^ ^, but Iffc yji is the ancient orthography of the times of Han, which pre
vailed until the tenth century of our era.
The vine is not a native of China, its seeds having been imported by the cele
brated General Chang K ian, sent into the western country in the year 126 B. c.
He traveled through the Afghanistan of our days, and the northwestern part of
India, and returned to China after thirteen years absence. The term p u-t ao is
not native to China, any more than the object which it designates. It is probably
the imperfect transcription of the Greek ptrpvs. The Japanese pronounce it
bou-do. They usually give to the vine the name of yebi-kadzoura, composed of
yebi, a sea craw-fish, and of kadzoura, a general name of climbing plants which
attach themselves to neighbouring trees.
* De Guignes translates : " During their prayers they expose the image of the de
funct person." The text speaks of shin, or genii, and not of the spirits of the dead.
f In the original, ^ }f{, ch K-kia that is to say, "to leave one s house or
family," or " to embrace a monastic life." DC Guignes has not translated this pass
age, with the exception of the beginning.
KLAPROTITS DISSENT. 43
The circumstance that vines and horses are found in the
country of Fu-sang is sufficient to prove that it could not be
any part of America, these two objects having been brought to
the continent by the Spaniards, after the discovery of Chris
topher Columbus in 1492. But other reasons, drawn from the
Chinese books, explicitly oppose the supposition that Fu-sang
should be identified with any part of the New World. We
have seen, from the account of the priest Hoei Shin, that Fa-
sang was twenty thousand li to the east of Ta-han. De Guignes
has erroneously taken this last country for Kamtchatka. He
bases this hypothesis upon another passage of the Nan-szu, in
which the author says that, in order to go to Ta-han, the traveler
sets out from the western shore of Corea,* coasts along this
peninsula, and, after having gone twelve thousand li, arrives
at Japan ; that from there, after a route of seven thousand li
toward the north,.he comes to the country of Wen-shin, and that,
five thousand li from the last, toward the east, the country of
Ta-han is found, from which Fu-sang is distant twenty thou
sand li.
In olden times the Chinese vessels which sailed to Japan
crossed the Strait of Corea, passed before the isles of Tsu-sima
(in Chinese, Tui-ma-tao), and landed in some port of the north
ern coast of the great island of Niphon. We must, therefore,
conclude that the distance mentioned in the route much exceeds
the reality. It should also be remembered that the ancient Chi
nese did not have any means of determining the length of their
journeys at sea. Even if we admit the maritime li of the fifth
century to have measured four hundred to the degree, the dis
tance of twelve thousand li of coasting between the mouth of
the Ta-t ung-Jciang, in 38 45 N. latitude, upon the western
coast of Corea, and the middle of the coast of Niphon, upon
* De Guignes translates the passage : " Sets out from the shore of the province
of Lcao-tong, situated to the north of Pckin." But, in the first place, this prov
ince is not to the north, but to the northeast of Pekin. Next, the Chinese text
says that they set forth from the district of Lo-lang, which is situated not in
Leao-tung, but in Corea, and of which the capital is the present city of P ivg-
jang (in d Auville s map, Ping-yang\ situated upon the northern bank of the
Ta-t wig-Hang, or P ai-shue, a river of the province of P ing-ngan, which, in
great part, in the time of the dynasty of Han, formed the district of Lo-lang.
P ing-yang was the residence of K i-isu, the first Chinese prince who was estab
lished in Corea, about the year 1122 before our era.
44 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
the Japanese Sea, is, nevertheless, more than twice too great ;
the distance between the two points, in coasting, is not more
than fifty-six hundred li, of four hundred to the degree. It,
therefore, results that the li of the Chinese route measure about
eight hundred and fifty to the degree.
The same account estimates the distance between the Ja
panese port and the country of Wen-shin as seven thousand li,
or a little more than eight degrees of latitude. This distance
conducts us, however, by following the contour of the coast of
the Japanese Sea, exactly to the northern part of Niphon and to
the southern point of the island of Jesso. The country of Wen-
shin, or " Tattooed People," is, in fact, found there ; for the
Ainos, who then occupied both the northern part of Japan and
the island of Jesso, have even to this day the custom of painting
the face and the body with different figures.
The distance from the country of Wen-shin to that of Ta-han
is, according to our account, five thousand li, or about six de
grees of latitude. This brings us exactly to the southern point
of the island of Taraikai, erroneously called Saghalien upon our
maps. The identity of this island with Ta-han is confirmed by
another account, which describes the route from the northern
part of China to the last-named country.
In the times of the T ang dynasty the Chinese had estab
lished three fortified cities to the north of the northernmost
curve described by the Hoang-ho, which surrounded upon three
sides the present country of the Ordos, called for this reason
Ho-t ao, or " Enveloped by the River." One of these cities, sit
uated between the two others, bore the name of Chung-sheu-
kiang-ch ing, or "the Central City, which Protects the Sub
missive People." It does not now exist, but its site, -which can
be determined with precision, was in the country now occupied
by the Mongol tribe of Orat, upon the northern bank of the
Hoang-ho. To go by land to the country of Ta-han, the trav
eler set forth from this city, and traversed the desert of Gobi,
or Shamo, and arrived at the principal encampment of the Hoei-
hh e, situated upon the left bank of the Orkhou, not far from its
sources, and the same place where the Mongolians afterward
constructed their first capital, Caracorum. From there he
reached the country of the Ko-li-han and of the Tu-p o, sit
uated to the south of a great lake, upon the ice of which he
EXAPROTH S DISSENT. 45
must cross in winter. We know from other indications that the
lake is that of Baikal. To the north of this lake, say the Chi
nese relations, high mountains are found, and a country where,
says one, the sun is not above the horizon longer than during
the little time that it takes to cook a breast of mutton. The
Tu-po, neighbours of the Ko-li-han, inhabit the country to the
south of the lake. Another historian informs us what is the
true abode of the lb-H-han, and we know that this country is
the same as the ancient country of Kirkis, or Kerghiz, situated
between the 0-pu (the Obi) and the Ang-Jco-la (the Angara).
Upon leaving the country of the Ko-li-lian, and traveling to the
east, we enter into that of the Shy-wei.
The Shy-wei include a great number of tribes that do not
appear to belong to the same nation, for the Chinese accounts
mention several who speak a different language from that which
the others use. Nevertheless, the greater part of the Shy-wei
are of the same origin as the Khi-tan and speak their idiom,
which is identical with that of the Mo-ho ; the latter are, to all
appearances, the Mongols. The others belong to the Tunguse
race. The most southerly Shy-wei live in the vicinity of the
river Nou, an affluent upon the right of the upper Amoor. After
having left the country of the Shy-wei^ who live to the east of
the Ko-li-han and of Lake Baikal, and marching for fifteen days
to the east, we find the Shy-wei called ; JD, Ju-cfie, who
are probably the same people that other Chinese authors call
jit id) Ju-che that is to say, the Djourdje, ancestors of the
present Mantchoos. From there we advance for ten days
toward the north, and enter into Ta-han, surrounded by the sea
upon three sides.
This country, called also Lieu-kiiei, therefore can not be
other than the island of Taraikai, as we have already ascertained
by following the route by sea laid down by Li-yan-sheu. De
Guignes has wished to consider Kamtchatka as Ta-han ; but it is
impossible to reach Kamtchatka from the eastern bank of Lake
Baikal within thirty days, this time being barely sufficient to go
across a country where there are no roads, from the eastern point
of Lake Baikal, by way of the country of the Mantchoos and
along the Amoor, to the great island of Taraikai, situated before
the mouth of that river.
The identity of Ta-han and the island of Taraikai, once
46 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
demonstrated, prevents all further search for the country of Fu-
sang in America. We have seen that the navigators, who went
from the eastern coast of Corea to Ta-han, traveled at first
twelve thousand, then seven thousand, and again five thousand
li, or in all twenty-four thousand li (or, according to our calcula
tion, twenty-nine and a half degrees of latitude), in order to reach
that country. Fu-sang was twenty thousand li (or twenty-three
and a half degrees) to the east of Ta-han or Taraikai, and so
nearer h y four thousand li than the latter country was to the
eastern coast of Corea. If we adopt the letter of the relation,
and seek for Fu-sang to the east of Ta-han, we fall into the great
ocean, for the opposite coast of America in the same latitude is
not less than four times as distant.
We must therefore reject the entire tale as to Fu-sang as
fabulous, or else find a means of reconciling it with the truth.
This may be found by supposing the indication of the direction
as toward the east to be incorrect. Now, the route by sea which
conducts us to Taraikai indicates this as being the constant di
rection ; whereas the traveler at first goes to the south to double
Corea, then, upon entering the Japanese Sea, he directs his course
to the northeast, and finally changes this course for one more
northerly, in order to follow the channel of Tartary to a point
south of Taraikai. We may therefore presume that one sets sail
from that country, and that at first one goes directly east, in order
to pass the Strait of Perouse, by skirting the northern coast of Jes-
so, but that, upon arriving at the eastern point of this island, the
course turns to the south and leads us to the southeastern part
of Japan, which was the country called Fa-sang. In fact, one of
the ancient names of this empire is Fu-sang (Hibiscus rosa Chi-
nensis), and the Japanese books say that it was applied to their
country because of its beauty.
If we analyze the two syllables which compose the word "fu-
sang," we find that the first, Jfe/w, signifies "to help, to be use
ful," and that the second, |j|, sang, designates the mulberry. The
word therefore signifies, the useful mulberry. This circumstance
leads me to think that there is some mistake in the Chinese ac
count preserved in the JVan-szu, and that it confounds the hibis
cus, or the " Rose of China," with the paper-mulberry (Morus
papyrifera), for the description of the tree in question applies
rather to this last than to the hibiscus ; in fact, the bark of the
KLAPROTH S DISSENT. 47
paper-mulberry furnishes to the Japanese all the productions
which the Chinese account attributes to the true fa-sang. The
bark is employed to make paper, stuffs, clothing, cordage, wicks,
and several other useful things.
Among the other productions of Fu-sang, as we have already
remarked, the vine and the horse did not exist in America before
the arrival of the Europeans, but they are found in Japan. The
copper of this country is celebrated as an important article of
export. Iron is, even now, rare in Japan, and consequently more
valued than copper. According to mythological traditions, horses
and cattle were produced from the eyes of the spirit Ouke-motsi-
no-kami y and the other domestic animals issued from his mouth.
As to the vine, it appears that that is older in Japan than in
China, where it was not introduced until the second century be
fore our era ; for, according to the Japanese traditions, grapes
were produced from a tress of black hair thrown down by Iza-
naki-no-mikote, the last of the seven celestial spirits that reigned
in the country.
The single difficulty which remains is that which concerns
the introduction of Buddhism. According to the Japanese
annals, this religion was not diffused throughout the empire until
552, the date that it was carried from Fiak-sai, or Pe-tsi, a
kingdom situated in Corea, to the court of the Dairi. Never
theless, as this belief had been introduced in 372 into the king
dom QiKao-li, or Ko-rai, and in 384 into Fiak-sai, and the Japan
ese had had intercourse with the two countries for a long time,
it is not at all improbable that Buddhism had found disciples in
Japan before the way into the palace of the Dairi was opened to it.
Finally, I will call attention to the fact that the country of
Fu-sang has furnished the Chinese poets with innumerable op
portunities for giving fantastic descriptions of its marvels. The
authors of the Shan Hai King * and the Li-sao,\ as well as
Hwai-nan-tz, I Li T ai-pi, \\ and other writers of the same kind,
* The Shan Hai King, the Chinese " Classic of Lands and Seas," is described
in chapter xxxvi of this work.
f The Li-sao is a celebrated poem written by Kiu Yuen in the third century u. c.
\ Hivai-nan-tz is one of ten eminent writers of antiquity, who are associated
together under the designation -of the " Ten Philosophers." He was the grandson
of JTau-ti, of the Han dynasty, B. c. 189. He wrote upon the origin of things.
1 Li T ai-pi is one of the most popular of the Chinese poets. He lived during
the reign of the T ang dynasty.
48 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
have used them freely. According to them, the sun rises in the
valley of Yang-Jcu, and makes his toilet at Fu-sang, where there
are mulberries several thousand fathoms high ; the people eat the
fruit, which gives to their bodies the colour of gold, and endows
them with the power to fly in the air. In an equally fabulous
notice of Fu-sang, which dates from the time of the Liang dy
nasty, there is a statement that the silk- worms of the country
are six feet long and seven inches in breadth ; they are of the
colour of gold, and lay eggs of the size of swallows eggs. I spare
the reader the rest of these fables.
CHAPTER IV.
DE PARAYEY S SUPPORT.
America visited by Scandinavians American tribes emigrants from Asia An-
cient Chinese maps Researches antedating those of Klaproth Letter of
Pere Gaubil Ta-han Lieu-kuei Identification of these with Kamtchat-
ka Size of Fu-sang Views of M. Dumont d Urville Length of the li
America lies at the distance and in the direction indicated The Meropide ;
of Elien The Hyperboreans The monuments of Guatemala and Yucatan
The Shan-hai-king Identification of the fu-sang tree with the metl or ma-,
guey The Japanese Encyclopaedia says Japan is not Fit-sang The banana or
pisang tree may have been the tree called fu-sang Grapes in America
Milk in America The bisons of America Llamas Horses Wooden cabins
The ten-year cycle The titles of the king and nobles The worship of
images Resemblance of pyramids of America to those of the Buddhists
An image of Buddha The spread of the Buddhist religion History of the
Chichimecas Resemblance of Japanese to Mexicans Analogies of Asiatic
and American civilizations pointed out by Humboldt Credit due de Guignea
Appendix Ha Twan-lin s account The pi-sang said to be the prickly
poppy of Mexico Laws punishing a criminal s family have existed in China
Chinese cycle of sixty years existed in India Cattle harnessed to carts The
grapes of Fu-sang wild, not cultivated Another Chinese custom in Fu-sang
The route to Ta-han The route to. Japan very indirect Priests called
lamas both in Mexico and Tartary.
America under the Name of the Country of Fu-sang by
M. de Paravey.*
THE scholars of Iceland and Denmark have shown that the
Scandinavians, long before Columbus, visited the northeastern
portion of America, and there found wild vines and grapes ; .
and that they even penetrated to the south as far as to what is
now known as Brazil. Before these modern researches, the il
lustrious Buffon, in his " Discours sur les Varietes de TEspece
Humaine," took the ground, as M. de Humboldt has also recent
ly done, that the tribes of Northwestern America, and even oi
4
50 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Mexico, had come from Tartary and Central Asia ; and, relying
upon the new discoveries of the Russians, he traced the route
followed by the Asiatics, holding that they reached the north
western portion of California by way of Kamtchatka and the
chain of the Aleutian Islands. Upon his side, M. de Guignes,
examining the books of China, and by them throwing a light
upon the origin of all European nations, found among them a
very remarkable memoir regarding the country of Fu-sang, or the
country of the Extreme East. He availed himself of the light
thrown by the Russians and the latest geographers upon the
extreme northeastern countries of Asia, and, in his scholarly
work, he proved, as far as it was then possible to do so, that the
country of Fu-sang, known in the year 458 A. D., rich in gold,
silver, and copper, but destitute of iron, could be nothing else
than America.
All the maps, rough and purposely altered as to the size of
foreign countries, that we have been able to find in the books or
collections relating to China, and anterior in date to the exact
maps of the Celestial Empire, which were finally made by the
aid of the corrections of the missionaries at Pekin, show, in fact,
to the east and northeast of China, beyond Japan, marked under
one of its names, Ji , pen ^ (" Origin of the Sun "), a con
fused mass of countries, delineated as small islands, undoubtedly
because they were reached by sea ; and among these countries,
of which the size is purposely reduced, is marked the cele
brated country of Fu-sang, a country of which many fables
have been related in China, but which, in the account translated
by M. de Guignes, is presented in a light so entirely natural that
it can not be considered otherwise than as one of the countries of
America, even if it is not, as we think possible, intended for the
entire Continent of America.
We had not known of the old Chinese maps, drawn up so as
to present Europe and all of Asia, outside of China, as very small
countries, until our visit to Oxford in 1830. We then copied
them at the Bodleian Library, and our scholarly friend, Sir
George Stanton, afterward gave us one of these imperfect maps.
Upon returning to London, we there sought and found the
Chinese text of the account translated by M. de Guignes ; for
the works in which it is found are monopolized at Paris by cer
tain students of Chinese. We copied this text, and showed it to
DE PARAVEY S SUPPORT. 51
Mr. Huttman, then secretary of the English Asiatic Society. He
recognized in it, as we did, a description of America, or of one
of its parts, and, in the surprise which he felt, he communicated,
probably, with M. Klaproth regarding our researches, for we were
at London again when this Prussian scholar published, in the
"Nouvelles Annales des Voyages," in the year 1831, a pretended
refutation of the memoir of M. de Guignes, a refutation which
he addressed to us, together with a letter of equal length, which
we may some day publish. Neither this letter nor this printed
article changed our convictions as to the justice of the views
of the learned M. de Guignes. We declared them to M. Klap
roth, and, as he himself undoubtedly felt the feebleness of the
arguments by which he had endeavoured to prove that this ac
count of Fu-sang should be understood to refer to Japan, he
afterward, on this account, as we suppose, wishing to convert
M. von Humboldt to his false ideas, caused the insertion, in
Vol. X of the " Nouveau Journal Asiatique de Paris," of the
letters of the late Pere Gaubil, in which this learned mis
sionary, without disputing this story, discusses the ideas of M.
de Guignes, and, not knowing anything then of the maps of
which we have spoken, appears to be unwilling to admit that
America, under the name of Fa-sang, or under any other name,
had been really known to the Buddhists or shamans of High
Asia since the year 458 A. D.
Since that time, however, we have endeavoured to prove, by
an exact calculation of the distance in li t given in this account,
translated from the Great Annals of China, regarding the country
of Fu-sang, and by discussing the route traveled to reach it, that
this country, even following the views of M. Klaproth and of
Father Gaubil, concerning the Chinese names given to the coun
try so distant from Kamtchatka, could not be found elsewhere
than in America.
According to the shaman or Buddhist monk who made Fu-
sang known to the Chinese in the year 499 of our era, this coun
try was at the same time to the east of China, and equally to the
east of a semi-civilized land known in the Chinese books by
the name of the country of Ta ;fc, Han g|, or of the " Great
Hans," a name applied first to the Chinese dynasty of the Hans,
founded in 206 B. c., after that of the Tsin.
But, according to the Chinese accounts regarding this coun-
52 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
try of Ta-han which could be reached either by sea, by setting
out from Japan and sailing to the northeast, or by land, by set
ting forth from the sharp bend toward the north which is made
by the great river Hoang-ho, into the country of the Mongols,
and passing to the south of Lake Baikal, and then, going the
same distance to the northeast this country, very distant from
China, could not be any other than Kamtchatka, also called the
country of Lieu-kuei, or "Place of Exile" (lieu, $) "of the
Vicious" (kuei, &), in other Chinese geographies.
Father Gaubil, in these same letters, published by M. Klap-
roth, admits this to be the country of Lieu-kuei, for it is said
that the fact that this country is surrounded by the sea upon
three sides, as Kamtchatka is, and the distance at which it is
placed in the geography of the Tang dynasty, also published by
this learned missionary, both agree in confining the land of
Lieu-kuei to this extreme point of northeastern Asia. It
should also be noticed that M. Klaproth himself, in the memoir
which we refute, when discussing the position of the country of
Ta-han, declares that this land has also been called the country
of Lieu-lcuei ; and since, according to Father Gaubil, this
place is Kamtchatka, the country of Ta-han must answer to the
southern portion of Kamtchatka, and not to the great island of
Saghalien or Taraikai, which is found at the east of Tartary,
opposite the mouth of the Yellow River, the island in which M.
Klaproth attempts to place it in his " Researches regarding Fu-
sang"
It is, also, in Kamtchatka that the celebrated M. de Guignes
places the country of Ta-han, which the Chinese books, such as
the Pian-y-tien, the great " Geography of Foreign Nations," a
valuable work, of which a copy is possessed by the Royal Li
brary at Paris, represent as inhabited by barbarous men of great
stature, and with hair very long and in wild disorder.
And when the shaman Hoei Shin, coming from the country
of Fii-sang to China, and landing at Klng-cheu, in the prov
ince of Hu-pe, upon the left bank of the great river Kiang,
said that "Fu-sang is at the same time to the east of China and
to the east of the country of Ta-han" or of Kamtchatka, it is evi
dent that he indicated a very great extension of this country of
Fu-sang, from north to south ; since Kamtchatka, even in its
niost southerly part, is very distant to the northeast from China,
DE PARAVEY S SUPPORT. 53
even from its northern boundary, and still farther from the river
Kiang; he speaks, therefore, not of an island; not even of one
as large as Japan; but of a continent of great extent, such as
North America.
So, when we had communicated the memoir of M. de Guignes,
and its pretended refutation by M. Klaproth, to the celebrated
navigator M. Dumont d Urville, whose unfortunate loss science
still deplores, this scholar, who, before his last voyage, had, in
accordance with our advice, commenced the study of the geo
graphical books preserved in China, could not restrain a smile of
pity upon seeing that M. Klaproth had, by main strength, at
tempted to change this vast continent into a simple province of
Japan, a country which he himself points out under its true
name, in another passage of the Great Annals cited by M. de
Guignes, and where the route is described leading by sea from
Corea to the country of Ta-han. In order to reach that region,
the route touches the country of TFb, or of Japan, which was
already well known to the Chinese in all its parts. The route,
continuing toward the north, touches at the country of Wen-shin
(the island of Saghalien) ; then turning to the east, Ta-han or
Kamtchatka is reached, otherwise called Lieu-kuei. It is evi
dent that no other land than North America, east of Asia, is suf
ficiently large to be at the same time to the east of Central China
and of Kamtchatka : this was not plainly said by M. de Guignes,
but he evidently perceived it, and the distance also at which
Fu-sang is placed from the country of Ta-han or Kamtchatka,
in the account of the shaman, completes the demonstration.
In fact, he stated this distance of Fu-sang easterly from Ta-
han at twenty thousand U, and, as the length of the li has fre
quently been changed in China, M. Klaproth tries, by supposing
the length to be very small, to make this distance reach only as
far as Japan ! But, as the direction toward the east still incom
modes him and causes him to fall into the ocean, because of the
admission which he makes that Ta-han must be the island of
Saghalien, he without further ceremony changes this direction
and turns it around toward the south ; and in this way, by add
ing one false supposition to another, he arrives at the conclusion
that the southeastern part of Japan is this country of Fu-sang;
again assuming that this country had been but recently discov
ered by the Chinese.
54. AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
But Father Gaubil, upon whom he otherwise relies, could un
deceive him and set him right as to the real length of the li. In
his "Histoire de la Dynastie des Tang," a dynasty that reigned
shortly after the epoch when the accounts of Ta-han and of Fu-
sang were inserted in the Great Annals, he said that "fifteen
thousand li are reckoned as the distance between Persia and the
city of Sy-ngan-fu," then the capital of China (see "Memoires
concernant les Chinois," Vol. XV, p. 450). Persia is designated
in these books as the kingdom of Po-sse, and its capital was
formerly near Passa-garde and Shiraz or Persepolis.
Now, toward the northeast, the geographies of the Tang dy
nasty reckon fifteen thousand li also as the distance from Sy-
ngan-fu to the country of Lieu-kuei (ib., Vol. XV, p. 453)
which, according to M. Klaproth, is the same as the country of
Ta-han & country surrounded by the sea upon three sides, and
which Father Gaubil asserts, as we have said, to be Kamtchatka.
If, therefore, we set a pair of compasses upon a terrestrial
globe, placing the points upon Sy-ngan-fu, then the capital of
China, and Shiraz or Persepolis, the capital of Po-sse (or Persia),
and then, keeping one point upon the first-named city, swing the
other around to the northeast, it will be found to reach to the
southern part of the land of Kamtchatka, thus proving the accu
racy of the stated distances.
The length of the li during this epoch is therefore fixed ;
hence, one third of the above-named distance represents five
thousand li, and, adding this to the length of the fifteen thousand
li above described, the distance of twenty thousand li, which the
account of the shaman affirms as extending toward the east from
the country of Ta-han to that of Fu-sang, from which he had
come, can be reckoned with great accuracy.
If, then, with the compasses we lay out upon the globe this
distance of twenty thousand li, setting one point upon the south
ern end of Kamtchatka (which answers to the country of Lieu-
Jtuei or of Ta-han), and swinging the other point toward the
east, we should, if Fu-sang is America, reach at least the western
coast of this new continent, a coast which, although long known
to the Asiatics, has, by a sort of fatality, been the last to be ex
plored by Europeans. Now, in fact, this is just where the point
of the compasses will reach, and this confirms both the conject
ures of Buffon and the assertions made by M. de Guignes, based
DE PAPvAVEY S SUPPORT. 55
upon the very incorrect maps which were all that could then be
obtained ; for the arm of the compasses thus reaches to a point
north of the mouth of the Columbia River, not far from Califor
nia.*
This scholar could not then arrive at the same precision that
is possible for us, since, we repeat, the exact outlines of the
northwest coast of America near the Aleutian Islands, and even
those of the country of Kamtchatka, had not, in his days, been
fully established ; but his merit was on that account even the
greater, in being the first to recognize the true value of the li at
that epoch, and to find, in the geographies of China, which had
been so rarely consulted by European scholars, countries so un
known to us as Kamtchatka, and the vast American Continent;
known from ancient times by the wandering tribes of Central
Asia, but which have only recently been made known to us, by
the admirable and persevering efforts of an illustrious genius.
By the aid of the same books preserved in China, and which,
unfortunately for Europeans, have not been translated, although
we have possessed them for more than a century, we can show
that the Meroplde of Ellen is North America ; for the invasion
of the country of the Hyperboreans, of which this author speaks,
can not have taken place elsewhere than from North America
into Kamtchatka, and extending as far as to the banks of the
great Amoor River, a region in which, according to the old
Chinese books, there lived a multitude of tribes of which the
names are scarcely known in Europe to this day, although very
curious and all significant.
From the most ancient times, having undoubtedly received
colonies from Greece and Syria, these happy Hyperboreans sent
to the temple of Apollo at Delos sheaves of the grain which
they harvested.
Herodotus and Pausanias name to us the nations which passed
these offerings from hand to hand to Greece, and when to what
we have said are added the accounts of the same nations which
are given in the Chinese books, we can not avoid the conviction
that the true land of the Hyperboreans that is to say, of the
tribes of the northeast can not be situated elsewhere than
upon the Amoor River, and in the neighbourhood of Corea,
* In his later essay M. de Paravey corrects this statement, and names San
Francisco as the point that is reached. E. P. V.
56 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
countries having an alphabet, and very anciently civilized or
colonized.
Through the Hyperboreans, in connection with the ferocious
tribes of North America, tribes which Elien described under the
name of Ud%ipog, or " Warriors," the Greeks of ancient times,
who had carried the culture of the cereals to the banks of the
Amoor, therefore obtained some knowledge concerning Fa-sang,
or the Eastern World, that vast continent which, explored from
the western side by the Phoenicians of Egypt, and afterward by
the Carthagenians, received the name of Atlantis.
The flowery imagination of the Asiatics embroidered with
fables these accounts of a world so distant, and which could only
be reached by incurring very great dangers ; but the curious
monuments of Palenque in Guatemala, and those not less impor
tant which M. de Waldeck sketched in Yucatan, demonstrate
positively the ancient relations between Central Asia, India, and
Europe, and America, or Meropide, the true land of Fu-sang.
The Shan-hai-Jcing, an old mythological geography of Chi
na, the Li-sao, and other Chinese books, relate fables also regard
ing the valley of Tang-Jcu, or of the Hot Springs, from which
the sun appears to issue ; it rises then in the country of Fa-sang,
where the mulberries grow to a prodigious height. It is said
that the people of Fu-sang eat the fruit of these mulberries in
order to become immortal, that they can fly in the air, and that
the silk-worms of these trees, enormous also, inclose themselves
in cocoons of monstrous size.
All these fables are founded upon the name sang, |p:, of the
mulberry, which enters into " Fu,-sang" the Chinese name of
America ; and this can be explained from an examination of the
Mythriac monuments, sculptures of Eastern Asia, in which there
may always be observed upon the right the sun rising behind a
tree such as the mulberry. This is nothing else, in fact, than the
representation of the hieroglyphic character preserved in China
to express the East, a character which is pronounced tong, jf[,
and which is formed by drawing the symbol of the sun, Q ji, be
hind that of a tree, fa mo ; the sun in rising showing its disk, in
fact, behind the trees.
Tacitus, in his " Germanicus," relates fables, also, in regard to
the country where the sun sets, in explaining the sparkling
when its fires penetrate the ocean ; but his admirable work has
DE PARAVEY S SUPPORT. 57
been none the less constantly read and consulted since his time,
and these marvelous tales have not caused the denial of the
existence of the region of which he speaks.
But the account of the shaman Hoei Skin regarding Fu-sang
offers none of these fables ; and, if it places a tree of this name
in America, it describes it as a plant having red fruit in the
form of a pear, a shrub, of which the young shoots are eaten ;
and of which the bark is prepared like that of hemp, of which
cloth, clothing, and even paper are made : for the inhabitants
of this country had a method of writing, says this account, and,
in fact, books and a species of writing are found in America, in
Mexico, and elsewhere.
In the Chinese botanical books the name of fu-sang, which
may be translated as "the serviceable, useful mulberry" (these
adjectives conveying the meaning of "fu"), is given now to the
Jcetime, or hibiscus rosa sinensis, a plant brought from Persia to
China, as we learn from Father Cabot, and which has been
grafted upon the mulberry.
But M. Klaproth, by some mistake, has been led to see in
this plant the paper-mulberry, of which, in fact, cloth and cloth
ing are also made ; while others find in it the metl or maguey of
Mexico, but badly described ; for this plant also gives cloth and
paper, it furnishes a sort of wine and food, and is pre-eminently
useful.
In truth, this name Fu-8ang expresses only the name of the
Extreme East, for in the ancient hieroglyphic geography the Cen
tral Kingdom is called, as it now is in China, Chong-hoa, or
"the Central Flower," and the four cardinal countries have the
name of the Sse-fu, or " the Four Auxiliary Countries," composed
of the four principal petals of the nelumbo, the mystic flower,
the flower of the middle, the sacred lotus, type of ancient Egypt
and of the earth, par excellence.
India offers this geographical symbol to us again, and the
ancient Chinese maps call the countries of the north, Fu-yu ;
those of the south, Fti-nan / those of the west, Fu-lin (that is to
say, the Ta-tsin, the Roman Empire) ; and, finally, those of the
east, Fu-sang. Now, to the east of China there is no other ex
tensive land than America ; and, if Jeipan lias ever been also
given this name of Fu-sang, it is because it is to the east of
China ; but the Japanese Encyclopaedia, which should have been
5 8 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
consulted by M. Klaproth, who attempted to support his opinion
by this name erroneously applied to this country, says that it is
not the true country of Fu-sang.
The banana, the pi-sang tree of the Malays, may also be
one of the trees called fu-sang, for these trees, as well as the
flowers of the nelumbo, or rose-lotus of Egypt, where the young
Horus is seen to spring that is to say, where the sun is born,
are types of the East, All this, we repeat, is merely a natural
series of symbols employed in the ancient and hieroglyphic
geography, which is too little studied.
The account translated by M. de Guignes also places many
pu-tao, or grapes, in the country of Fu-sang. M. de Guignes
translated the two characters separately, understanding pu to
mean the iris, and tao the peach. M. Klaproth has properly
rectified this, but with singular thoughtlessness he forgets that
the forests of North America abound in several species of
wild vines, and that the Scandinavians placed the country of
Vin-land (the Land of Vines) in the northeastern part of the
continent. He therefore denies the existence of the vine in
America, and, relying especially upon this passage, he concludes
that Fu-sang must be Japan, where the vine, as he says, had
existed for a long time, although in China it had not been intro
duced from Western Asia until the year 126 before our era. It
can therefore be seen how feeble his attempted refutation of M.
de Guignes is, even when the last is mistaken ; and his memoir,
as a whole, offers no more forcible arguments.
When the shaman said that iron was lacking in Fu-sang, but
that copper was found, and that gold and silver were not valued
(because of their abundance, no doubt), he repeats what Plato
said of Atlantis, and what has been reiterated in all accounts
regarding America ; a celebrated river of the northern part of
this continent bears the name of the Coppermine River, and
copper is also very abundant in Peru.
It is also stated that the inhabitants of Fu-sang raised herds of
deer and made cheese from the milk of the hinds; and in the Chi
nese and Japanese Encyclopaedias, as also in the Pian-y-tien,
when the figure of an inhabitant of Fu-sang is given, he is drawn,
in fact, as engaged in milking a hind having small round spots,
and in the two Encyclopaedias this is given as forming the char
acteristic peculiarity of this country of Fu-sang. Philostratus, in
DE PAKAVEY S SUPPORT.
59
his " Life of Apollonius," mentioned tribes in India who raised
hinds for their milk, and the thing is not so common as to fail
to be remarked, but herds of hinds have also been found in
America in our days ; for Valmont de Bomare, in the article
entitled " Deer," says : " The Americans have herds of deer
and of hinds running in the woods throughout the day and at
night re-entering their stables. Several tribes of America have
no other milk," he adds, " than that obtained from their hinds,
and of which they also make cheese."
It appears, therefore, that he translates by these words what
JEToei Shin said in 499 A. D. concerning the nations of Fa-sang
and in calling attention to the fact that this usage formerly ex
isted in India, it was not without design, for the same shaman
affirms that the religion of Buddha (an Indian religion) had been
carried to the country of Fin-sang, in the year 458 of our era, by
five monks of Ky-pin> or of Cophene, an Indian country. He
says that the tribes, from that time converted by them, had nei
ther military weapons nor troops, and, like the Argippeans (of
whom Herodotus speaks), that they did not make war ; he adds,
finally, that they had a species of writing and worshiped images
that is to say, that they were true Buddhists.
That which is said regarding the cattle with long horns that
carried heavy burdens upon their heads, and of carts to which
horses, cattle, and deer were harnessed, offers, as it appears, the
only difficulty ; but the bisons with manes and with enormous
heads, found in North America, may have been the cause of this
eiToneous statement, and, but for the evasion of the description,
the Chinese name Ma, which is applied to horses, asses, and
camels, and which forms the radical of useful animals of this
nature, might be given, even although it were wrongfully, to
the llamas and alpacas already domesticated perhaps in South
America, which also was included in Fa-sang.
It may be possible, moreover, that horses had been introduced
before this epoch into Northwestern America, which is hardly
known even in our days, and where tribes are mentioned which
use them ; and where teams of reindeers, like those of Kam-
tchatka, may also be seen. It is true that it has been supposed
that these horses are descended from those brought to Mexico
by the Spaniards ; but this has not been proved : and even if we
suppose them to be of European origin, an epidemic or a de-
GO AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
str active war may, since the fifth century, have destroyed the
domesticated horses brought to Fu-sang by the Tartars and the
Buddhists of Asia.
The people of Fa-sang had no other habitations than villages
of wooden cabins, such as have been found near the Columbia
River, to the northwest of California ; and, to obtain a wife,
the young men of the country were obliged to serve their be
trothed for an entire year. Now (in the "Collection of The-
venot"), this is precisely what Palafox says of the American
Indians, whose manners he describes ; and this custom also ex
ists in the extreme northeastern countries of Asia, countries
from which America may be reached, as we have said.
Other details of their customs seem to be borrowed from the
Chinese civilization, especially the cycle of ten years, or perhaps
even of sixty years as M. de Humboldt has in fact described
among the Muyscas of the plateau of Bogota, in South America,
the usage of the cycle of sixty years and of institutions analogous
to those of the Buddhism of Japan. The cycle of Fa-sang , bear
ing the names of the ten Chinese Kans, served to mark the suc
cessive colours of the king s garments, colours which were changed
every two years, just as is prescribed for the Emperor of China
by the chapter yue-ling of the Lil-ki, or "Sacred Book of Rites."
But the so-called Chinese cycles, which gave their alphabets
to the most ancient nations of Syria, Phoenicia, and India, as well
as to those of Greece, as we have elsewhere shown (see our " Es
say upon the Common and Hieroglyphic Origin of the Figures
and of the Letters," Paris, 1826; and the article, entitled " Japan
ese Origin of the Muyscas," in the " Annales de Philosophie
Chretienne," Vol. X, page 8, where the figures of the cycles may
be found), may have been carried to Fu-sang quite as well from
Central Asia, or from India, as from China, as they were never
unknown to the Buddhists or shamans.
We might also discuss the sound of the titles given to the
king and nobility of the country of Fu-sang / but these discus
sions would carry us too far, and we will merely call attention
to the fact that the title of the king was I-ky, a sound which
seems connected with the name of the Jfic-sos, the pastoral
kings of Egypt who came from Asia, and the last syllable with
Ric, the name of the Gothic kings, who also came from the
north of Asia ; and possibly also with that of Cacique* the title
DE PARAVEY S SUPPORT. Cl
of the chiefs of the islands of America, and with that of the
Arikis, or kings of the islands of Oceanica.
We will therefore confine ourselves to discussing the conclu
sion of this account of Fit-sang.
" Formerly," says Hoei Shin, " the religion of Buddha did
not exist in this country ; but in the Song dynasty (in 458 A. D.
a precise date here), five Pi-kieu, or priests of the country
of Ky-pin (a country in which Father Gaubil sees Samarcand,
and M. de Remusat sees the ancient Cophene, near India), came
to Fu-sang, carrying with them their books and sacred images,
and their ritual, and established monastic customs, and so
changed the manners of the inhabitants."
Accordingly, Hoei Shin, a shaman himself, who came to
China in 499, forty-eight years after this conversion of the peo
ple of Fu-sang, declared that then the people of that country
worshiped the images of spirits at morning and night and did
not wage war.
It is said that proselytism is one of the duties of the Bud
dhist priests and monks. It is therefore not surprising to see
them set forth from Central Asia, and cross the seas and the
most dangerous countries, in order to convert the savage tribes
of America, a country already well known to them and to the
Arabs and Persians of Samarcand.
This can no longer be considered doubtful, since M. de Wai-
deck has sketched an old temple or monastery of Yucatan, a
large square inclosure accompanied by pyramids analogous to
those of the Buddhists of Pegu, Ava, Siam, and the Indian Ar
chipelago, and which can be studied in all their details.
A multitude of niches, in which the figure of the celebrated
god Buddha sits with crossed-legs, exist in Java, all around the
ancient temple of Boru Buddha ; and upon examination of the
temple of Yucatan, of which M. de Waldeck has published
beautiful drawings, we find there the same niches in which sits
the same god Buddha, and also find other figures of East Indian
origin, such as the frightful head of Siva, a flattened and de
formed head which surmounts each of these niches.
We can not affirm, however, that these temples of Yucatan
were as old as the account of Fa-sang, as we have no description
of other buildings in this country than wooden cabins ; but, per
secuted by the Brahmans of India, the Buddhists may have been
02 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
compelled, at several different times, to seek an asylum in Fa-
sang, or America, and possibly even went to Bogota and as far
as to Peru, where the manners of the people have been found to
be so gentle and so analogous to those of the Buddhists.
In the same manner they civilized the wild tribes of the In
dian Archipelago, and of the countries between India and China,
and built temples and pyramids such as those of which we find
the remains, as in Java, or those which are still standing and
venerated, as in Pegu and Siam.
China received the Buddhist religion soon after the com
mencement of the Christian era, under Ming-ti, of the Han dy
nasty ; Corea in the year 372 A. D. ; Fa-sang -, as we have said,
in the year 458 ; and Japan, finally, not until 552, when the Japa
nese received it from Corea and from the kingdom of JPe-tsi, a
land situated in the neighbourhood of the Amoor River and of
Corea, and an ancient center of civilization.
It is from Corea, say the Chinese books, that the country of
Ta-lian can be reached, from which, sailing to the east, one ar
rives at America that is to say, at Fa-sang. On the voyage one
touches at Japan, and, without doubt, sails along its shores in
order to reach the island of Saghalien upon the north, from
which the route turns to the east toward Kamtchatka or
Ta-han.
But in the curious " History of the Chichimecas," published
in the collection of M. Ternaux, Ixtlilxochitl, the author, a na
tive American, says that the Toltecs came by sea from Japan
to America, landing upon the northwest coast, and in a country
having a red soil, such as that near the Gila River, where also
an ancient monument is mentioned, called the House of Motecu-
zuma.
He had seen in Mexico the Japanese sent to Rome by the
missionaries ; and in these modern Japanese he recognized the
features and the costume of the Toltecs of whom he spoke ;
now he fixed their migration in the fifth century of our era.
He is therefore found to be in perfect accord with the Chinese
accounts, concerning the different voyages to America ; for Ja
pan, as we have already said, is situated upon the route by sea
from Corea to the country of Ta-han, the southern part of
Kamtchatka, situated in a high latitude, and where, as it is said,
the prevailing winds are from the west and the northwest, so
DE PARAVEY S SUPPORT.
63
that they would naturally carry a vessel toward Fu-sang, or
North America, a country situated to the east.
The Buddhistic monuments of Yucatan ; the history that
has been preserved of the migration of the Toltecs from Japan
to America ; the Chinese accounts of the country of Ta-han,
and of the vast country of Fu-sang, which were given by the
Buddhists who left this country of America, and arrived at
China by way of Japan : all are therefore in perfect accord.
This passage, ly way of Japan, explains, moreover, how, as
we showed in 1835, in an article entitled " Dissertation sur les
Muyscas," inserted in the " Annales de Philosophic Chretienne,"
cited above, and also published separately, at Paris, under the
title " Memoire sur 1 Origine Japanoise des Peuples du Plateau
de Bogota," the numerals and many words of the language of
the Muyscas, a tribe living upon the plains of Bogota, are found
also in the present language of the Japanese.
Just as the Scandinavians, at a much later date, descended
from the northeastern coast of the New World, and from Vinland,
where they established a settlement, as far as to Brazil in South
America, where their monuments have been found, so, a thousand
years before the Spaniards, but landing upon the northwestern
coast, the Buddhists of India (then persecuted by the Brahmans),
the colonies of Japan and of the nations living upon the banks of
the Amoor (the ancient country of the Hyperboreans), may have
penetrated to Mexico, to Yucatan, to the country of Guatemala
and to Palenque, to the kingdom of Cundinamarca, and finally
to the rich and civilized kingdom of Peru. The celebrated M.
von Humboldt has very well shown the connection of race, of
civilization, and of cycles, manners and usages, which unites the
tribes of these last countries to those of Tartary and of Asia ;
but, by following Father Gaubil (to whom America was but little
known) and M. Klaproth, in denying the identity of America
with Fu-sang, he deprived himself of the most powerful argu
ments in support of his views, and could not fix any precise date
for these migrations.
We hope that, if he reads this short memoir, he will render
more justice to the truth of the discoveries of the celebrated M.
de Guignes, the profound sinologue from whose works M. Klap
roth drew a great part of his learning, and which, upon that ac
count, the latter should not so greatly traduce.
64. AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
We have wished, in this brief extract from our researches
regarding America, to render justice to this learned and mod
est author of the " History of the Huns." As he was, so are
we, oppressed by contemptible coteries ; but we hope that some
day more justice may be shown to the researches which have oc
cupied our best years.
CHEVALIER DE PARAVEY.
August, 1843.
APPENDIX
Gives M. Klaprottis article as far as the end of the translation of the
Chinese account of Fu-sang ; and M. de Paravey adds the following
additional notes :
1. The celebrated Ma Twan-lin, so esteemed by M. Remusat, has also
given this account (of Fu-sang} in his Wen-hien-tong-lcao, with some
variations in the readings ; and it is this which has been translated by M.
de Guignes. It is also repeated in the celebrated Chinese Encyclopaedia,
entitled Yuen-lden-tui-han, in which we found it in London in 1830,
and in the Pian-y-tien, or " Geography of Foreign Nations " ; and copies
of all these highly esteemed works exist in Paris.
2. M. de Paravey, in regard to the characters Jfc |jj| (Fu-sang), has
observed that Father Goncalves, in his highly esteemed Portuguese-
Chinese Dictionary, translated the name Fu-sang by Papula cornuda, the
argemone, or prickly-poppy of Mexico. This learned missionary, there
fore, considered it a plant or shrub of America ; and this single definition
may be considered as proving that the country of Fu-sang corresponds to
some part of Mexico.
3. The laws of Fu-sang, which punish the children and descendants
of a great criminal, have existed in China from time immemorial, and also
in the countries of Asia which are tributary to China.
4. M. Klaproth recognizes the existence in Fu-sang of the Chinese
cycle of sixty years ; but the researches of Father Souciet show that it
existed also in India, and, in the "Journal Asiatique," of Paris, M. de
Paravey has shown that it commenced in India and in China in precisely
the same year. The Buddhists of India, or of the northern part of Cen
tral Asia, may therefore have carried it to the country of Fu-sang, in
America, and to Mexico.
5. In India, it is said, there are cattle which are harnessed to carts ; and
in Kamtchatka there are reindeer, a species of stag, which draw sledges.
6. In the text, M. Klaproth, in spite of all that he says in his foot-
DE PARAVEY S SUPPORT. 65
note, should, as we have stated in oar memoir, translate the words M .
tao (which he writes phou-thao) by "grapes," and not by the word
" vines," which, among us, conveys the idea of culture. The woods of
North America, in its northern and northwestern parts, abound in wild
grapes, as the shaman says ; but cultivated vines were not found in Amer
ica, and the text, in fact, does not say that they were.
7. The custom which required the king not to occupy himself with
state affairs during the first three years of his reign was also an ancient
custom in China and in Indo-China.
8. In support of his ideas, M. de Guignes has translated another pass
age of the Nan-szu, which gives the route by sea from Corea to the
country of Ta-Tian. M. Klaproth also translates this passage, which gives
the distance from Ping-yang, the ancient capital of Corea, to Japan as
12,000 li; from that country to the land of the Wen-shin as 7,000 li;
and from the last-named region to the country of Ta-han, 5,000 li.
In applying to this route by sea the same scale (as to the length of
the li) which is found from the stated distance between Persepolis and
Sy-ngan-fu, M. de Paravey found in fact that the distance between the
mouths of the Amoor River, or the end of the island of Saghalien (which
was the country of Wen-shin), and the southern part of Kamtchatka, or
the land of Ta-Jian, is by this route 5,000 li; and he also found 7,000 li
to be the distance between Yedo, the capital of Japan, and the mouths of
the Amoor River.
The description of the route is therefore exact in these two parts ; and
if it first states 12,000 li as the distance by sea between Japan and the
capital of Corea, situated upon its west coast (which is evidently too
great a distance), it is because the route to Japan first led to the Lieu-
Ueu Islands, which are in fact situated 5,000 li from Japan and 7,000
from Corea : either this detour must be allowed, or else the length of the
li must be regarded as very small; but Ta-han is none the less in Kam
tchatka. And in all the hypotheses it is impossible that Japan, here de
scribed by its own name, and a country perfectly well known, could have
contained Fu-sang, as M. Klaproth wishes to prove.
9. A single word, when it is well chosen, amounts sometimes to a
demonstration. In the Dictionary of the Language of Mexico, by the Pere
Molina, a dictionary of which a copy is preserved in the British Museum
at London, we have found that the word lama, or tlama, expresses the
title of the " medicine-men " among the Mexicans ; and no one is ignorant
that in Thibet and Tartary the lamas, or Buddhist priests, are at the
same time the physicians of these countries (so little known) through
which lay the route from India to Fu-sang.
CHEVALIER DE PAEAVEY.
March 7, 1844.
5
CHAPTER V.
DE PARAVEY S NEW PROOFS.
De Paravey s researches preceded those of Neumann and d Eichthal Connection
between the Malay and American languages Fu-sang located near San Fran
cisco Chinese picture of a native of Fu-sang Spotted deer Cattle-horns in
Mexico Horses Nations of Northern Asia Appendix A Buddhist monu
ments in America A figure of Buddha in Yucatan The worship of Siva
The explorations of Dupaix Foot-print in the rocks The cause of eclipses
Pyramids Appendix B A Buddhist sanctuary near the Colorado River
The name Quatu-zaca The Mexicans emigrants from the north Appendix
C An engraving of a native of Fu-sang The natives of Oregon The deer
of America Connection of American and Asiatic tribes Pearl-fishing The
cochineal insect and the nopal The people of Cophene American place-
names which appear to contain the name Sakya.
New Proofs that the Country of Fu-sang mentioned in the Chi
nese Books is America.
To the Proprietor of the "Annales de Philosophie Chretienne " :
SIR : Until we have in France a minister who realizes the
great importance of Persia, India, and China, and who will
properly organize that Asiatic Society of which I, with Messrs,
de Sacy and de Chezy, was among the founders ; until sufficient
funds are given to the society to secure for it a building of its own
and a librarian ; and until it is given as its president a man who,
like Lord Aukland, Director of the Asiatic Society of London,
is able by his wealth and influence to unite and utilize all the
educated Orientalists who now, divided among themselves, exist
in Paris and in France I shall take pleasure in contributing to
your journal, because it is not submissive to any commission
or any coterie, as has been well shown during the seventeen
years of its existence, and as is shown, again, by its publication
of my various essays, very imperfect, as I well know, but which,
.as a whole, will some day form a mass of facts as novel as posi-
DE PARAVEY S NEW PROOFS. 57
tive. With your sound judgment you have appreciated the
force of my " Description of the Origin of the Letters," of which
the " Journal Asiatique," of Paris, has never had a single word
to say, but which the celebrated Dr. Young approved and upon
which M. Princeps is engaged.
In 1844 you published my " Dissertation upon American
Fu-sang." You have also carefully criticised the articles re
garding the East which M. Mohl has been giving for some
years past in the "Journal Asiatique," and I thank you for
having called attention, in a note to the article of 1845, to
the fact that I had also discussed the delicate and important
question regarding the location of the celebrated country of
Fu-sang. M. Walcknaer has told me that M. Remusat trans
lated the Chinese texts regarding Fu-sang for him. I do not
know whether or not M. Walcknaer, that erudite geographer,
has expressed any opinion upon the subject ; neither do I know
what the learned Viscount of Santarem thinks about it : but that
which I do know, and which I ask you to publish, is that M.
Neumann, quoted by M. Mohl, did not publish his dissertation
at Munich in 1845 until after having seen me at London in
1830- 31, upon his return from China, and after having learned
from Mr. Huttman, then Secretary of the Asiatic Society of Lon
don, that I was engaged upon an extensive work upon this
account of Fu-sang, of which I had found the Chinese text in
England, the copy at Paris being taken by M. Klaproth.
It is the same regarding M. d Eichthal, quoted by M. Mohl.
At the Asiatic Society (September, 1840) and at the Geographi
cal Society also, in the same year, M. d Eichthal heard a note
which I read regarding this country, and saw the transcript
which I presented of the figures of Buddha and of Siva, first
recognized by me in the beautiful work of M. de Waldeck upon
the ruins of Uxmal in Yucatan. You yourself then saw the dif
ferent drawings and designs, and M. Burnouf, Jr., recognized,
like me and after me, the figures of Buddha and of Siva.
How could M. Mohl have been ignorant of these facts, so well
known at that time ? How could he have given M. d Eichthal
the credit without mentioning me ? I do not know. Neither
could I have known of the memoir of M. d Eichthal or the dis
sertation of M. Neumann, which date only from 1845, while my
articles were published in your journal in 1843 and 1844, and I
68 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
am the first to pray you, sir, to translate or criticise their argu
ments ; for the subject is, as I repeat, very important.
Bernardin de Saint Pierre, in his " Harmonies de la Nature,"
had already indicated the migrations toward the east of the
nations of India and of Oceanica, arriving thus at America to
the north of Peru ; and M. the Admiral de Rossel, the celebrated
navigator and courteous and loyal scholar, has mentioned the
Sandwich Islands as the ancient half-way port between India,
China, and America, a theory which is renewed in this day.
M. de Saint Pierre, in his " tudes de la Nature " (Eleventh
Study, and Note 49, edition of 1836, first volume), has spoken also
of numerous points of connection found by a very old author
between the Malays and the Peruvians ; and my numerous ex
tracts from the " Dictionary of the Quichua Language of Peru,"
a dictionary of which a copy is preserved in the Royal Library
at Paris, have confirmed these points of connection with the Ma
lay spoken at Java. M. d Eichthal has therefore entered upon a
good road ; but I have the priority, and M. de Avezac, to whom
I have often spoken of these matters, may have conversed with
him also and described to him my studies.
You speak here of my " Dissertation upon Fu-sang," which,
before it was printed, was the inciting cause of M. Klaproth s
article in 1831, as I have shown in my memoir. Permit me, sir,
to correct that dissertation by some new and very important
notes. I said that the ships of Kamtchatka, constructed in that
place by the Buddhists, who came there from Cabul, carried
them to America near the mouth of the Columbia ; but I wrote
then far from my books and without a terrestrial globe, and I
therefore examined the matter again in 1844, and found that I
had placed the point of their arrival a little too far north.
The beautiful work of M. Duflot de Mofras upon Oregon
(Paris, 1844), a work which I have read and analyzed, conducts
me to the excellent port of San Francisco, to the south of the
Columbia River, as the point of arrival of the Indian Buddhists
of Cabul.
According to the scale of 15,000 li, reckoned by the Chinese
between Persia and the city of Sy-ngan-fu, and also reckoned
between this city and the southern point of Kamtchatka or of
Ta-han, the distance of 20,000 li between Kamtchatka and Fu-
sang, measured upon a terrestrial globe, reaches precisely to this
DE PARAVEY S NEW PROOFS. (59
point ; and M. de Mofras says that the northwestern winds which
prevail at San Francisco during a great part of the year would
bring one there easily from the northeastern coast of Asia.
There, ships enter without difficulty, while the bar at the
mouth of the Columbia is very difficult to cross, at least for
large vessels. Still, this natural entrance to the beautiful coun
try of Oregon may also have been known of old.
In the figure of the half - clothed, half -civilized American
of Fu-sang, which is given in the " Pian-y-tien" and also in
the Chinese Encyclopaedia, this native is seen milking a young
hind with white spots, and her fawn is equally spotted. I
sought in vain for any account of this kind of spotted deer in
America, until, upon re-reading M. von Humboldt s works, I
noticed that the Cervus Mexicanus of Linnaeus is spotted like
our European roe-deer, and that the spots are particularly notice
able while the animal is young. This species of deer is found in
America, and in Mexico in particular, in immense numbers, says
M. von Humboldt, as well as a large deer similar to ours, and
often entirely white ; a deer which is found in the Andes, where
it also runs in herds. These last, therefore, recall the white and
tame hinds which are milked by the Indians of the Himalaya,
as we are told by Philostratus in his "Life of Apollonius of
Tyane," for these people, being Buddhists, deprive themselves of
meat, and live upon fruits and dishes made from milk.
The account of Fu-sang speaks also of cattle with very long
horns, that are domesticated by the natives of that country.
Now, M. von Humboldt says that the bisons of Canada are
often broken to the yoke and that they breed with our Euro
pean cattle.
These bisons weigh as much as two thousand pounds or
more, but their horns are small ; whereas he says that cattle-
horns of a monstrous size have been found in ruined monuments
near Cuernavaca, in the southwestern part of Mexico. He refers
these horns to the musk-ox of the extreme north of America ;
but M. de Castelnau, in his courageous exploration near the
Amazon and in Paraguay, found cattle with very long horns,
besides another species with small horns, which ran with them
in the same plains.
The account of Fii-sang is therefore confirmed upon this point ;
but there is certainly some error in the text when it is said that
70 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
upon these long horns the cattle carried a weight of twenty ho
(the Chinese " ho " being a weight of one hundred and twenty
pounds) that is to say, a total weight of twenty-four hundred
pounds ! It should be said that they weighed, per head, at least
twenty-four hundred pounds, and not that this enormous burden
was placed upon their horns ; that would be impossible.
The horses mentioned in this account seem alone to have
been lacking in America ; but the Patagonians, true Tartars, are
always on horseback, and there is nothing to prove that they had
not preserved among them some descendants of the horses which
the bonzes of India brought to Mt-sang, and which the boats of
Kamtchatka had perhaps taken from Tartary.
I will give you some day an article about the tribes of the
extreme north of Asia, having large boats and very short nights
during summer.
A hundred times wiser than M. Klaproth, M. de Guignes, Sr.,
in his memoir regarding Fu-sang, by a few words referred to
this nation with large boats, and of whom the name Ku-tu-moei
that is to say, " Having the Nights very short in Summer "
indicates the position to be near the Arctic circle.
There is an account of this nation in the work of Ma Twan-
lin, entitled " Wen-hien-tong-kao" and I have extracted what
he says upon the subject.
I have shown elsewhere that the passage from Europe to
America by the way of Northern Siberia must then have been
practicable, this sea being gradually filled up with the detritus
of great rivers which fall into it, and in this way it freezes more
and more each year, for it is known that deep seas do not freeze.
All these facts open new and important questions, and your use
ful and weighty journal may well treat them.
Accept, etc., CHEVALIER DE PARA VET.
SAINT GERMAIN, April 24, 1847.
DE PARAVEY S NEW PROOFS. fj
APPENDIX A.
IN EEGAED TO THE MEMOIR OF M. D EICHTHAL MENTIONED BY M. MOHL.
Proof given in 1840 of the Introduction of the Worship of Buddha into
America ly Means of the East Indians of Cabul.
To the President of the Academy of Sciences :
DID certain bonzes of India, setting forth from Central Asia, in the
year 458 of oar era, go to America by the way of Kamtchatka and the
northwestern part of the New World, in order to convert the nations that
lived there, and of which the existence has been known ever since?
This is what is affirmed by the learned M. de Guignes, Sr., in the
"Memoires de F Academic des Inscriptions," where he has given a trans
lation of the account of the voyage of these East Indian bonzes, taken
from the Great Annals of China.
This has been since denied by M. Klaproth and M. von Humboldt, who
base their opinion upon some doubts expressed by the scholarly Father
Gaubil, who had not sufficiently studied the question. I desire to state
my reasons for answering this question in the affirmative. I have no
doubt upon the subject, since discussing it with the learned Admiral M.
de Rossel, and exhaustively studying the memoir of M. de Guignes con
cerning the navigations of the Chinese to the celebrated eastern land
which they called the country of Fu-sang, and which they placed some
two thousand leagues to the east of the shores of their empire and of
Tartary. But as neither my mere assertions nor those of others should
receive any more favourable consideration than has been given to the ex
cellent work of M. de Guignes, Sr., and as the Academy of Sciences wishes
facts rather than words, I will call attention to the monuments of a portion
of Central America, hitherto almost unknown, at least in regard to its an
tiquities ; monuments to which I have already called the attention of the
Asiatic Society of Paris, of M. Burnouf, Jr., and of M. the Chevalier Jaubert,
and which they have agreed with me in recognizing as purely Buddhistic.
M. the Baron van der Cappelen, living near Utrecht, Holland, has
shown me large drawings of the temple of Boro-Boudor in Java, brought
from India by him. This ancient temple is circular, and is ornamented
with thousands of small, beautiful niches, in which the figure of the cele
brated Indian god Buddha sits cross-legged, each niche being surmounted
by the monstrous and deformed head of Siva.
I could show the same idols in ancient Egypt, and at Axum, in Abys
sinia ; but, in looking over the beautiful work of M. Waldeck, the skillful
artist and distinguished disciple of David, who was sent to Yucatan by the
generous and unfortunate Lord Kingsborough, I was surprised to see upon
the sketch of the southern facade of the vast square palace of the ruins of
Uxmal, near Merida, eight niches of the Indian Buddha, figured seated
as n
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Java, in the East Indies, and with the face decorated with coarse rays
surrounding it, and to see in addition a monstrous and flattened human
head surmounting the square niche and the cabin or house in which this
Indian Buddha is seated.
The resemblance of this Buddha of Yucatan with the figure of the
Buddha of Java, published in "Crawfurd s Indian Archipelago" (vol. ii,
p. 206), is such that M. Burnouf at first believed my sketches of the
ancient palace of Uxmal in Yucatan, sketches copied from Plate xvii of
M. Waldeck s, to be of purely East Indian and Siamese origin, and not
American.
M. Burnouf knew that the worship of the monstrous Siva accompanied,
even in Siam and Nepal, the gentler worship of Buddha, and that their
images are often coupled, as in the temple of Boro-Boudor, in ancient
Java, in the Indian Archipelago, and as in particular Typhon and the
young Horus were coupled in ancient Egypt.
We find again, in the center of America, the same two figures, also
coupled, exactly copied, and, to the number of eight, ornamenting the
southern facade of an Oriental temple ; thus, as it seems to me, clearly
demonstrating the truth of the account of the voyage to Fu-sang, in
the year 458 A. D., translated from the Chinese by M. de Guignes, and
attributed to five Buddhists who set forth from Ky-pin or Cophene that
is to say, from the country of Cabul in India.
In the "Annales de Philosophie Chretienne," vol. xii, p. 441, where an
analysis is given of the "Antiquites du Mexique," by Dupaix, the ex
plorations are mentioned which he made at Zachilla, the capital of the
ancient kingdom of the Zapotecs, where he found upon a rock the imprint
of a gigantic foot, an imprint in which M. de Paravey sees an imitation
of that which is worshiped upon Adam s Peak in Ceylon, and of which
the nations of Ava and Pe"gu, of the Buddhist religion, have also similar
imitations; in addition, Colonel Dupaix also found in this place an idol,
seated, the hands crossed upon the breast, and which can be nothing else
than one of the figures of Sakya, or Buddha.
There, according to the " Journey of the Shamans," since translated by
M. Re"musat, was the country of Buddhism, and of the monstrous idola
tries of India ; deplorable alterations from the pure worship founded in
Indo-Persia by Shem, in whom we see the celebrated ffeu-tsi of the Chi
nese.
There we hear of the two imaginary planets Ragu and Cet u, the head
and tail of the dragon, the nodes of the moon, the cause of eclipses,
and the place of the conjunctions ; and these planets are drawn at full
length upon the western facade of the palace of Uxmal in Yucatan, being
interlaced so as to form knots or nodes, and having feathers instead of
scales, thus showing that they are intended for aerial beings. All this
points to an ancient hieroglyphic astronomy, in which the spirals of the
DE PARA VET S NEW PROOFS. 73
sun, in its apparent course from one tropic to the other, are symbolized
by a dragon or a vast boa-constrictor, a thing quite natural as an image.
So, in Chinese, or ancient Babylonian, an eclipse of the sun is written
by a picture of the sun eaten by a dragon, or serpent, and an eclipse
of the moon by the figure of the moon eaten by a dragon. In Chinese
ji 0, chi fji, is an eclipse of the sun, and yue ^, chi f, an eclipse of
the moon ; these phrases being used to convey the idea that the heavenly
bodies are swallowed little by little Chi, ^ ("Diet. Chin.," No. 9505),
the phonetic, means "to eat," and when this is united with the radi
cal chong, &, that of the serpent, the two together signify " to eat little
by little as the boas swallow their food." Notwithstanding the fact that
the art of calculating eclipses is known in China, the common people
believe only in making a noise to frighten this imaginary dragon, this
feathered or aerial boa.
To find the picture at full length of these Chinese and East Indian
superstitions, at Uxmal in Yucatan, and to see every evidence of a dupli
cation in America of the Buddha of Java an island which also contains
at Suku a tcocalli, or ancient pyramidal temple, similar to that of Uxmal
in America, drawn by M. Waldeck (see his " Voyage au Yucatan ") have
appeared to me to be important and decisive facts. I hope that they, when
brought to general notice by publication in the Society s Transactions, will
attract the attention of educated Americans, and show them that their
country and its ruins are worthy of more careful study than they have as
yet received, and that they will lead to other explorations than those hith
erto made, which have been but little better than nothing.
To defend the learned author of the " History of the Huns," relying
here upon the wise geographer Buache, against the ill-founded objections
of M. Klaproth, has also appeared to me to be very important, and I do
not believe that any one can now deny the voyages of the Indo-Tartars
to America, and that nearly one thousand years before Columbus.
I could give further proofs of the connection of Uxmal, Palenque, and
Tulha with India, but fear to trespass too greatly upon your space.
CHEVALIEB DE PARAVE?.
PARIS, July SO, 1840.
APPENDIX B
TO OUR LETTER TO THE ACADEMY.
New Proofs of the Introduction of the Worship of Buddha into America, or
into the Country of Fa-sang. Which was the First Country converted
to this Religion in the New World?
ONE of the countries of America which was first converted by the
shamans of Cabul, arriving from the southern point of Karatchatka at
74: AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
the excellent port of San Francisco, in California, to the north of Monte
rey, must evidently have been the country upon the banks of the Colorado
River, a large river which flows through these same regions from the
north to the south and falls into the northern end of the Gulf of California.
Now, in the useful translations of the Spanish authors made by M. Ter-
naux-Compans, we find that Castatteda placed near the Colorado River, in
a small island, a sanctuary of Lamaisra, or of Buddhism. He mentions a
divine personage living in a small house near a lake upon this island, and
called, as he says, " Quatu-zaca," who was reputed never to eat.
Maize, deer-skin mantles, and cloth made of feathers were offered to
him in great quantities; and in the same place (which proves a coloniza
tion) they also made many little bells of copper.
Even the name of this deified lama, or of this idol Quatu-zaca, contains
the Tartar and East Indian name u Xaca," written SM-Tcia in Chinese, and
" Sakya " in Sanscrit, the name of the celebrated god Buddha ; a remark
which we are the first to make, and " Quatu " may indicate his origin as
of " Cathay." *
Castaiieda adds that the nations of these countries were very peace
able and gentle, never waged war, and (abstaining from flesh) lived solely
upon three or four kinds of very good fruits.
It is therefore impossible to fail to see here an ancient colony of Bud
dhists, or of lamas, a colony which in turn pushed its branches into Mex
ico, Yucatan, Bogota, and even to Peru, a country of very civilized customs.
The Mexicans, frightfully cruel in their recent idolatries, are, as is
known, emigrants from the northeast of Asia and from the northwestern
part of America, but much more recent; and before their arrival in
these beautiful countries it is to be believed, as is stated in the account
of Fu-sang, that the gentle and fraternal religion of the Buddhists, the
remnants of the race of Shem, reigned there exclusively.
Even the title of the shamans, who came there in 458, is derived from
the Sanscrit "sramawa," which signifies "peaceful," M. Pauthier tells us;
and this name is afterward found again in Mexico, where M. Ternaux-
Compans (Mexican Vocabulary, in his translation of the old Spanish authors)
gives Amanam as the name of the priests and the diviners, a word which
evidently may at first have been pronounced Chamanani, Samanani,
Shamaneans. CHEVALIER DE PAEAVET.
SAINT GERMAIN, April 26, 1847.
*The name "Cathay" was, however, used AS a name of the Kingdom of
China, 1790 or of its northern portion, and not of In ,ia. 1801 E. P. V.
DE PARAVEY S NEW PROOFS. 75
APPENDIX C.
IN EEGAED TO THE FIGURE OF A NATIVE OF FU-SANG FOUND IX CHINESE
BOOKS, AND NOW PUBLISHED FOR THE FIRST TIME.
To what Country of America can the almost Nude Man, which the Chi
nese Books picture as an Inhabitant of Fu-sang, have belonged?
As may be seen by the engraving,* the Chinese supposed that the men
who inhabited the country of Fu-sang were almost naked. Now, it may
be said that the inhabitants of North America are fully clothed. This is
true of the greater part of the country ; but in the " Voyage to tbe Mouth
of the Columbia River " of Lewis & Clark (page 302, and also page 507),
at latitude 46 18 north, these explorers found the Chinook Indians, and
in a village upon the Island of Deer, they found women who, instead of
short petticoats, had a simple truss about the loins, or a narrow skin cov
ering this part of their bodies.
They say (page 286) that the Indians living near the Columbia River,
owing to the mildness of the climate, always have the legs and feet bare,
even in winter; and never wear more than small robes, even in cold
weather ; or skin aprons and a kind of cloak upon the shoulders (page
310). The moccasins for the feet and legs are not used, except in Canada
and near Hudson s Bay, where the climate is much colder.
So the man of Fu-sang, shown as almost nude in the old drawing from
the Pian-y-tien and the Chinese Cyclopaedia, must have lived near the
Columbia River in the neighbourhood of California, a rich and beautiful
country of a very mild and temperate climate, the country of Oregon,
regarding which, Spain, England, and the United States are now dis
puting.
In addition, if we open the " Exploration de TOregon et de la Cali
fornia," published in 1844 by M. Duflot de Mofras (vol. ii, page 250), we
see, in fact, that these Indians therein described have only the loins or the
middle of the body covered ; and this exactly as in the plate of the na
tive of Fu-sang, a plate reproduced since the year 499 of our era in all the
foreign geographies published in China and Japan.
Everything, therefore, justifies my conjectures. As to the spotted hind
and its fawn, we have cited M. von Humboldt in regard to the Cervus Mex-
icanus of Linnseus. And we point out, in this connection also, in order to
show that the natives know how to keep them in herds and tame them,
the " Voyage en Amerique " by M. de Chateaubriand (in 8vo, vol. i, page
* It has not been thought advisable to give a copy of the engraving, to which
reference is made, as there is no reason for believing it to be anything more than
a sketch made from the fancy of the Chinese artist. E. P. V.
76 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
130), where he speaks of the hinds of Canada, a charming sort of hornless
reindeer, which they tamed there, he tells us.
CHEVALIEE DE PAEAVEY.
(Extract from No. 90 (June, 1847) of the " Annales de Philosophic
Chretienne.")
EEFCTATION OF THE OPINION EXPEESSED BY M. JOMAED THAT THE NATIONS
OF AMEEICA NEVEE HAD ANY CONNECTION WITH THOSE OF ASIA.
(Extract from the number of May, 1849, of the "Annales de Philosophic
Chretienne. r )
THE essay opens with a statement of the importance of geographical
study, in assisting to open up commerce with foreign nations ; disputes
the unchristian idea that the people of America can have been Autoch
thones; gives a resume of former arguments regarding Fu-sang ; and adds
the following new matter :
In addition to the Phoenician and East Indian art of dyeing purple with
the murex, and the art of fishing for pearls, which is found near Panama,
in the countries of Guaxaca and of Chacahua in America, there also exists
another art, purely East Indian, which of itself demonstrates the arrival
of the Buddhists of Cabul in America, named by them the country of the
Extreme East that is to say in Chinese, the country of Fu-sang. This art
is that of using the cochineal insect of the nopal plant, an art equally found
at Guaxaca, and which produces the wealth of this central country of
America.
In 1795, at Madras in India, Major Anderson showed, in a special essay,
that the cochineal insect and the nopal plant upon which it lives are found
in India and toward the countries of Lahore and Cabul ; and he thought
that from these they must have been imported into America, into the
country of Honduras near Mexico ; but he does not show how.*
* The substance of the article that is referred to 103 is, that cochineal insects
were brought from Rio Janeiro to Calcutta, and that, when they reached the latter
place, the nopal plants upon which they lived were so nearly dead that none of
them could be revived. The insects were therefore tried upon all the varieties of
nopal that could be obtained, including a variety from the Cape of Good Hope, one
from Mauritius, and a number of others, but could not live upon any of them, with
the exception of a variety found growing in Bengal, which had a flower exactly
similar to that of the nopal upon which the insects grew in America, and which
seemed to be the same plant. Upon this the insects thrived.
W. Roxburgh says this variety " seems to be a native of Bengal ; at least it has
been long known."
James Anderson says " it is common over all the Carnatic " ; and he again
speaks of it as " common and indigenous," and also says " it is common as far
DE PARAVEY S NEW PROOFS. 77
Now, the account of Fu-sang attributes precisely to these East Indians
of Ky-pin, or of Cabulistan, the civilization of America, which must hare
preceded the ferocious and sanguinary religion of the Tartars of Mexico.
These peaceful and Buddhistic Indians occupied themselves with com
merce and useful arts. Having known in their own country how to
utilize the precious lac insect as well as that of the nopal, and finding the
nopal in Mexico, they must have also carried there the insect which lives
upon it, or, if it existed there, they made use of it as a means of preparing
cochineal, an art that is purely East Indian and Asiatic.
Merely the names of Guaxaca, Chacahua, Zachita, and Zacapa, found
in Honduras and Guatemala, demonstrate the presence of these Buddhists
in these countries, since " Xaca " and " Sakya," or " Shi-Tcia," are the
well-known Asiatic names of the celebrated divinity Fo, or the Indian
Buddha, a god. represented as seated with crossed legs, the figure of which,
drawn at Uxmal in Yucatan without recognition, by M. de "Waldeck, the
artist sent by the late Lord Kingsborough, has been first brought into
notice by us.
The character shi, lp, of the name " Shi-lsia," or " Sakya," signifies
"to release, to dismiss, to pardon"; and the character Icia, SJ|J, "to sit
with the legs crossed," exactly as the figure found at Uxmal by M. "Wai-
deck is seated. CHEVALIER DE PAEAVEY.
north as Nepal, where they say an insect lives on it with which they dye red."
There is no proof, however, that this was the cochineal insect.
At this time different varieties of the cactus had been introduced from
America into almost all parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and had long been com
mon in many districts. There is nothing to show that the nopal, then found in
Bengal, had not been introduced from America some time during the three centuries
elapsing between the discovery of America and the date referred to in the article.
And there is one fact, which seems to render it almost certain that the plant had
been introduced from Mexico, and at a comparatively recent date, as it is stated
that " the Bengalese call their cactus * neeg-penny, or nag-penny. " It is evident
that this is a corruption of the Mexican term "nopalli," or "nochpalli"; and if the
plant had been introduced in Hwui SMrfs time, thirteen centuries before, the name
would probably have changed more than this during that length of time. There
is really no reason to believe that the plant had been introduced into India before
the discovery of America by Columbus. By the end of the eighteenth century the
prickly pear, or Indian fig, had become wild in India, just as it had in many other
countries where it is known that it was carried early in the sixteenth century.
It seems to have been widely distributed, not only for its fruit, but as a curiosity,
and as it throve well in nearly all tropical lands, it soon grew wild and spread it-
self over the country. E. P. V.
CHAPTER VI.
The knowledge of foreign nations possessed by the Chinese Their precepts The
journey of Lao-tse Embassies and spies Knowledge derived from foreign
visitors Its preservation in Chinese records The introduction of Buddhism
Its command to extend its doctrines to all nations Chinese system of ge
ography and ethnology The unity of the Tartars and Red-skins American
languages The Tunguses, or Eastern Barbarians The Pe-ti, or Northern Bar
barians The Ainos, or Jebis, and the Negritos The Wen-shin, or Pictured-
people Embassies between China and Japan The Country of Dwarfs The
Chinese " Book of Mountains and Seas " Information given by a Japanese
embassador Kamtchatka, the Tchuktchi, and the Aleuts Lieu-kuei The
length of the li Lieu-kuei, a peninsula The land of the Je-tshay The na
tives of Kamtchatka Their dwellings Their clothing The climate The
animals of the country The customs of the people The country of the Wen-
shin identified with the Aleutian Islands Ta-han, or Alaska The kingdom
of Fu-sang and its inhabitants The Amazons Fu-sang identified with the
western portion of America called Mexico The fu-sang tree Only one voy
age made Chinese accounts of Fu-sang The distance from Ta-han, or Alas
ka, indicates that Fu-sang is Mexico The oldest history of America Suc
cessive tribes The ruins of Mitla and Palenque Something of earlier races
to be learned from the condition of the Aztecs Pyramidical monuments If
Buddhism existed in America, it was an impure form The myth of Huitzilo-
pochtli The/w-saw#,the maguey, or Agave Americana Connection between
the flora of America and that of Asia Metals and money Laws and customs
of the Aztecs Domestic animals Horses Oxen Stag-horns Chinese and
Japanese in the Hawaiian group and in Northwestern America Shipwrecks
upon the American coast The voyages of the Japanese.
Eastern Asia and Western America, according to Chinese Au
thorities of the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Centuries by Karl
Friedrich
1. THE KNOWLEDGE OF FOREIGN NATIONS POSSESSED BY
THE CHINESE. As, in the eyes of the Chinese, the " Middle
Kingdom " was the most cultured upon earth, its precepts re-
NEUMANN S MONOGRAPH. 79
quired that it should not only preserve its customs and laws as
handed down from former generations, but that it should extend
these customs and laws abroad beyond the limits of the country.
It was added that this extension of knowledge should not be
brought about by the art of persuasion of any missionaries, or by
the compulsive force of armed troops. A true renovation could
only take place, as in the case of every other healthy organic
growth, when the pressure was from within outward ; when the
surrounding barbarians, irresistibly attracted by the virtue and
majesty of the Sons of Heaven, and ashamed of their barbarism,
should voluntarily obey the image of the Heavenly Father and
become men.
A people actuated by such a spirit would undertake no voy
ages of discovery, and would carry on no wars of conquest ; and
during the history of this Oriental land, covering a period of four
thousand years, no single prominent man is named who journeyed
into foreign lands in order to improve himself or others. The
journey of Lao-tse to the West, from which he neither returned
nor wished to return, appears to have been a myth, designed to
connect his teaching regarding the " Primitive and Infinite Wis
dom " with the western " Mountain of the Gods " or with Bud
dhism. The campaigns which were undertaken beyond the
limits which nature has set to the Chinese empire were merely
the result of efforts at self-preservation. In Central as in East
ern Asia, in Thibet as on the Irawaddy, it is necessary to take
precautions against dangers and disasters which might ultimately
threaten the liberty of the nation. As is not infrequently the case,
in Europe as well as in Asia, it becomes necessary to send embas
sies and spies into surrounding regions in order to obtain infor
mation as to their situation and condition, as well as to the cir
cumstances and intentions of the inhabitants, of a nature which
might prove of service in military expeditions and negotiations
with the enemies of the empire. Moreover, the glorious and for
tunate " Middle Kingdom " allured not only barbarians eager for
spoils, but also merchants eager for gain, since several articles,
such as silk, tea, and genuine rhubarb, were found only here.
The Chinese government, like its people, has been controlled by
the precepts of its sages, and has at all times received strangers
humanely and courteously, as long at least as they yielded un
conditional obedience, or otherwise showed submission and fear ;
80 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
and, according to Oriental custom, their gifts were repaid by
others more valuable. All these discoveries, and all the informa
tion obtained in their different peaceable or warlike methods,
whether relating to the neigbouring nations or to those dwelling
in the most distant parts of the earth, were noted in the last divis
ion of the Annual Registers of Chinese history, of which, from
our point of view, they constitute the most valuable portion.
The arrogance and vanity of the Chinese people were part
ly eradicated, however, by means of the introduction of Bud
dhism, and its gradual conquest of the countries of Eastern Asia.
He Who believed in the divine mission of the Son of the King of
Kapilapura must recognize every human being as his equal and
brother ; yes, must strive for the ancient religion of Buddha,
as in the case of many others of its dogmas and customs, agreed
with the more youthful religion of Christianity in this point also
to extend the gospel of redemption to all nations upon the face
of the earth ; and, for this purpose, following the example of the
divine-man, must be ready to take upon himself all conceivable
sufferings and labours. We therefore find a number of Bud
dhist monks and priests going forth from Central Asia and
China, from Japan and Corea, to known and unknown regions,
either for the purpose of obtaining information as to their dis
tant brothers in the faith or to preach the doctrine of the Holy
Trinity to unbelievers. The accounts of these missionaries
travels, of which we possess several, viewed from a geographical
and ethnological standpoint, are among the most important and
instructive works of the entire body of Chinese literature. From
them is derived the greatest part of the information which we
shall give regarding Northeastern Asia and the countries of the
western coast of America; information which has descended from
centuries that until now have been concealed from view by dark
est night.
2. THEIR SYSTEM OF GEOGRAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY. Arro
gance and vanity are the basis whereupon the Chinese built
most of their peculiar system of geography and ethnology.
Around the " Central Flower," so they were taught by their
sages, dwelt rude, uncouth nations, which in reality were but
animals, although they had the form and figure of the human
race. Because of this assumed animal nature, the inhabitants
of the " Central Flower " gave them nicknames of all kinds :
NEUMANN S MONOGRAPH. 81
dogs, swine, demons, and barbarians, were the distinguishing
names which they gave to foreigners dwelling in the four cardi
nal directions ; to the east, west, north, and south. The few
western investigators and historians, who have thought it worth
the trouble to devote their attention to the fallow field of the
history of Eastern and Central Asia, have unquestionably fol
lowed the ethnographical system resting upon these limited geo
graphical elements. It therefore sometimes happens that races
are represented as belonging to the same family, which in fact
have no connection, and sometimes one and the same nation is
divided up among different families ; this occurring especially
among the numerous and widely extended family of the Tartars.
3. THE UNITY OF THE TARTARS AND RED-SKINS. The Tun-
guses and Mongolians and a great portion of the Turks origi
nally formed (according to the important indications of their
bodily figure, as well as the elements of their languages) a single
family of nations, really connected with the Esquimaux (the
Skraelings or dwarfs of the Norsemen) as well as with the races
and tribes of the New World. This is the solid, irrefutable re
sult of the latest researches in the fields of comparative anatomy
and physiology, as well as in those of comparative philology and
history. All researches point in the end to their unity. The Red
skins have all the different peculiarities which can remind us of
their neighbours on the other side of Behring s Strait. They have
a four-cornered or round head, high cheek-bones, heavy jaws,
large four-cornered eye-sockets, and a low, retreating forehead.
The skulls of the oldest Peruvian graves show the same pecul
iarities as the heads of the nomadic Indians of Oregon and
California ; and Gallatin, in his researches in the field in which
he stands alone, has shown * that the American languages as a
whole have such a similarity that, however different their vo
cabularies may be, they all point back to a common origin. All
researches regarding the manner in which America was peopled
lead to the same final conclusion. Since the earth has been in
habited, these natives have dwelt in the neighbouring regions of
Asia and America. The rude masses have in the course of cen
turies, by means of different processes of civilization, been sepa
rated into different races and nations, each of a peculiar physi
cal type a consequence of the higher mental tendencies and
* Baer, in the " Beitrage zur Kentnisa des Russischen Reiches," vol. i, p. 279.
8 2 Atf INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
numerous languages have grown up; yet they still bear sufficient
tokens of their original unity, in their physical peculiarities, as
well as in their languages, their customs, and their habits. This
unity is shown by their genealogy (the oldest historical system
of all nations which know only a single original ancestor), which
leads the Turks, Mongols, and Tunguses back to the same ori
gin.* Among the Tartarian hordes we find a relationship simi
lar to that which existed between the different German races.
The Ostrogoths and Visigoths, the Ostphalians and Westpha-
lians, the men of the north and men of the south, belonged in
their essential nature to one and the same Teutonic family, not
withstanding the differences in their culture and their destiny.
4. THE TUNGUSES, THE EASTERN BARBARIANS. All the nu
merous Tartaric tribes which wandered about, or dwelt north
easterly from the Middle Kingdom, were called by the civilized
southern people Tong-hu, "Eastern Red-men, or Barbarians,"
from which term our word " Tunguse " has sprung, which has
since been applied to the people of a much smaller section of
country. Among the Tong-hu the Mongolians were prominent,
many centuries before Chinggis Chakan, distinguished by the
slightly different names of Wog or Mog, and divided into seven
tribes, whose abodes stretched from the Corean Peninsula high
up into the North, across the Amoor River, and to the Eastern
Ocean that is to say, to the Gulf of Anadir, or to Behring s
Strait. The nomadic races, called Pe-ti, or " Northern Barbari
ans," dwelt more directly north ; and many tribes were sometimes
described as belonging to the Tunguses, and sometimes to the
Pe-ti. In one way and another the Chinese obtained an aston
ishingly accurate knowledge of the northeastern coast of the
Asiatic Continent, which, as is shown by their observations in
astronomy and natural history, extended to the sixty-fifth degree
of latitude, and even to the Arctic Ocean. f Among other ac
counts, they tell of a country, inhabited by a small tribe, called
Kolihan, or Chorhan, which during the latter half of the seventh
century sent several embassies to the court at Singan. This
country lay on the North Sea, far from the " Middle Kingdom,"
* The " Shajrat ul Atrak," or Genealogical Tree of the Turks and Tartars,
translated by Colonel Miles, London, 1838. Tung, or Tungus, is here (p. 25) rep
resented as a son of Turk.
f Gaubil, "Observations Mathematiques," Paris, 1732, vol. ii, p. 110.
NEUMANN S MONOGRAPH. 83
and beyond, still farther north, and on the other side of this sea,
the days were sometimes so long and the nights so short that
the sun sank and rose again before a breast of mutton could be
roasted.* The Chinese were well acquainted with the customs
of these hordes, which completely resembled those of the present
Tchuktchi, the Koljushes, f and other families of Northeast
ern Asia and Northwestern America. "These barbarians," they
say, " have neither oxen, sheep, nor other domestic animals ; but,
as some compensation for the lack of these animals, they make use
of deer, which are very numerous." The deer spoken of are un
doubtedly reindeer, which have also been described by European
voyagers as resembling the common deer.J " Of agriculture these
petty tribes know nothing. They support themselves by hunt
ing and fishing, and upon the root of a plant that is found there
in great abundance. Their dwellings are built of brush-wood
and pieces of larger wood, and their clothing is made of birds -
feathers and the skins of wild animals. Their dead are laid in
coffins, which are hung on trees growing in the mountain ranges.
They know nothing of any division of the year into different
seasons." *
The Chinese were also as well acquainted with the tribes
which dwelt directly east as with these northern nations.
5. THE Amos, OR JEBIS, AND THE NEGRITOS. Even as early
as the reign of the Cheu dynasty, in the times of David and
Solomon, the limits of Chinese civilization reached to the Pacific
Ocean. The numerous neighbouring groups of islands were known
in the kingdom and visited for the purpose of trading. Their
inhabitants sent embassies to the court, which offered all kinds
of presents, that are described in full in the Shu-king, or Chinese
Book of Annals. Moreover, it often happened, and still happens,
that China sent forth a part of its overflowing or discontented
population to those islands which were either sparsely settled,
* " Ma Twan-lin? Book 348, p. 6.
f " Koljushi," or " Koljuki," is the name of the pegs which these barbarians
wear in their under lip, and from these they originally derived their name. The
Russians who govern this land afterward called them " Galoches " (from that
word of the French language), the name being at first applied only in jest. In
the course of time, however, this word superseded the earlier name " Koljukes,"
so that they are now universally called " Kaloshes."
t Forster, " Schifffahrten im Norden," Frankfort, 1784, p. 338.
* "Jfa Twan-lin," Book 344, p. 18.
84 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
or, in some cases, entirely uninhabited, colonies having thus been
sent to Japan, to Lieu-Tcuei, and to Tai-wan or Formosa, of which
fact we possess explicit historical testimony. The family of the
Ainos, or Jebis, stretching from Japan to Kamtchatka, over the
Kurile and the Aleutian Islands and far away into the North,
where it meets the allied family of the Esquimaux, must have
appeared especially remarkable to these Chinese-Mongolian colo
nists and traders (who themselves possessed but scanty beards)
on account of the strong growth of hair with which the bodies
of these Ainos were covered. On this account they were called
Mao-jin (or, according to the Japanese pronunciation of the
Chinese characters, Mo-sin), meaning " Hairy-people " ; or, from
the numerous sea-crabs which the ocean in these regions throws
up upon the beach,* Hia-i (or, according to the Japanese pro
nunciation, Jesso) that is to say, " Crab-barbarians." Moreover,
because the Ainos, like the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands,
and other barbarians, have the custom of tattooing themselves
with all kinds of figures, they were also called Wen-shin, or
" Pictured-people." In the course of time still other names were
applied to them ; but he who is governed by a knowledge of the
nature of these regions and their inhabitants, immediately recog
nizes that the different descriptions and accounts all relate to the
same family of the Ainos. We are indebted to the repeated em
bassies, which in earlier times went back and forth between China
and Japan, for a great part of the information contained in the
Annual Registers of the " Middle Kingdom " regarding the north
easterly and southeasterly islands and tribes, and, although much
that is fabulous is undoubtedly contained in their accounts, still
even their most incredible tales may contain some element of
truth. So in the Chu-shu, or "Dwarfs," dwelling far distant
from Japan in a southerly direction, having black bodies, naked
and ugly, who murder and eat strangers, we immediately recog
nize the inhabitants of New Guinea or Papua.f The Ainos are
first mentioned by the name of " the Hairy-people," in the Chi
nese " Book of Mountains and Seas," a work dating from the
third or second century before our era, and richly adorned with
wonderful tales. It says that they live in the Eastern Sea, and
* " Beschreibung der Kurilischen und Aleutischen laseln," translated from the
Russian into German, Ulm, 1792, p. 16.
f " MaTwan-lin," Book 327, p. 37.
NEUMANN S MONOGRAPH. 35
have hair growing over their entire body. * Several of these
people accompanied a Japanese embassy to the " Middle King
dom " in the year 659 A. D. In the Annual Register of the Tang
dynasty they are called " Crab-barbarians," and the following
observation is added : " They had long beards and lived north
easterly from Japan " ; they presented arrows, bows, and deer
skins, as the chronicle states, as offerings to the throne.f
These were inhabitants of Jesso, which island had shortly be
fore (in 658 A. D.) been conquered by the Japanese and made
tributary to them. The questions of the " Son of Heaven " of
the Tang dynasty and the answers of the Japanese embassador
are given as follows :
The Ruler of the Tang Dynasty. Does the celestial auto
crat enjoy continual peace ?
The Ambassador. Heaven and earth unite their gifts, and
constant peace results.
The Ruler of the Tang Dynasty. Are the officers of the
kingdom well selected ?
The Embassador. The grace of the Heavenly Ruler is be
stowed upon them and they remain well.
The Ruler of the Tang Dynasty. Does internal peace pre
vail ?
The Embassador. The government stands in accord with
heaven and earth the people have no cause for complaint.
The Ruler of the Tang Dynasty. Where does this land of
Jesso lie ?
The Embassador. To the northeast.
The Ruler of the Tang Dynasty. How many kinds of " Crab-
barbarians " are there ?
The Embassador. Three : the most distant we call Tsugaru
(after which the Strait of Sangar, between Japan and Jesso, is
named) ; the nearest Ara, and the next Niki. The men here
* The Shan-hai-kiny, quoted in the " Histoire des Trois Royaumes," translated
by Titsingh, Paris, 1832, p. 213. Klaproth has, in accordance with his well-known
deceptive manner, attempted to pass off this translation as his own.
\ Tang-shu, or " Annual Register of the Tang Dynasty," Book 220, p. 98.
" Ma Twan-lin," Book 326, p. 23, where the account, as usual, is mutilated. Ti
tsingh, " Annales des Empereurs du Japan," Paris, 1834, p. 52. There is an agree-
ment between the Chinese and Japanese Annual Registers upon this subject, that
is worthy of notice.
86 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
with us belong to these last. They come annually with their
tribute to the court of our kingdom.
The Ruler of the Tang Dynasty. Does this land produce
grain ?
The Embassador. No ; the inhabitants live upon flesh.
The Ruler of the Tang Dynasty. Have they houses ?
The Embassador. No ; they dwell in the mountain ranges
among the trunks of trees.*
Since this time in the seventh century, several military expe
ditions have been undertaken against these neighbouring " North
ern Barbarians," by the adjoining civilized kingdom, which have
generally resulted successfully. The inhabitants of Jesso, how
ever, usually rose again after a short time, drove the Japanese
garrison out of the land, and surrendered themselves anew to
the wild freedom that was enjoyed by other members of the
same family upon the neighbouring islands. Even now, as we
learn from different sources, the Japanese rule over only a small
part of this island so rich in gold mines.
Jesso easily leads to an acquaintance with Kamtchatka, which
happened to be also fully described for us at the same time, as
is shown by the following account :
6. KAMTCHATKA, THE TCHUKTCHI, AND THE ALEUTS.
Lieu-kuei, or Ling-goei, as the Kamtchatdales of the present
day still call their fellow-countrymen on the Penshinish Bay,f
is described in the Annual Registers of the "Middle King
dom " as fifteen thousand Chinese miles distant from the capital ;
this standard of distance (the H 9 or Chinese mile), according to
the renowned astronomer T-han, was, in the time of the Tang
* Nippon-ki that is to say, " The Annual Registers of Japan," from 661 B. c.
to 696 A. D., which were completed in the year 720. They embrace thirty volumes
in 8vo. The portion translated by Hoffman is found in the 26th vol., p. 9, or
vol. viii, p. 130, of Siebold s "Japanese Archives."
f Steller, " Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka," Leipzig, 1734, p. 3.
The words between quotation-marks are translated literally from the Annual
Registers of the Tang dynasty (Tang-shu, Book 220, p. 19). The remainder
is explanatory, and is mostly added from Steller. The Annual Registers of the
Tang dynasty have also been compared with the article of Ma Twan-lin (Book 347,
p. 6), which indeed seems to have been borrowed from the Tang-shu, but it
is arranged in better order, and also contains much original matter, on which
account I have used it as the basis of my work. The compiler of the Encyclopae
dia of Kang-hi ( Yuen-kien-lui-han) contented himself (Book 241, p. 19), as in
many other places, with transcribing from Ma Twan-lin.
NEUMANN S MONOGRAPH. 37
dynasty, contained about 338 times in one of our geographical
degrees.
Now, Si-ngan, the Chinese capital during the reign of the
Tang dynasty, is in the district of Shan-si, 34 15 34 north
latitude and 106 34 0* east longitude from Paris.
Peter and Paul s Haven in Kamtchatka is situated in 53
59" north latitude and 153 19 56" east longitude from Paris.
The distance between these two points wonderfully confirms
the accounts of the Chinese Annual Registers, and leaves no
room for doubt as to the identity of Kamtchatka with Lieu-
kuei, for we may well be satisfied when such rough estimates,
which may have been made by semi-barbarous sailors or by the
barbarous inhabitants, come, in so great a distance, within two
or three degrees of astronomical results.
" This land lies in a northeasterly direction from the * Black
River, or the Black-dragon River (the Amoor) and the coun
try of the Mo-ko, from which it is reached by a sailing-voyage of
fifteen days duration, which is the time usually occupied by the
Mo-ko upon the voyage." As has already been indicated, these
Mo-ko are the Mongolians, who in former centuries, and even up
to the times of the Tang dynasty, extended from Corea, on
the south, to the farther side of the Amoor River, on the
north ; the western boundary of the country which they inhab
ited being unknown. In the east, as is expressly declared in our
authorities, they roamed as far as to the ocean i. e., to the Paci
fic Ocean from the coast of which they could easily cross to the
islands of the Pacific and to the continent of America. That
this really happened, is indicated by the physical resemblance
between the inhabitants of the two countries and the relation
ship between the Mongolian languages and the idioms of several
tribes of American Indians. The distance from Ochotsk to the
peninsula lying opposite is only about one hundred and fifty
German miles, and the natives of this region are in fact accus
tomed to making this journey by water in from ten to fourteen
days.
" Lieu-kuei lies northerly from the Northern Sea, by which
it is surrounded upon three sides. On the north the peninsula is
bounded by the land of the Je-tshay, or Tchuktchi,* of which
* In the " Tang-shu " there is a typographical error. Instead of Pe-hai, " the
North Sea," the name is given as Shao-hai, " the Little Sea." The proper read-
8 3 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
the limits are not clearly defined. From Kamtchatka to Je-
tshay is a month s journey, and beyond it is an unknown land,
from which no embassy ever came to the * Middle Kingdom.
Neither fortified places nor walled cities are found in this land ;
the people live scattered about upon the islands of the sea, and
upon the banks along the rivers and the sea, of which they salt
and preserve the fish."
Steller also assures us that the dwellings of the Italmen
i. e., the natives of Kamtchatka are found along the rivers, on
the inner sea, and at the mouths of small rivers, especially in
such of these places as are provided with trees and bushes. Fish
are found in incredible numbers, and salmon are especially numer
ous ; they are prepared in many ways, but chiefly by salting,* so
as to serve for food both for man and beast throughout the long
winters. The races living still farther north live also, almost
exclusively, upon fish, from which fact they have received the
name " Eskimantik," or "Eskimo," that is to say, "Raw-fish
eaters ."f
" Their dwellings consist of pits, which they dig quite deep
in the earth, and then wall up with thick, unhewn wooden
planks." These serve only as their winter residences, their sum
mer residences being set upon posts, like our pigeon-houses.
The Italmen dig the earth out from three to five feet deep,
making an excavation in the shape of a long rectangular paral
lelogram, and as large as may be required to accommodate their
families. They throw the excavated earth all around the bor
ders of the pit in a pile two feet broad. Then they prepare
willow stakes five or six feet long, and drive them into the
ground close together along the wall of the pit, so that they
reach to the same height as the earthen wall. Between these
stakes and the earth they place dry straw, so that the earth may
not fall through and by immediate contact with the articles con
tained in the dwelling cause them to become mouldy or rusty,
ing is found in the two Encyclopaedias already named. Je-tshay-kuo, which here
means " the Land of the Je-tshay," is also named only in the two Encyclopaedias.
The arrogant Chinese love to write the names of foreign nations with characters
which are insulting and abusive in their meanings. The name Lieu-kud is there
fore written with characters meaning " the Dysenteric Devils," and Jc-tshay with
characters meaning " the Devil s Attendants."
* Steller, pp. 169, 210, 211.
f Mithridates, iii, 3-425.
NEUMANN S MONOGRAPH. 39
In the middle of the pit they make the fire-place, between
four slender piles, which are fastened above at one side of the
entrance, which is near the fire-place, and serves also as a chim
ney through which the smoke escapes. Opposite the fire-place
they make a channel in the ground from eight feet to two fath
oms long (the size and length being dependent upon the size of
the dwelling), which extends outside of the house, which is
opened when a fire is kindled and closed when the fire is allowed
to go out. This air-opening is made in any side of the dwelling
without regard to the cardinal points, care being only taken that
it should always open toward the river near which the house is
placed. The wind can usually find free entrance, but, when
it comes in too strongly, they place a cover over the air- opening
as a protection against it. When it is desired to enter the dwell
ing, it is necessary to go in through the opening in the roof,
which serves as a chimney, and descend a ladder or a tree-trunk,
in which notches in which to place the feet have been hewed.
Diificult as this is to. a European, especially when a fire is burn
ing and there seems danger of stifling from the smoke, it seems
a very easy matter to the Italmen. The little children usually
creep through the air-channel, which also serves as a cupboard
in which the cooking and table utensils are stored. Internally,
the dwelling is divided into squares by wooden beams, so that
each of the inhabitants has his own particular sleeping-place
and private room.
" On account of the frequent fogs and heavy snows, the cli
mate is very raw and cold. The people are all clothed in the
hides of the animals which they kill by hunting ; but they also
prepare a species of cloth, from dogs hair and various kinds of
grasses, which is also used for clothing. In the winter the skins
of swine and reindeer are used as clothing, and in the summer
the skins of fishes. They have great numbers of dogs."
We now know that a remarkable difference is found in the
climate of different portions of Kamtchatka. Districts that lie
only a short distance from each other have very different weather
at the same season of the year. The southern portion of the
peninsula is, in general, on account of the proximity of the sea,
very cloudy and damp, and is, for a great portion of the time,
subject to fearfully tempestuous winds. The farther we ascend
to the north, toward the Penshinish Bay, the gentler are the
90 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
winds in winter, and the smaller is the amount of rain that falls
during the summer. There is no part of the world, however,
in which rains are heavier or more frequent than in Kamtchatka,
and deeper snow is nowhere found than occurs upon this penin
sula between the 51st and 54th degrees of north latitude. On
this account the inhabitants need their warm clothing of seal
skins and reindeer hides. The skins of dogs, marmots, and
sables are also prepared for this use. The women split dry net
tle-stalks and other grasses, and labouriously spin a yarn from
them, which is made up into a species of linen cloth, and like
wise serves as the material for different articles of clothing.
Reindeer, black bear, wolves, foxes, and other wild quadrupeds
are found in great numbers, and are caught in many ways, some
of them extremely ingenious, of which the Chinese have also
heard. Dogs are the only domestic animals, and these are upon
many accounts almost indispensable to the people of Kamtchat
ka ; they are harnessed to sledges, and so serve as substitutes
for our horses and asses : and the dogs of this land are so strong
that they endure more than our beasts of burden. Their skins
and hair are made up into clothing, so that they also supply the
place of sheep (of which none are found in this country), and of
their wool. The statement, that swine are found in Kamtchatka,
is an error of the Chinese writer ; * they would, indeed, prosper
here, but in Steller s time none had been introduced into the
country. Up to the present day several of the Mantchoo tribes,
living farthest to the northeast, clothe themselves in fish-skins,
on which account the Chinese call them " Ju-pi " (Fish-skins).
They, like the Chedshen, belong to the Aleutian family.
" The people have no regulations or laws, and know nothing
of officers or of superiors in rank. If there is a robber in the
land, the people are all called together in order to judge him.
Nothing is known of the division and the succession of the four
seasons of the year. Their bows are about four feet long, and
their arrows like those of the * Middle Kingdom. From bones
and stones they make a species of musical instrument. They
love to sing and dance. They lay their dead in large tree-
trunks, and mourn for them for three years, but without wear
ing any particular kind of mourning-garment. In the year 640,
* It is possible that this term is applied to some species of marine animal re
sembling the seal. E. P. V.
NEUMANN S MONOGRAPH. 91
during the time of the reign of the Second Son of Heaven of the
Tang dynasty, the first and last tribute-bringing embassy came
from the land of Lieu-kuei to the * Middle Kingdom. "
Before the conquest of the country by the Russians, the Kam-
tchatdales lived in a kind of community, as is the case among
all wild tribes, as, for instance, among the early German tribes.
Each revenged for himself the injuries that were done to him,
and availed himself for this purpose of his weapons, which con
sisted of bows, arrows, and bone spears. In time of war they
chose a leader, whose authority ceased with the war. If any
thing was stolen and the thief was not discovered, the elders
called the people together and then exhorted each one of them
to give up the criminal. If he was not detected in this way, then
the magic arts of their shamans, or priests, were brought into
requisition to conjure death and ruin down upon the head of the
villain. The Italmen divided the solar year into two parts, call
ing one " summer " and the other " winter." The division into
days and weeks is quite unknown to the Kamtchatdales, and
most of them can not count beyond forty. They waste the
greater part of their time with music and dancing, and in tell
ing merry stories. Their songs and melodies, of which Steller
gives us several, seem charming and agreeable.
If, says this distinguished man (sacrificed in Russia), whom I
usually follow in the account of the customs and usages of the
Kamtchatdales, we compare the cantatos of the great Orlando
di Lasso, with which he charmed the King of France after the
Parisian s Carnival of Blood, with those of the Italmen, the lat
ter seem much the more agreeable of the two, many of these
arias being not merely one-part melodies, but being sung with an
alto also.
The Chinese account of the disposition of the corpses of the
dead, and of the three-years mourning, is not well founded. At
least, at the time of the discovery of the country by the Rus
sians, nothing similar was found to exist. The sick, when they
seemed past recovery, were cast to the dogs while still living,
and any lamentation over the death of parents or other rela
tions very seldom occurred. It is possible, however, even if im
probable, that since the seventh century many a change and error
has been made in the Chinese records regarding this country.
The habitation of the Wen-shin, or " Pictured-people," must
92 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
be looked for to the east of Kamtchatka, and therefore in the
Aleutian Islands, if we accept the estimate in regard to their dis
tance from Japan.
" The land of the Wen-shin," it is said in the Annual Regis
ters of the Southern Dynasties,* "is distant from Japan in a
northeasterly direction about seven thousand Chinese miles," or
some twenty of our geographical degrees, a direction and dis
tance placing us in the midst of the group of the Aleutian
Islands. It is impossible to conceive how de Guignes can have
sought for these " Pictured-people " in Jesso, and imagined that
he found them there.
" The bodies of these people exhibit all kinds of figures, such
as those of animals and the like. They have three lines upon
the forehead ; the large and straight indicate the nobles, the
small and crooked the common people, of the nation."
It is well known that before their conversion to Christianity
the Aleuts not only tattooed different figures upon their bodies,
but they also bored through the cartilage of the nose and wore
a peg or pin stuck transversely through the opening, and upon
holidays hung glass beads upon this pin. The women in the
same way bored through the ear, all about the margin, and also
made incisions in the lower lip, in which they wore bone or stone
needles some two inches long.
7. TA-HAN", ALASKA. In the times of the Liang dynasty, in
the first half of the sixth century of our era, the Chinese heard of
a land which lay five thousand of their miles easterly from the
country of the " Pictured-people " of the Aleutian Islands, and
named it " Ta-han," or "Great China." The direction and the
distance lead us to the great Peninsula of Alaska. The country
was apparently named " Great China " because some account of
the great continent which stretched out beyond the peninsula
had reached the "Middle Kingdom." So, for the same.reasons,
according to the Sagas, the Irish who, in earlier centuries, dis
covered America long before the days of Columbus, named the
newly-discovered regions " Great Ireland." \
* Nan-sse i. e., " History of the Southern Dynasties," Book 79, p. 5. The
same article is also found in the Liang-shu, or " The Annual Registers of the
Liang Dynasty," Book 64, p. 19, and in Ma Tivan-lMs work, Book 327, p. 2.
f The Munich " Gel. Anzeiger," vol. viii, p. 636. This must have been the
country stretching from the two Carolinas to the southern point of Florida.
NEUMANN S MONOGRAPH. 93
We are informed that the people of Ta-han upon the whole
resembled the " Pictured-people " in their customs and usages.
"The two nations, however, spoke quite different languages.
The people of Ta-han carried no weapons and knew nothing of
war and strife."
Beyond Ta-han, the Chinese learned, at the close of the fifth
century of our era, of the existence of a land which the elder
de Guignes has already located in the northwestern part of the
American Continent. The conjecture of this sagacious and schol
arly man is in its main points well founded, but we are now in
a position to clearly determine the particular country of America
to which the Chinese account referred. The zealous investiga
tions concerning the perished civilization of the New World, and
the traces of it which still exist, have led to results of which the
investigators of the eighteenth century could have had no knowl
edge. We will now give, first, a complete and literal transla
tion of the Chinese account regarding the distant eastern land,
and follow it with an explanation, as far as practicable, of its
various statements.
8-11. THE KINGDOM OF FU-SANG AND ITS INHABITANTS.
[Here follows a translation of the Chinese account, which is
given in full elsewhere, and which it therefore will not be neces
sary to quote here.]
12. THE AMAZONS. The same Buddhist priest to whom we
owe the account of the land of Fu-sang tells also of a Kingdom
of Women. It lay about a thousand Chinese miles easterly from
Fu-sang, and was inhabited by white people with very hairy
bodies.* The whole account, however, contains so much that is
fabulous that it is not worth while to give it. It is none the
less remarkable, however, that, from the most ancient times, all
great civilized nations which have had written accounts that
have come down to us, speak of a kingdom of women which, the
farther that the northeastern portions of Asia became known
without finding any such kingdom, was always pushed back to a
greater distance, until finally these governing women were trans
planted into America. It is hardly necessary to say that such a
kingdom of women never existed. It is quite possible that here
* The account is found in the Nan-*se, Book 79, p. 6 ; IAang-riu, Book 54,
p. 49, and copied from these, but with many corrections, in the Encyclopaedia of
Ma Twan-lin, Book 327, et seq.
94: AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
and there the women of many different races had separate dwell
ing-places, or perhaps lived apart upon an island, where they from
time to time received visits from the men. The Arabs likewise
tell of such an arrangement ; * but they placed their country of
women in quite another part of the world. The knowledge of
the Arabians and Persians of the northern and northeastern re
gions of the earth extended only as far as Japan. East of Japan,
Abulfeda expressly declares, the earth was believed to be unin
habited.
13. Fu-SANG, THE WESTERN PORTION OF AMERICA, CALLED
MEXICO. What all these distant lands were called by their na
tive inhabitants we do not know, and, in fact, it is rarely that
the native names of foreign countries are known, even of those
which have been recently discovered. We only know that the
Chinese Buddhist missionaries gave to the country the name of
a tree which grew in great numbers both there and in Eastern
Asia,f or rather, perhaps, as seems probable, the new land was
covered with a plant similar to the Asiatic fu-sang, and to this
new plant the old name fu-sang was given, and this designation
was then applied to the country also, for it is one of the in
born dispositions of human nature to name a country after its
prominent productions which are rare elsewhere. So the Nor
mans, who discovered the northern coast of America, about five
hundred years after the era of these Buddhist priests, named
the country "Yinland," because of the great abundance of
wild grape-vines growing there. On account of the great dis
tance of Fu-sang, no more missionaries ever reached the country,
yet the Buddhists and the Chinese investigators interested in
antiquarian researches never allowed this land, which had been
once described with so many details, to be forgotten. Chinese
scholars have mentioned it frequently in their works, and have
even given it a place in their maps,J while the Buddhists, in
their uncritical, meditative way, never became weary of repeat
ing the old tales. The myth-loving geographers and poets also
availed themselves of this knowledge at a later period, and spun
the tale out in many fanciful ways, as was done by those of the
West in regard to Prester John. These strange and charming
* Edrisi, ii, p. 433, ed. Jaubert.
f Loureiro, "Flora Cochin-Chinensis," Berolini, 1793, ii, 510.
$ Fa-kiai-ngan-li-tu, \. e., " Sure Tables of Religion," i, 22.
NEUMANN S MONOGRAPH. 95
pictures of the imagination, regarding the tree and the land of
Fit-sang, will, in the eyes of the earnest investigator, cause no
more doubt of the truth of the historical portion of the accounts,
than the rich collections of popular stories regarding Alexander
the Great and Charlemagne cause regarding the historical works
of Arrian and Eginhard.
The distance of the land from Ta-han, or Alaska, which, ac
cording to the estimate already given, amounts to fifty-seven or
fifty-eight degrees, brings us to the northwestern coast of Mex
ico, or New Spain, in the region of San Bias or the neighbouring
districts. The other details of the Buddhist-Chinese account
also point to this region no less plainly, but before entering
upon an examination of the history of the Aztecs, it seems neces
sary to explain a difliculty which might otherwise destroy this
whole attempt to furnish proof as to the true situation of the
country.
14. THE OLDEST HISTORY OP AMERICA. The account of
this Buddhist, goes back to times far antedating all the tra
ditions and historical records of the Aztecs, dubious as these
are, from the fact that they rest only upon the uncertain inter
pretation of their hieroglyphic records. One fact, however, is
certain amidst these otherwise uncertain tales as to the early his
tory of America. The barbarian races of conquerors that fol
lowed one another in this region, always journeying from the
north to the south, murdered, drove away, and enslaved the ear
lier inhabitants, and, in the course of time, formed new civil
and political institutions, modified by their own peculiarities,
but modeled upon those of the destroyed kingdom, and these, in
turn, were in the course of a few centuries again shattered by
other barbarians. These later bands of conquerors can no more
be considered as the first colonists in the New World than the
first colonists of Europe can be thought to be the tribes which
conquered the German and other races in the Old World.
15. THE RUINS OP MITLA AND PALENQUE. The nameless
ruins which are designated by the names of the neighbouring
cities of Mitla and Palenque (the last-named city being situated
in the province of Tzendale, near the boundary-line between the
city of Ciudad Real and Yucatan) have been considered by en
thusiastic investigators to date back to a period several thousand
years before the Christian era. Enthusiasts have found here not
96 AN INGLOKIOUS COLUMBUS.
only the home of the most intellectual civilization of the New
World, but also the home of Buddhism.* The Toltecs a name
that means "Architects" appeared about the middle of the
seventh century. One of their literary productions, " The Divine
Book," had, according to an unconfirmed tradition, been pre
served up to the times of the Spaniards.f The Aztecs, on the
contrary, first came to Anahuac, or " the Land near the Water,"
during the reign of the Emperor Frederick II. J The savage
conquerors, as was the case with all races at the time of the great
migrations of the nations of Europe, were at first hostile to both
the existing religion and the native civilization. In the end,
however, when the necessity of having the state properly con
trolled was forced upon them, they could erect the new structure
only upon the existing ruins. This is as true in a figurative as
in a literal sense, and we can learn much of the condition of the
earlier races in this land by a consideration of the regulations,
customs, and usages of the Aztecs. The most learned historian
of New Spain, in harmony with the results of the most recent
researches, long ago recognized the original connection of the
numerous languages of Mexico, notwithstanding all their differ
ences in single points.*
The pyramidical, symbolical form of the wonderful monu
ments of ancient Mexico appears in truth to have some external
points of resemblance with the religious structures erected by
the Buddhists, and the pyramids of the old inhabitants of this
land served, like those of the Egyptians and Buddhists, as places
of interment ; but neither their architecture nor their ornamenta
tion, if we are to decide from the drawings of Mexican antiqui
ties, exhibit any East Indian symbol, unless their eight rings or
stories are considered as such. It is stated in a Buddhist legend
that the remains of Sakya, after his cremation, were collected in
eight metallic vessels and as many sacred buildings were erected
over these. || But if Buddhism ever reigned over Central Ameri-
" Antiquites Mexicaines," ii, p. 73 ; " Transactions of the American Anti
quarian Society," ii; Prescott, "History of the Conquest of Mexico," Paris, 1844,
"i, P- 253 - f Prescott, i, 67.
\ The chronological estimates of the different historians do not agree with
one another. Those of the learned Clavigero appear to be always the most reliable,
however. Prescott, i, 11.
* Clavigero, "Storia Antica del Messico," i, 153.
i "Asiatic Researches," xvi, 316.
NEUMANN S MONOGRAPH. 97
ca, it surely can not have been the pure religion of Sakya, as it
is found to-day in Nepal, Thibet, and other countries of Asia,
but only a form of a religious belief founded upon the funda
mental principles of this doctrine, and changed to adapt it to
the earlier belief of the people of the New World ; for the mis
sionaries of Sakya might be called Jesuits, from the fact that
they, in order to obtain an easier entrance for their religion and
its dogmas, either built them up upon the previous customs and
usages of the country or cunningly mixed the two together.
The myth of the birth of the terrible Aztec god of war is per
haps a faded remnant of the East Indian religion which may
once have bloomed here. Huitzilopochtli, like Sakya, was begot
ten in a wonderful way : his mother saw a ball of glittering
feathers floating in the air, placed it in her bosom, became preg
nant, and bore her terrible son, who, at the time of his birth, had
a spear in his right hand, a shield in his left, and a waving tuft
of green feathers upon his head.* Juan de Grijalva, the nephew
of Valasquez, was so astonished at the superior civilization of
the main continent as compared with the islands, and particu
larly at the regularity of the buildings, that he, upon this
account, in 1518, gave to the Peninsula of Yucatan the name
of "New Spain," a name which soon obtained a much wider
extension.f
16. FU-SANG, MAGUEY, AGAVE AMERICANA. It is known that
the flora of the northwestern regions of America is intimately
connected with that of China, Japan, and other lands in the east
ernmost region of the Orient. On this account it may be believed
that ihefu-sang tree was also found in America in earlier times,
and that from bad management it has since become extinct. The
tobacco-plant and Indian corn are in a similar way native both
to China and to the New World. J It appears much more prob
able, however, that the traveler, as has not unfrequently occurred
in other similar cases, when he saw in Mexico a new plant for
merly unknown to him, which was used there for many purposes
in a similar way to the uses made of t\iQfu-scung tree in Eastern
Asia, gave to it the name of the well-known Asiatic tree which
he thought to resemble it. The plant that I mean is the great
* Clavigero, ii, 19. f Prescott, i, 143.
\ Professor Neumann seems to have made this statement on insufficient au
thority. E. P. V.
7
98 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Mexican Aloe, the Agave Americana, called " Maguey " by the
natives, which, throwing up its pyramidical tuft of flowers
above the dark circle of its leaves, is found in such great abun
dance upon the plains of New Spain. From its crushed leaves
a firm paper is prepared, even up to the present time, as at the
time when the Aztec kingdom flourished, and the few hiero
glyphic manuscripts that have escaped the barbarity and fa
naticism of the Spaniards consist of this paper ; and of such
manuscripts the Buddhist missionary speaks. The flowing sap
is brewed into an intoxicating drink, which is still liked by the
people of the country. Its large, stiff leaves serve as firm roofs
for their low huts, and from the fibers are made all kinds of
thread, cordage, and rough cloth. When cooked, the roots form
a savoury species of food ; and the thorns are used as needles and
pins. This wonderful plant, therefore, offers not only food and
drink, but clothing and writing-materials, and, in fact, so satis
fies, to a certain degree, every want of the Mexicans, that many
who are acquainted with the land and its inhabitants are con
vinced that the maguey must be rooted out before the sloth and
indolence of the people evils which prevent them from reach
ing a higher culture and civilization can be checked.*
17. METALS AND MONEY. The use of iron, although it is
found so abundantly in New Spain, was, as our traveler has
justly observed, not known. Copper and bronze were then used
instead in this country, as they were formerly used in other
regions of the earth. According to the account of Antonio de
Herrera, two varieties of copper were prepared, one hard and
the other soft of which the first was used for hatchets, cutting-
instruments, and agricultural implements, and the other for
kettles and all kinds of household utensils. The inhabitants
also understood how to work silver, tin, and lead mines ; but
neither the silver nor the gold, which was found upon the sur
face of the earth or in the channels of the rivers, served as the
usual medium of exchange, and these metals were not especially
valued in the land. Pieces of tin, in the form of a hammer, and
packages of cacao containing a certain number of kernels, were
generally used as money. " Admirable money," exclaims Peter
Martyr, " which checks avarice ; since it can neither be long
kept nor safely buried." f
* Prescott, i, 63, 87. f Prescott, i, 92.
NEUMANN S MONOGRAPH. 99
18. LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF THE AZTECS. The laws of the
Aztecs were very strict ; but in the few fragments of them which
are contained in the hieroglyphic pictures that we have, we
find no trace of the regulations described as existing in the
land of Fu-sang. An hereditary nobility stood, however, at the
side of Montezuma, divided into several different ranks, con
cerning which the historians give contradictory accounts. Zu-
rita speaks of four ranks of chiefs, who paid no tribute and who
enjoyed other privileges. * . The customs of courtship and mar
riage resembled those which exist to-day in Kamtchatka. We
have no knowledge of the mourning ceremonies of the Aztecs,
except that their kings had particular palaces in which they
passed the time of mourning for their nearest relatives, f At the
festivities in honour of the gods, drums and trumpets were
sounded ; and this may also have been done by the attendants
of the king as to the representative of the divinity. J
The Aztecs reckoned time by a cycle of fifty-two years, and,
as is well known, knew very accurately the time of the revolu
tion of the earth about the sun. The ten-year cycle mentioned
in the Chinese account may have been a subdivision of that of
fifty-two years, or else may have been used as an independent
method of reckoning time, as is the case with the ten-year cycle
of the Chinese, who call the signs of the different years " stems."
It is remarkable that the Mongolians and Mantchoos designate
these " stems " by words indicating different colours, which fact
may possibly have some connection with the change of colour in
the garments of the prince of Fii-sang in the different years of
the cycle. * Among the Tartarian tribes the first two years of
the ten are called green and greenish, the next two red and
reddish, the two following yellow and yellowish, the next two
white and whitish, and, finally, the last two black and blackish.
It appears impossible, however, to bring this cycle of the Aztecs
into any connection with those of the Asiatic tribes, who usually
reckon time by periods of sixty years.
19. DOMESTIC ANIMALS. The Aztecs have no draught ani
mals or beasts of burden, and it is well known that horses were
not found in any part of the New World, and the account of
* Prescott, i, 18. t Mithridates, iii, 3-33.
J Bernal Diaz, " Hist, de la Conquista," pp. 152, 153 ; Prescott, iii, 87, 97.
* Gaubil, " Observations Mathematiques," Paris, 1732, ii, 135.
100 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
the Chinese traveler certainly is not applicable to the later
Mexican monarchies. Two species of oxen with large horns
ranged in herds in the plains of the Rio del Norte before the
arrival of the Spaniards.* These may have been tamed by the
earlier inhabitants and used as domestic animals. Stags horns
have also been found in the ruins of Mexican buildings, and
Montezuma showed the Spaniards enormous horns as curiosities.f
It is possible that in earlier times stags ranged farther south than
at present and that their range extended from Upper California
and other regions of North America, in which they are still
found in large herds, as far as to the regions of Central America.
An inhabitant of China would naturally think it very strange
to see butter made from the milk of the hinds, as milk is
rarely used in China even up to the present day. When the
inhabitants of Chu-san saw that the English sailors milked
goats, even grave, elderly men could not restrain their laughter
at the sight. Moreover, the Chinese traveler may have used the
character " ma " (or " horse ") to designate some animal resem
bling a horse ; for changes of this kind frequently occur in simi
lar accounts. In the same way the names of many animals of
the Old World have been applied to similar animals in the New
World which belong to quite different species. The eastern
limits of the Asiatic Continent are also the limits of the native
country of the horse ; and it furthermore appears that this ani
mal was first introduced into Japan from Corea in the third cen
tury of our era.J But no matter from what source the error in
regard to American horses may have come, the unprejudiced
and circumspect inquirer will not be induced merely upon this
account to declare the whole story regarding Fusang-Mexico to
be an idle tale. It appears to me that this description of the
countries upon the western coast of America, in the Annual
Register of the Chinese Empire, is at least as credible as the
account contained in the Icelandic Sagas of the discovery of the
eastern shores of the New World.
20. CHINESE AND JAPANESE IN THE HAWAIIAN GROUP AND IN
* Humboldt, " Neu-Spanien," iii, 138.
f Humboldt, " Neu-Spanicn," ii, 243.
$ Nippon-lei -I e., " Annual Registers of the Kingdom of Japan." In the
entry for the year 284 it is said : " In this year norses were brought from Corea " ;
but it is not especially stated that they were the first in Japan.
NEUMANN S MONOGRAPH. 101
NORTHWESTERN AMERICA. In support of the theory of an early
communication of China and Japan with the islands between
Asia and America and with the western coast of this division of
the earth, even though such communication may have been only
accidental, a number of facts of modern date may be adduced.
Even if the Chinese and the Japanese, who, by virtue of their
knowledge of the compass since the earliest date of their his
tory, would find such a voyage not to be particularly difficult,
never intentionally undertook any voyages by sea to America,
yet it may have happened, as it still happens, that ships from
Eastern Asia, China, and Japan, as well as those of Russians
from Ochotsk and Kamtchatka,* were thrown upon the islands
and coast of the New World. The earliest Spanish travelers
and explorers heard of foreign merchants who had landed upon
the northwestern coast of America, and even claimed to have
seen fragments of a Chinese ship, f We also know that the
crew of a Japanese junk accidentally discovered a great conti
nent in the East, wintered there, and then safely returned home.
The Japanese stated that the land extended farther to the north
west.! They may have passed the winter in the neighbourhood
of California, and have discovered the coast farther north, to
gether with the Peninsula of Alaska.
A Japanese ship was wrecked, about the end of the year 1832,
upon Oahu, one of the Sandwich Islands, of which the Hawaiian
" Spectator " contained the following detailed account : " This
Japanese ship had nine men on board, who were carrying fish
to Jeddo from one of the southerly islands of the * Eastern King
dom. A storm drove them into the open sea, where they drifted
about for ten or eleven months, until they finally (in December,
1832) landed in the port of Waiala, upon the island of Oahu.
The ship sank, but the men were saved and brought to Hono
lulu, where they remained for eighteen months, and then, in
accordance with their own desires, sailed for Kamtchatka, hop
ing to be able to slip quietly from this country into their native
land. * For the terribly barbarous government of Japan, remem-
* An account of a Russian ship which was driven upon the coast of California
in 1761 may be found in the "Travels of Several Missionaries of the Society of
Jesus in America," Nuremberg, 1785, p. 337.
f Torquemada, u Mon. Ind.," iii, 7 ; Acosta, "Hist. Nat. Amer.," iii, 12.
\ Kaempfer, " Gcschichte von Japan," Lemgo, 1777, i, 82.
102 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
berino- even to this day the evil artifices of the Portuguese Jesuits,
and fearing the secret plots of the neighbouring Russians, prohib
ited even its own unfortunate shipwrecked subjects from re
turning to their native land. " When the people of Hawaii," so
continues the " Spectator," " saw these foreigners so closely re
sembling them in external form and in many customs and
usages, they were much astonished, and unanimously declared,
* There can l>e no farther room for doubt. We came from
Asia. " *
Another instance of a Japanese ship in America and of the
former inconsiderate iron policy of the Japanese government is
as follows : During the winter of 1833- 34 a junk from Japan
suffered shipwreck upon the northwest coast of America in the
neighbourhood of Queen Charlotte s Island. The numerous
members of the crew, weakened by hunger, were, with the ex
ception of two persons, murdered by the natives. The Hudson s
Bay Company took charge of these unfortunate beings, and in
1834 sent them to England, from which country they were sent
on to Macao. This was considered as a fortunate occurrence, as
it was hoped that the government at Jeddo would show some
gratitude for this humane treatment of its subjects, and possibly
give up its policy of prohibiting the entry of foreigners into the
kingdom. The ship which it was intended should restore these
subjects to the rulers of the "Eastern Kingdom," and at the
same time extend the doctrines of the Christian religion to Japan
(for Carl Guetzlaff was on board), was received with cannon-
balls, and compelled to leave the coast of the inhospitable land,
with its intended good work unperformed.
All these different facts sufficiently prove that a voyage to
America and the neighbouring islands, on the part of some of
the people who shared in the Chinese civilization, can not have
been a very infrequent occurrence. And, upon the other side,
the inhabitants of these islands may, in their frail canoes, have
accidentally or intentionally landed from time to time upon the
Asiatic Continent. " It is wonderful," says the Jesuit Hierony-
mus d Angelis, who in 1680 was the first European to visit
* " Hawaiian Spectator," i, 296, quoted in Belcher s " Voyage Round the
World," London, 1843, i, 304; Jarvis s "History of the Sandwich Islands," Lon
don, 1843, 27. According to a tradition of the people of the islands, several such
ships had been wrecked upon Hawaii before the arrival of the whites.
NEUMANN S MONOGRAPH. 103
Jesso,* " how bold these people are, and how expert in naviga
tion. In their defective boats they undertake voyages occupy
ing from two to three months, and, however many may perish
at sea, new adventurers are always found to undertake the same
bold risks/
Since the opening of Japan to other nations and its entrance
into the affairs of the world, the state of facts outlined above is
of course entirely changed. Voyages from Eastern Asia to
Western America and back are now of common, almost of daily,
occurrence. The large Japanese Embassy, which came to Wash
ington by the way of the Hawaiian Islands and California in
1860, is fully described in my " History of Eastern Asia," and
is still held in fresh remembrance, f
* P. Dan Bartolli, " Dell 1 Historia della Compagnia di Giesu," Rome, 1640, T,
71. D Angelis himself designed a map of Jesso.
f " Ost-Asiatische Geschichte, Tom Ersten Chinesischen Krieg bis ru den Ver-
tragen zu Peking " (1840-1860), yon Karl Friedrich Neumann, Leipzig, 1861,
335 pp.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ARGUMENTS OF MM. PEREZ AND GODRON.
Knowledge of America possessed by the Chinese The Country of Women Other
travelers relate incredible stories Klaproth s argument The account con
tained in the Japanese Encyclopaedia Note denying that Fu-sang is Japan
Weakness of Klaproth s argument Identity of names of cities in Asia and
America American languages Resemblance of the Tartars to the Abo
rigines of America Similitude of customs A Buddhist mission to America
in the fifth century The Chinese able to measure distances, and possessed of
the compass The musk-oxen and bisons of America Horses Names of
European animals misapplied to American animals The " horse-deer " of
America Vines The difficulty in identifying the fu-sang tree Iron and
copper in America and Japan.
Memoir upon the Relations of the Americans in Former Times
with the Nations of Europe, Asia, and Africa Section en
titled, "Knowledge possessed by the Chinese in the Fourth
Century of our Era" by M. Jose Perez, D. M. m *
THE question as to whether or not the people of Eastern
Asia, at the time above named, had any communication with the
natives of any part of America, appears to be worthy of the
careful investigation of scholars. An unexpected discovery has
thrown light upon this subject ; and, following the authority of
some writers and the criticisms of others, it appears evident that
the New World was known in former times to the Chinese and
Japanese. Before engaging in a discussion regarding the authors
who have thought that the country of Fu-sang should be iden
tified with America, it is indispensable to place the steps of the
process by which their conclusion was reached under the eyes
of the reader, without taking part in the perversion of facts for
the benefit of any theory whatever, as has unfortunately been
done to the injury of the solution of the problem which now
occupies us.
THE ARGUMENT OF M. PEREZ. 105
It was in 1761 that de Guignes published his justly cele
brated memoir, in which, after identifying several nations of the
extreme East, mentioned by the Chinese accounts, and particu
larly that of Ta-han, which he placed, with reason, in the most
eastern part of Siberia, this learned Sinologue made known to
the astonished scientific world the Chinese descriptions of the
famous country of Fu-sang, in which he recognized a part of
North America. This continent, say the writers of the Celestial
Empire, is situated twenty thousand li to the east of the country
of Ta-han. The king bears the title of Y-chi, and the chiefs of
the nation beneath him are the great and petty Tui-lu and the
Na-to-sha. "The historian from whom Ma Twan-lin copies
this account," says de Guignes, " adds that the Chinese had no
knowledge of the country of Fa-sang before the year 458, and
to the present time I have seen no other than these two writers
who give any extended account of it. Some authors of diction
aries who mention it, merely say that it is situated in the region
where the sun rises." The situation of I\i-sang, clearly described
in the accounts, and the great distance which separates it from
China, to the east of which country it lies a distance stated in
precise terms by the Chinese geographers appear to positively
prove that this country can not be contained in Asia, even within
its utmost bounds. Moreover, the Chinese historians, as de
Guignes has remarked, also speak of another country a thousand
li farther east than Fu-sang, a country called " the Kingdom of
Women." The account which is given of it is, it is true, full of
fables ; but that merely proves that this last country marked one
of the extreme limits of their geographical knowledge, and that
it was a land of which they had but very imperfect accounts,
analogous to those which the travelers of the Middle Ages gave
regarding the eastern countries which they reached. Does not
even Marco Polo himself, whose intellectual superiority and the
value of whose geographical statements it is now the fashion to
exaggerate beyond all reason, relate to us the most incredible
stories regarding countries in which he lived ? . . .
The Chinese account of " the Kingdom of Women " is written
with no less intelligence and sincerity than the European works
of the Middle Ages of which we have spoken, and that which
appears to us to be fabulous might well seem true if it were better
explained. It is evident that the author did not intend to say
100 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
i -M
that it was the river of this country which caused the women s
pregnancy, but merely that the baths taken in its waters were
favourable to them when in that condition, which is moreover
proved by the following phrase, where it is said that they gave
birth to their young four months after having taken these baths ;
and as for the white locks which they had at the back of the
head, by which they nursed their children, the account is ex
plained very easily by a custom, common in India and elsewhere,
by which the women nurse their children over their shoulders.
Finally, de Guignes mentions, as an additional proof in support
of his theory, the shipwreck in 507 A. D. of a Chinese vessel
upon the shores of an unknown island situated at a great dis
tance in the Pacific Ocean. The women of this country resem
bled those of China, and the men made themselves understood
by barking, undoubtedly like the noise made by the Tse^as
in Louisiana in the presence of their king, in order to do him
honour.
From all these facts it appeared indisputable to the learned
Sinologue that the Chinese had penetrated very far into the Pa
cific Ocean, if they had not traveled over it, and that they had
sufficient boldness to go to California in the year 458 A. D. . . .
Klaproth, the famous Orientalist, having much learning, but
even more envy, did not wish that any one should have greater
credit than himself for Chinese scholarship, and thought it pos
sible to plunge de Guignes s celebrated discovery into forget-
fulness by stuffing it into a mattress of paradoxes quite filled
with wonderful statements. ... As to the great distance which
exists, according to the shaman s account, between this unknown
country and China, Klaproth takes a lesson from the trick of
decipherers who fail either to understand an entire inscription or
some of its words : he finds errors in the original document.
" The distances named in the accounts," says he, " much ex
ceed the truth " (that is to say, the hypothesis of the Prussian
Sinologue), " and the Chinese had no means of determining the
length of their cruises at sea." Finally, to make it impossible
to identify Fa-sang with any part of America, Klaproth con
ceives the ruse of finding a place upon the map for the country
of Wen-shin. After having consigned these unfortunate " Tat
tooed Men " to the island of Jesso, he writes, quite satisfied with
himself : " The identity of Ta-han and the island of Tarakai,
THE ARGUMENT OF M. PEREZ. 1Q7
once demonstrated, prevents all further search for the country
of Fu-sang in America." Then, viewing his fanciful argument
more and more complacently, he adds : " We must, therefore,
reject the entire tale as to Fu-sang as fabulous, or else find a
means of reconciling it with the truth. This may be found by
supposing the indication of the direction as toward the east to
be incorrect. We may, therefore, presume that one goes directly
east in order to pass the Strait of Perouse in skirting the north
ern coast of Jesso, but that upon arriving at the eastern point of
this island the course turns to the south and leads us to the
southeastern part of Japan, which was the country called Fu-
sang. It was, in fact, one of the ancient names of this empire."
We will soon consider the attention that should be given to all
this arguing, but will now return to the original source from
which proceeds all the information given to us regarding the
country in which we are interested. Several accounts of Fu-
sang are in existence, but they are evidently derived one from
another, and all have a common origin. Our limits do not per
mit us to reproduce those which have been successively trans
lated by de Guignes and Klaproth, but we will give here the
account of this country which is contained in the large and cele
brated Japanese Encyclopaedia, entitled Wci-kan-san-sai-dzou-ye
(vol. xiv), which M. de Rosny has kindly translated from the
original expressly for our work. This notice is merely an abridg
ment of the accounts formerly mentioned, but it possesses the
inestimable advantage over the latter, of making known to us
the clearly expressed opinion of the Japanese editor upon this
question. As it is with Japan that Klaproth identifies the coun
try of Fu-sang, this opinion can not fail to be of great weight in
the balance. The following is the translation of this notice :
Fou-s6 (in Chinese, Fu-sang). The Encyclopaedia, entitled
San-sai-dzou-ye, says :
" The country of Fou-so is situated at the east of the coun
try of Tai-kan. According to the authority of the work en
titled Foung-tien, Fou-so is distant from the country of Tai-kan
in an easterly direction about 20,000 li. It is placed to the east
of the < Middle Kingdom (China). Many trees, called fou-s6-
mok (Hibiscus rosa Sinensis), are found there.* Their leaves
* In Japanese, " Sono-tsontsi-ni fou-so-mok ohosi." " In hanc terram fou-s6
(sic vocitatae) arbores multae sunt."
108 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
are similar to those of the to-tree ; when they are young they
are like bamboo-sprouts, and the natives eat them. Their fruits
are like pears, and are of a red colour. The fiber of the bark is
drawn out to make cloth from which clothing is made. Planks
made from the tree are employed to build their houses.
"In this country there are no cities. The natives have a
method of writing, and they make clothing (sic) from the bark
of the fou-so tree. They have no offensive weapons or defen
sive armour, and do not wage wars.
" They give to their king the name of UTi/ci-zin, that is to
say, the most honourable man. When the latter walks abroad
he is accompanied with drums and trumpets. At different peri
ods of the year he changes the colour of his garments. In the
cyclic years kia and i they are blue ; in the years ping and ting
they are red, etc.
"The natives raise deer, as cattle are raised, and prepare
creamy dishes from the milk of the animals.
" In this country there is no iron, but there is copper. Gold
and silver are not valued. In the markets no duties are levied.
The rules for the observance of the marriage-ceremony are in
general the same as those of the l Middle Kingdom (China). In
the second year of the period, called ta-ming (or great light ),
the year 458 of our era, under the reign of the emperor Hiao
Wu-ti* of the Sung dynasty, five bhikshus (mendicant priests) of
the country of Ki-pin^ in their travels reached Fou-s6, and com
menced to propagate Buddhism there." The editor of the Wa-
Jcan-san-sai-dzou- ye adds the following comment :
" NOTE. It is not now certainly known what to think re
garding the country of FOU-SO, which is said to be to the east of
China and also to the east of the country of Tai-kan. It is
therefore uncertain whether the country to which the bonzes of
the country of Ki-pin went, carrying the doctrine of Buddha,
is situated to the north or to the east of Japan. In any case,
it is wrong to think that the account refers to Japan, and the
statement that Fou-s6 may be another name of Japan is incor
rect." The Japanese author adds in a note : " Ki-pin is one
of the western countries (Si-yu). It is San-ma-cell-han" (Sa-
marcand).
* This prince of the Pch Sung, or Northern Sung dynasty, reigned from 454 to
465 A. D. The period ta-ming is comprised between the years 457 and 464.
THE ARGUMENT OF M. PEREZ. 1Q9
To this account, and as before to serve as the foundation
of our argument, we will add the translation which M. de
Rosny has also kindly made for us of the notices of the great
Japanese Encyclopaedia of the countries of Boun-zin and Tai-
kan.
BOUN-ZIN (in Chinese, Wen-shin). The Encyclopedia, en
titled San-sai-dzou-ye, says : " The productions of the country of
Boun-zin (Men with Tattooed Bodies) are of very little value.
In the inns no food is found. The dwelling of the king is orna
mented with gold and gems. In the markets, traffic is carried
on by means of precious objects."
TAI-KAN (in Chinese, Ta-hari). The Encyclopaedia, entitled
San-sai-dzou-ye, says : " In the country of Tai-kan there are
no armies, and war is not waged. The people are similar to
those of Boun-zin (the Men with Tattooed Bodies), but their
language is different.
" Some people say that the country of Tai-kan is situated to
the east of the country of Boun-zin^ at a distance of about five
thousand li"
Having laid these documents before our readers, we will now
attempt to discuss the arguments that have been urged against
the identification of the country of Fu-sang^ or Fou-so, with
America. First of all, we find, in the account translated by M.
de Rosny, a passage which completely annihilates the hypothesis,
otherwise so gratuitous as we see, of the Prussian scholar, ac
cording to which Fu-sang was one of the names of Japan. " In
any case," says the Japanese author of the great Encyclopae
dia, " it is wrong to think that the account refers to Japan, and
the statement that Fou-sd (or Fu-sang) may be another name of
Japan is incorrect." I will add that, after the statement of such
an authority, it hardly seems necessary to further refute the im
aginary system invented by Klaproth to compensate for the pov
erty of his cause, since M. de Rosny has been unable to find in
any of the Japanese-Chinese dictionaries of his excellent col
lection anything which can justify the statement made by the
German scholar, that Fu-sang is another name for Japan. Then,
if we admit that Fu-sang is the same as Japan, it is necessary to
find between this last country and China another country, Ta-
han, inhabited by savages with tattooed bodies and so slightly
advanced in knowledge as not to have arms of any nature
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
which is expressly contradicted by our historical and geographi
cal knowledge.
It is also necessary to find to the east of Japan, and not
in America, another country, Niu-jin-Tcwoh, which one of the
most famous Chinese works, the Peu-tsao-kang-mouh, places to
the east of the country of Fa-sang, which is again impossible.
Then it is necessary to admit, as Klaproth wishes, that the author
of the description of Fa-sang must have been deceived as to the
distance of twenty thousand li which separated this remote coun
try from the lands known at this time ; as also that he must have
been mistaken when he said that Buddhism had been introduced
there in the year 458 A. D., since it did not reach Japan until a
century later ; he must also have been mistaken in his mention
of the tree which gave its name to Fa-sang, for, according to
Klaproth, "there is some error in the Chinese account, which
confounds the hibiscus (or the rose of China) with the paper-
mulberry, or Morus papyrifera" etc., etc.
Once admitting that in the place of the hypothesis, at least very
probable at first sight, so skillfully presented by M. de Guignes,
another hypothesis absolutely inadmissible is proposed to us, let
us consider the weight that should be given the objections of
Klaproth against the identification of Fa-sang with America.
We have seen that Klaproth thought that he had found a
serious objection in the grapes which the Chinese voyagers
found in Fa-sang but this objection can not now be admitted.
By a singular oversight he forgets that the forests of North
America abound in wild vines of several species, and that the
Scandinavians had placed Vin-land, or the " Land of Wine," in
its northeastern part ; he thinks that Fa-sang may have been
Japan, where, he says, the vine has existed from times imme
morial, although the Chinese did not introduce it from Western
Asia until the year 126 before our era.
In addition to all that precedes, a multitude of petty particu
lars are also presented, which, by their significant number, suffice
to convince the most unwilling that America must have received
colonies from Asia. We will mention only a few of these par
ticulars, reserving the others to communicate hereafter to those
who are not persuaded that to discuss the matter further is but
to labour at demolishing open gates. We not only find in Amer
ica the grand distinctive traits of the nations of the extreme
THE ARGUMENT OF M. PEREZ.
Orient, but we see that at some remote epoch the Asiatics had
given to the cities of the New World the same names as the
cities of their mother country, as the Europeans did when they
gave to the western cities of the New World the names of New
York, New Orleans, New Brunswick (sic), etc. So the name
of the famous Japanese city of Ohosaka, to the west of the Pa
cific, has become Oaxaca, in Mexico, upon its eastern side. For
merly there were the same names of nations or of tribes, which
we find with the most striking resemblance upon the two sides
of the Pacific, as, for example, the Chan, a tribe living in the
neighbourhood of Palenque, of which the name signifies " Ser
pent." * The identical name being found again in Indo-China,f
in the country of the Nagas, " Serpents." Nachan, " the City of
the Serpents," in America, corresponds with the Cambodian
Nakhorchan " the City of Serpents." It is sufficient to add that,
in glancing over an old map of Mexico, the geographical names
of several different provinces are found, and among them names
which betray a Chinese origin at first sight, such as Mi-choa-kan,
Ko-li-man, Te-koua-na-pan, etc. The name which the Otomis
give to their language, " Hiang-hioung," is not less convincing,
and it is known that these Indians are included among the oldest
populations of Central America. Grammatical affinities, not less
remarkable, are established between different idioms of the Old
and the New World. In several languages, both of Greenland
and of Brazil, a special form of negative conjugation is found ;
and in the Moska and the Arawack the negation is interposed
between the root of the verb and its terminations, as is the case
in the Turkish and the other Tartarian dialects. In Guarani, in
Chiquito, and in Quichua, as in Tagala and Mantchoo, there
exists a pronoun of the first person plural, excluding those who
are addressed, and another which includes these last. The con
jugation of the languages of the plateau of Anahuac recalls in
most of its details the conjugations of the Basque and the Hun
garian verbs.
The type of the different Indian nations is astonishingly
similar to the Mongolian type. M. Ledyard, who has had the
advantage of studying the American race in the countries in
* See the Abbe Brasscur de Bourbourg s " Popol Vuh," p. civ.
f See the notice of these nations given by Yule, "Narrative of the Mission
sent to the Court of Ava in 1855."
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
which its members live, and who has also undertaken ethno
graphic researches in Siberia, was so much struck with this truth
that he wrote to Jefferson : " I shall never be able to inform you
how closely the Tartars resemble the aborigines of America, both
in a general way and circumstantially." * At the south the
Chiriquanos, a Peruvian tribe, present analogies not less strik
ing. " If I should see these Indians in Europe," said M. Temple,
in speaking of them, " with their coppery tint approaching sal-
lowness, with their long hair brilliantly black, and with their
lack of beard, I should assuredly take them for Chinese, such is
the close resemblance between these nations in their traits." f
Another traveler, John Bell, said there were no other tribes in
the world which had so striking a resemblance to one another as
that of the natives of Canada to the Tunguses.J Alex, von Hum-
boldt goes much further. He mentions a monument discovered
in Canada, nine hundred leagues from Montreal, upon which was
found an inscription in Tartarian characters.*
Similitude of customs, which may be supposed the result of
chance, but which may rather be the effect of another cause, are
not less striking. The form of the teo-calU y " the house of the
divinity," among the Mexicans, singularly resembles that of the
pagodas with steeples, of Barmany and of Siam ; and the relig
ious ceremonies which were practiced there are not less analogous
to the Brahmanic ceremonies than the figure of the Mexican god,
Quetzalcoatl, is to that of the Indian Buddha. In closing this part
of my memoir, I shall be contented to remind my readers of
the fact that numerous scholars have called attention to resem
blances between America and Asia, in the customs and institu
tions of the nations of the two continents, which an intelligent
critic can not mistake for those which are merely the effect of
chance.
Those who are interested in these questions may consult with
profit the writings of Garcia, Hugo, Grotius, Fischer, Acosta,
Brerewood, and Pennant, as well as many other erudite works bet
ter known, which it is therefore less necessary to mention here.
* Sparks s " Life of Ledyard," p. 66.
f Temple, "Travels in Peru," vol. ii, p. 184.
\ "Travels to Various Parts of Asia," 1T88, vol. i, p. 280. See also the
" Transactions of the American Ethnological Society," vol. i, 1845, p. 175.
* " Tableaux de la Nature," vol. i.
THE ARGUMENT OF M. GODRON.
A Buddhist Mission to America in the Fifth Century of the
Christian Era by Dr. A. Godron, President of the Acad
emy of Sciences o
THE Europeans were certainly not the first navigators who
landed upon the American Continent after the commencement
of the Christian era. Before the voyage of Columbus to the
New World, before the visits of the Basques to Newfoundland,
even before the times, between the ninth and fourteenth centu
ries, when the Norwegians undertook their bold excursions to
America and established settlements there, the Asiatics certainly
had knowledge of this immense continent.
It is not my intention to discuss in this article all the proofs
which might be presented in support of this statement to these
I will return hereafter ; but for the present I propose to examine
only the account of a visit of Buddhist missionaries to America,
which was made in the fifth century of the Christian era.
[Here follows a resume of the statements and arguments of
previous writers upon the subject. M. Godron continues :]
As to the point raised by M. Klaproth, that the Chinese did
not possess means of measuring the distances of their journeys
accurately and of determining their direction, it may be ob
served that we possess a document which disproves this asser
tion, and which is the more curious from the fact that it came
from Klaproth himself. It proves that the Chinese, even in the
times of remote antiquity, were no novices in the art of measur
ing distances and fixing their direction. Reference is made to
a letter upon the invention of the compass, which he addressed
to von Humboldt, and of which this celebrated traveler pub
lished extracts.*
Speaking of the voyages from China to India by the way of
the Bolor, which he had been discussing, Klaproth states that
the accounts of these journeys are worthy of the more confidence
from the fact that the compass had long been employed by the
Chinese. He adds that Sse-ma-tscian, a Chinese historian who
lived at the time of the destruction of the Bactrian Empire
by Mithradates, gives the following account : " The Emperor
TV-ing-wang, 1,110 years before the Christian era, gave a pres-
* Alex, von Humboldt, " Asie Centrale." Paris, 1843, in 8vo ; vol. i, Intro
duction, p. 40.
H4: AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
ent to the embassadors of Tong-Hng and Cochin-China. Tbey
feared tbat they would not be able to retrace the way back
to their country, and the emperor therefore gave them five
magnetic chariots which pointed to the south by means of the
movable arm of a small figure covered with a feather-robe."
Adding to these chariots an odometer, that is to say, a mechan
ism by which another small figure strikes a blow upon a drum
or bell each time that the chariot has passed over the distance of
a Chinese li, we then have an indication of the direction of the
road, and a means of measuring the distance passed over. " In
the third century of our era," adds Klaproth, " the Chinese ships
were steered upon the Indian Ocean according to the indications
of a magnetic needle. In order to avoid friction, and to give a
freer movement to the needle, it has been supposed that they al
lowed it to float upon water. This was the aquatic compass of
the Chinese and the magnetic fish of the ancient Indian pilots."
We, therefore, see that Klaproth was perfectly well informed
upon the subject, and may well feel surprised at his remarks in
regard to the voyages to Mi-sang. If the scientific honesty of
a scholar of his rank were not sheltered from all criticism, it
might readily be believed that he was forced to mislead the
Chinese navigators in order to prevent their arrival in America,
and to compel them to land in Japan.
But this consideration did not limit the criticisms which the
scholarly Prussian Orientalist made regarding the theories of de
Guignes. He picks to pieces the description which the Bud
dhist monk Hoei Shin gives of the country of Fu-sang. He finds
a new source of objection in the nomenclature of the animals
and vegetation described as existing in this country. Accord
ing to him, cattle and horses did not exist in America until they
were imported by the Spaniards. The vine and wheat were un
known before the conquest. He, therefore, arrives at the con
clusion that the description of Fu-sang is not applicable to
America. These new difficulties are not more serious than those
which have preceded.
No zoologist denies that two species of cattle were found
native in North America. One of these is the musk-ox (Bos
moschatos), which goes in small herds of twenty to thirty in
dividuals in the frigid regions which border upon the Arctic
circle, between the 60th and 73d degrees of north latitude,
THE ARGUMENT OF M. GODRON.
and which can not be referred to here. The other is the bison
(Bos Americanus), which goes in herds that are often ex
tremely numerous, which are found -in the temperate regions
of North America, and which in winter migrate farther south.
These cattle were certainly found in the region which the Chi
nese of the fifth century knew by the name of Fu-sang, and
which must correspond to New California. They also existed
in abundance in the sixteenth century in the kingdom of Cibola
and the country of Quivera. The first Spanish conquerors who
penetrated into this country called them vaccas, and these ani
mals were a precious and abundant resource for them.
One of these " conquistador es" P. de Castaneda de Nogera, de
scribed them in a manner which it is impossible to misunderstand.*
According to Gomara, there existed at the same time, in the
northwestern part of Mexico, a population whose principal wealth
consisted in domestic bisons.f
It is perfectly true that horses were imported into America
from Europe. If the Buddhist monks stated that they were
found in Fu-sang, it must have been because of the natural tend
ency of a man who arrives in a new country to assimilate the
animals which he finds there to those which he has seen in his
native land, and many examples of this tendency might easily be
cited. To confine ourselves to America, it is known that the in
vaders of the New World applied the names of European animals
to the animals found in America, being guided by the general
resemblance, which was often very remote, in the selection of
the particular name. Thus, they called the llamas "big sheep,"
because they were covered with wool ; the peccaries they called
"hogs," remarking, it is true, that they were smaller than our
hogs. Turkeys were in their eyes " hens," which were larger
than those of Spain. The Buddhist missionaries might have
even found sheep in the country of Fu-sang, if they had pene
trated farther into the mountains.
P. de Castaneda de Nogera saw animals near Chichilticale,
to which he applied this name.t He referred to a species of
* P. de Castaneda de Nogera, "Relation du Voyage de Cibola entrepres en
1540," in the collection of Ternaux-Compans. Paris, in 8vo ; vol. is (18
p. 237.
f Gomara, " Historia General de las Indias." Medina, 1558, in 8vo, chap, cc
See his work cited above, p. 54.
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
mountain-goat, the Musimon montanus, which is found in these
regions up to the present day.
But what zoological type existed upon the western coast of
North America to which the Buddhist missionaries gave the
name of the horse ? Was it not the same species of which the
Spaniards, during their expeditions into the same country, saw
such numerous individuals, which they called horse-deer ; animals
remarkable for their great height, and bearing large and branch
ing antlers ? * This appears extremely probable. These Spanish
adventurers were no more naturalists than the Buddhist monks
of whom we have spoken. The name was undoubtedly applied
to the elk, because it stands as high as a horse, and the female
is without horns. Even the males shed their horns every year,
and, when without these ornaments, they may easily have been
mistaken at a distance for horses. Moreover, the Spaniards
made a broad distinction between these " horse-deer " and the
common deer which they shot in the same part of America.
Several species of vines are indigenous to North America,
and they grow in a wild state. The Norwegians, in the year
1000, when exploring the eastern coast of the continent near the
forty-first degree, north latitude, gave the name of Yinland to
the country for this reason, f But this does not suffice to prove
that this plant existed also upon the western coast fifty-two de
grees of longitude farther west.
But the Spaniards observed vines in 1540 in the country of
Cibola and Quivera, notably among the Teyas and the Querechos.
They found the grapes of an agreeable flavor, and ate both them
and red plums. J
It is therefore no occasion for astonishment to learn that the
Buddhist missionaries saw vines in the country of Fa-sang.
The Spanish conquerors also found a cereal abundantly culti
vated by the natives in the same part of North America, and in
several of their accounts they give it the name of "wheat"
* L. Cabiera de Cordove, " Histoire de Phillippe II, Roi d Espagne," in the col
lection of Ternaux-Compans, vol. x, p. 444.
f C. Christ. Rafn, " Metnoire sur la Decouverte de PAmerique au x e Siecle."
Copenhagen, 1845, in 4to, p. 13.
f P. de Castaneda de Nogera, in the work cited, vol. ix, pp. 125 and 278.
Juan Jaranello, " Relation du Voyage fait a la Nouvelle Terre par Vasquez de
Coronado," in the collection of Ternaux-Compans, vol. ix, p. 378.
THE ARGUMENT OF M. GODRON.
(trigo), and in others it is designated by the name of maize,
which has been preserved for it. Need we wonder that the Bud
dhist monks should have availed themselves of the name appli
cable to wheat to designate this precious cereal ? Do not the
French peasants even now call it Turkish wheat, or Roman
wheat?*
But what is that tree which is covered with red, pear-shaped
fruit, and which furnishes the natives with the raw material from
which their cloth is made ? Some authors have thought this to be
the Hibiscus rosa Sinensis ; others, the Broussonetia papyrifera.
We can not admit either of these views to be correct. The Hi
biscus rosa Sinensis is, as its name indicates, a native of China.
The Broussonttia grows in China and Japan and in the islands
of Polynesia, but not in America.
We do not know to what botanical species the tree men
tioned by the Chinese historian should be referred ; but the
failure to decide this question does not furnish the least ob
jection in regard to the geographical position of the country of
Fa-sang.
Iron was unknown in this last country, and in fact the natives
of North America were ignorant of the existence of this valuable
metal. It was certainly used in Japan before the fifth century ;
and this fact alone is sufficient to show that the country of
Fu-sang can not, as Klaproth wishes, be identified with the
great island of Japan. The Americans, on the contrary, were ac
quainted with the use of copper, and made tools from it before
the arrival of the Europeans. Native copper exists in several
countries of the New World, and it is found in great abundance
near Lake Superior, where it is still mined. Along the southern
shore of this lake, Mr. Knapp, Superintendent of the Minnesota
Mining Company, discovered in 1840 a great number of galleries
often from seven to nine meters in depth, and of an extent equal
to about the same number of kilometers. These excavations
were the work of the early indigenes, the proof of this assertion
having been found by clearing out the trenches. Very many
stone mallets and hammers were found, and also wooden shov*
els and a great quantity of pottery made without the aid of
* The account of Fu-sang says nothing about wheat. It seems probable that
Dr. Godron had in mind the wheat mentioned by the Northmen as foxmd in Yin-
land, and that, writing from memory, he confused the two accounts. E. P. V.
118 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
the potter s wheel.* It may also be added that many very old
pines have grown upon the rubbish thrown out of these ancient
excavations. Mr. Foster counted three hundred and ninety-five
concentric rings upon the trunk of one of them which was cat
down. Moreover, the pines now living are surrounded by de
cayed trunks, the debris of preceding generations.!
We therefore see that all the difficulties raised by Klaproth
fall one after the other, and leave the views of the scholarly
French Sinologue, de Guignes, without serious objection. The
country which the Chinese of the fifth century designated by
the name of Fit-sang can therefore have been nothing else than
the American Continent, thus discovered by the Asiatics ten
centuries before Christopher Columbus.
* Lubbock, "North American Archaeology," French translation given in the
Revue Archeologique of 1865, p. 182.
f Lubbock, "Prehistoric Man," French translation. Paris, 1867, 8vo, p. 205.
CHAPTER VIII.
D EICHTHAL S " STUDY."
The Buddhistic origin of American civilization The geographical relations between
Northeastern Asia and Northwestern America The memoirs of de Guignes
and Klaproth If Fu-sang was in Japan, there is no room for the " Coun
try of Women " The Japanese deny that Fu-sang was in their country
De Guignes s map The ease of a voyage from Asia to America The warm
current of the Pacific Ocean The Aleutian Islands Voyages of the natives
The civilization of New Mexico A white population Cophene Bud
dhism How it is modified and propagated Its absorption of the doctrines of
other religions Its proselytism Its religious communities The route from
Cophene to Fu-sang A Buddhist sanctuary at Palenque Description of
Stephens An image of Buddha The lion-headed couch The winged globe
The aureola about the figure Decadence in art The altars upon which
flowers and fruits are offered Reply to observations of M. Vivien de Saint
Martin The two routes to Ta-han That country located near the mouth
of the Amoor River Traces of Buddhism in that neighbourhood Ease of
voyage to the Aleutian islands Klaproth s theory untenable No other hy
pothesis remaining than that Fu-sang must be sought in America.
Study concerning the Buddhistic Origin of American Civili
zation by M. Gustave crMchthaV
CONDENSED TRANSLATION.
ARTICLE I. The Geographical Relations between Northeast
ern Asia and Northwestern America. (From the " Revue Arche"-
ologique," of September 1, 1864.)
The memoir of de Guignes, " Upon the Voyages of the Chi
nese to the Coast of America and as to some Tribes situated
at the Eastern Extremity of Asia," does not in its title fully ex
press the thought which he entertained. The true problem
which he intended to examine was that of the existence of a
connection between the civilization of America and that of East
ern Asia ; and some, at least, of the most important elements for
its solution were in his hands. Upon the one side, the discover-
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
ies of Behring in 1728 and 1741 had confirmed the old Japanese
documents, and made known, at least in a general manner, the
geographical relations between the northern portions of Asia and
America ; upon the other side, the studies of de Guignes for his
history of the Mongols had made him acquainted with the an
cient Chinese histories, and in one of them he found the accoun*
upon which all his work is based.
Klaproth, in an equally celebrated memoir, has, as is well
known, sought to overthrow de Guignes s conclusion, and has
endeavoured to substitute another hypothesis. The publication
of this last memoir has had a deplorable result. By the weight
attached to his name the author has shaken, in the minds of
others, the solution indicated by de Guignes, and has turned them
aside from the truth; yet, nevertheless, viewed as an attempted
refutation, Klaproth s memoir may be said to be a valueless
work, and we shall presently show the incredible weakness of
the arguments which he opposes to those of his predecessor.
He produces no new documents, and does no more than to re
peat those already quoted by de Guignes, and in fact the only
merit that can be recognized in his work is that he often trans
lates them more accurately, and with the superiority given him
by the general progress in his times in the science of geography
and in acquaintance with the Chinese.
Klaproth, in the most arbitrary manner, places himself in op
position to the letter of his text by assuming that the statement
that Fu-sang is situated to the east of Ta-han is erroneous, and
placing it to the south instead ; but this is not the only objec
tion to his argument, for no one in Japan has ever been heard
to speak of it as Fu-sang; the details which are given by the
Chinese narrator regarding this country do not agree with Japan
in any respect, and among other circumstances there is one that is
mentioned which is quite decisive. The narrator not only places
Fu-sang twenty thousand li to the east of Ta-han, but he speaks
of a country, " the Kingdom of Women," which is found one
thousand li to the east of Fu-sang. Now, one thousand li to the
east of Japan there is nothing but the sea.
It should also be remembered that the Chinese, living so near
to Japan, and having communications with that country from
the most ancient times, have never dreamed of placing the coun
try of Fu-sang there. To them Fu-sang has become merely a
D EICHTHAL S "STUDY."
legendary country, of which fables are told that would never be
believed as to a neighbouring land, for the prestige of distance
and of novel circumstances is necessary to give rise to tales of
such a nature.
History is no more favourable than fable to Klaproth s opin
ion, for, as he himself admits, Buddhism was introduced into the
country of Fa-sang in the year 458 A. D., and was not introduced
into Japan, officially at least, until 552, about a century later.
How, then, can it be admitted that Fa-sang can be Japan, or
even any part of Japan ? . . .
With a species of divinatory instinct, or rather with extreme
good sense, de Guignes traced upon the map drawn by him the
probable route to America followed by those whom he calls
Chinese navigators ; the details are undoubtedly very imperfect ;
only one of the Aleutian Islands, the first Behring s Island, is
shown, and upon the other hand the peninsula of Alaska is im
moderately extended both in length and breadth ; there is also a
complete absence of exact determination of latitudes and longi
tudes ; nevertheless, the general outline of the coasts of Asia and
America is perfectly correct. All the discoveries and observa
tions since made have only served to confirm it.
We have three very important documents before us, i. e. :
" Statistische und ethnographische Nachrichten liber die Russi-
schen Besitzungen an der Nordwest-Kiiste von America," by
Rear- Admiral von Wrangell, St. Petersburg, 1839 ; an analysis
by F. Loewe, of the work of Pere Wenjaminow, upon "The
(Aleutian) Islands of the District of Unalaska," extracted from
the eighth number for 1842 of the periodical, entitled "Archiv
fur die wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russland"; and, finally, the
analysis in the "Revue des Deux Mondes," for April 1, 1858, of
the memoir of Maury regarding the ease of the passage between
the northeastern shores of Asia and the northwestern coast of
America. All these documents agree in demonstrating the ease
of this communication, and of establishing a settlement upon the
northwestern coast of America. The climate of all this region,
even in the highest latitudes, and up to the sixtieth degree, is
relatively very mild. The chain composed of the Aleutian
Islands and the peninsula of Alaska forms, as it were, a barrier
to arrest the polar influences. Moreover, the great warm current
of the Pacific Ocean, observed by modern navigators, raises the
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
temperature there very notably. From observations carefully
collected, it has been proved that the mean temperature of Sitka
is about 45 Fahrenheit, with, it is true, but very slight differ
ence between the summer and the winter ; even in winter the
sea is never solidly frozen, and, in a word, according to the
unanimous testimony of navigators, there is no other place in the
world where so great and sudden a change of climate is found
as is met in passing from Behring s Sea to the Pacific Ocean.
The Aleutian Islands, before their conquest by the Russians
(1760-1790), were inhabited by a numerous and prosperous pop
ulation. Amphibious and fur-bearing animals existed there in
immense numbers. The inhabitants had a tradition that they
were of Asiatic origin, and they transported themselves easily
from one island to another in their leather canoes, or baidares.
" The farther one goes north," says Maury, " the easier the
passage becomes, and the greater attraction the natives seem to
find in it. A pole serves them as a rudder ; a branch of a tree
provided with its limbs and foliage is set up in the air to serve
as a sail. The crew, which is usually composed of a man with
his wife and children, take the opportunity when the wind blows
gently toward the point which they wish to reach, and they may
be seen fearlessly sailing before the wind in the open sea at a
speed of four or five miles an hour." Langsdorff, in his " Voy
age around the World in the Years 1803-1807," speaks of canoes
made by the natives, which would hold as many as a dozen per
sons, and mentions the fact that they sailed in them from the
Island of Kodiak to Sitka.
All this, it is true, is proof only of navigation by the indi
genes either between Asia and America, or from one point to
another of the northwestern coast of America. We see nothing
of any question of navigation in these regions by the Chinese,
or even of a direct navigation by the Japanese between the two
Continents ; and although there are numerous instances, some of
them quite recent, in which Japanese junks have been driven by
tempests, or the ocean currents, upon the American coast, the
return is much more difficult, and there does not exist any trace
of a regular navigation between China or Japan and America in
ancient times. In this respect the title given by de Guignes to
his memoir, " Upon the Voyages of the Chinese to the Coast of
America," shows that the author wished to give a prudent vague-
D EICHTHAL S "STUDY." 123
ness to the title, but said perhaps too much. All the facts go to
show that the relations with America, of which de Guignes caught
a glimpse, can and must have existed ; but in the present state of
our knowledge * we must hold that they took place by means of
more modest navigators, who still had sufficient skill for so easy
a passage. . . .
The brief and judicious observations made by de Guignes,
regarding the state of civilization attained by the natives of the
region now known as New Mexico, have been fully confirmed
by the more perfect knowledge derived from old and new docu
ments regarding the region, and we now have unquestionable
proof of its high state of civilization, and, in some respects, of
its connection with the Chinese civilization before the conquest.
All historical documents, moreover, authorize us to place in this
country the point at which originated the civilization of the
American tribes found farther south. . . .
What is said regarding the existence of a white population
is confirmed by the observations of modern explorers,f and
finally what is said regarding the existence of two prisons in
the country may find its explanation in the belief as to future
punishments held by some Indian tribes, especially by the Man-
dans. J . . .
When de Guignes translated from the Chinese records the
statement that the religion of Fo was formerly unknown in the
land of Fu-sang, but that under the Sung dynasty five bonzes
from Samarcand carried their doctrine into this country and
changed the manners of the inhabitants, neither he nor any man
of that day suspected, either that the religion of Fo was any
thing more than the national religion of China, or that it was
identical with Buddhism, and the question does not seem to have
occurred to de Guignes as to how these so-called Chinese priests
can have come from Samarcand.
The country of Ki-pin, the ancient Cophene, corresponded
very closely with the country now called Bokhara, the land of
Samarcand. Samarcand, in fact, at the time spoken of, was one
* The species of suzerainty exercised by China over Kamtchatka is the only
proof given by de Guignes of the action of China in its neighbourhood.
f" Report on the Indian Tribes," by Lieutenant Whipple, p. 31 ; Catlin,
" Letters and Notes," etc., vol. i, p. 93.
\ Catlin, "Letters and Notes," etc., vol. i, p. 157.
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
of the great foci of Buddhism. Moreover, it is in the center of
Asia, in contact with Persia upon one side and Turkestan upon
the other, at the outlet of all the routes which lead from this
central region to the northern frontier of China, and to all the
northwestern part of Asia as far as to the coast of the Pacific
Ocean. . . .
At the time of Klaproth, the history of Buddhism, although
something was known of it, was far from complete. The great
works of Hodgson, of Tumour, and of Burnouf had not then
appeared. That of which de Guignes could not even have
thought, and which Klaproth himself could have accomplished
but very imperfectly, it is now possible to attempt with a hope
of success. By recapitulating all that we know now regard
ing the internal development and the distant propagation of
Buddhism, it will be easy to understand what may have been
the results of its propagation in America, and from this point of
view to judge the institutions and the monuments of American
civilization.
ARTICLE II. Buddhism : How it is Modified and Propagated.
(November 1, 1864.)
This article shows that the spirit of good-will and charity
which animated the doctrines of the Buddhist religion dis
posed it to conciliation toward the foreign religions that sur
rounded it, when carried from India, the land of its birth, into
other countries, even when these other religions had but slight
affinity with it.
It never placed itself in open hostility to the world by which
it was surrounded, and in India respected the pantheon of the
gods that were worshiped there. Hostile as the spirit which
dictated the distinction of castes in India is to the ardent charity
which animated Buddhism, it accepted the distinction of castes
as an accomplished fact.
The fusion of Buddhism with the national religion, even with
that of the sects of India the most opposed to its nature, is a fact
established by the most authentic documents and by unquestion
able proofs. In principles, nothing can be more opposite to
Buddhism than the worship of Siva ; yet, notwithstanding this,
at the end of a few centuries we see an intimate union estab
lished between the two religions.
In Java, Buddhism is found mixed with Brahmanism, or with
D EICHTHAL S "STUDY." 125
the worship of Siva, and the union of Buddhism with Brahman-
ism is also found in Ceylon ; and the Buddhistic religion of Ja
pan shows a large mixture of other elements.
This series of facts shows what transformations Buddhism
underwent, even in very early times, by contact with the other
religions which it encountered. It also shows us the expansive
force by which it was animated, and which served to transport
it to a great distance from the place at which it originated.
Proselytism is an essential feature of Buddhism ; it is the con
sequence of the sentiments of good-will and universal charity
which it professed, and at the same time of the profound faith
which the word of the master inspired in his disciples. " If the
great saint Buddha formerly descended upon the earth," says
Hiuen-tsang, " it was that he might himself spread abroad the
blessed influences of his law Buddha established his doctrine in
order that it might be spread abroad into all places. What man
is there who would wish to be the only one to drink of it ? I
can not forget the words of the sacred book, Whosoever has
hidden the law from men shall be struck with blindness in all
his transmigrations. "
" The man who believes in the mission of Sakya-muni," says
M. Neumann, "is obliged to consider every man as an equal and
a brother, and must even strive to have the blessed news of re
demption carried to all the nations of the earth, and for this
purpose he should, following the example of the divine-man,
submit himself to all trials and all sufferings. This is why we
see a multitude of Buddhist monks and missionaries going from
Central Asia, China, Japan, and Corea, and traveling into all
parts of the world, known and unknown. It is to preach to un
believers the doctrine of the three jewels (i. e., Buddha, the Law,
and the Assembly), or to gather news of their co-religionists."
Buddhism rejected the mystery in which Brahmanism was en
veloped, and, proclaiming the superiority of moral works above
mere ritualistic practices,* its preachings opened its doctrines to
the acceptance of all mankind. Its disciples, both men and
women, after having in the earliest days shared a nomadic life,
were united in religious communities and convents, which were
governed by the eldest or the most honoured, f It recommended
* Burnouf s " Introduction H I Histoire du Buddhisme," pp. 335 and 337.
f Burnouf, p. 214.
126 AN" mGLOKIOUS COLUMBUS.
penance as the means of progressive improvement ; it instituted
the confession ; * it prohibited bloody sacrifices.f
We can now understand both the truth and importance of
the statements made in the Chinese account : that five monks
went to Fu-sang, and there spread abroad the law of Buddha ;
that they carried with them their books, their sacred images, and
their ritual, and instituted monastic customs, and so changed the
manners of the inhabitants. A Buddhist mission could not be
better characterized. It should be remembered, however, that
the books and images carried by these missionaries of the fifth
century would undoubtedly contain quite as strong an infusion
of the elements of Brahmanism (and of the worship of Siva in
particular) as of the elements of Buddhism properly so called.
China and Japan seem also to have furnished their contingent,
and we in fact know that if this doctrine was first established in
Fu-sang by monks from Samarcand, the account which has been
transmitted to us is the work of a Chinese monk who had so
journed there himself. As to the indication of Samarcand, as the
country from which the mission departed, there is nothing that
should not seem to us to be perfectly authentic. Since the pub
lication of the journey of Hiuen-tsang, we know that the Buddh
ist propagandist, setting forth from the north of India, passed
Samarcand in order to reach, by way of Turkestan and the des
ert of Gobi, the northern frontiers of China.
Starting from this point, the Buddhist missionaries would
have nothing further to do than to turn toward the north, in
order to follow the route indicated by de Guignes, which, by
way of the Lake of Baikal and the Amoor River, would lead
them to the country of Ta-han. The remarkable Buddhist
monuments recently discovered near the mouth of the Amoor
River, although their date can not be precisely determined,
prove in any case that at a very ancient epoch this country was
frequented by the Buddhists.J;
From Ta-han, as stated in the Chinese account, these mis
sionaries reached Fu-sang.
AETICLE III. Consideration of the Observations of Hum-
boldt upon the Relations between the Civilization of Asia and
America (January 1, 1865), and
* Burnouf, p. 300. f Burnouf, p. 339.
\ See C. de Sabin, " Le Fleuve Amoftr," Paris, 1861.
D EICUTHAL S " STUDY.
127
AETICLE IV. Upon the Presence of Buddhism among the
Red-skins (April 1, 1865), it seems unnecessary to translate ; as
Humboldt s arguments are fully given elsewhere, and as Article
IV relates mostly to the religious belief and practices of the
Mandan Indians.
ARTICLE V. A Buddhist Sanctuary at Palenque (June 1
1865).
John Stephens, in his book, entitled " Incidents of Travel in
Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan," new edition, London,
1844, vol. ii, p. 318, makes the following statement :
" Within the walls of the palace of Palenque, at the east of
the interior tower, is another building with two corridors, one
richly decorated with pictures in stucco, and having in the center
an elliptical tablet. It is four feet long and three wide, of hard
stone, set in the wall. Around it are the remains of a rich stucco
border. The principal figure sits cross-legged on a couch orna
mented with two leopards heads ; the attitude is easy, the
physiognomy the same as that of the other personages, and the
expression calm and benevolent. The figure wears around its
neck a necklace of pearls, to which is suspended a small medal
lion containing a face ; perhaps intended as an image of the sun.
Like every other subject of sculpture we had seen in the coun
try, the personage has ear-rings, bracelets on the wrists, and a
girdle round the loins. The head-dress differs from most of the
others at Palenque in that it wants the plume of feathers."
Stephens abstains from noting any analogy between this
image and any other known type ; but M. Lenoir, who, in his
"Parallel of the Ancient Mexican Monuments with those of the
Old World," referred to this figure, made the remark that its
graceful attitude is analogous with the pose which the East
Indians give to their god Buddha.* We shall be bolder than
M. Lenoir, and where he only suspected an analogy we shall not
fear to recognize a true identity.
In fact, the scene which we find under our eyes is frequently
found in the monuments of Buddhist worship. It may be ob
served, for instance, three times repeated, in the bas-reliefs of
the temple of Boro-Boudor in Java, which Crawfurd has inserted
in his work upon the Indian Archipelago. These picture one or
more worshipers presenting to Buddha, in accordance with the
* " Antiquites Mexicaines," vol. ii, p, 77.
128
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
precepts of his religion, offerings of flowers and of fruits. One
of these images in par
ticular, that repro
duced in Crawfurd s
plate xxii,* and copied
in the accompanying
cut, Fig. 1, offers a
striking resemblance
to our image of Pa-
lenque, which is copied
in Fig. 2. In each
we see a worshiper
offering to the divin
ity, before whom he
is kneeling, a flower,
which, in the case of
the Buddhist, is in-
contestably a lotus-
flower, and, in the case
of the American wor
shiper, either the same
flower or some other
of similar appearance
possibly, as has been
suggested by M. the
Abbe Brasseur de
Bourbourg, a cacao-
tree flower. Here,
however, the flower is
not found, as in the
bas - relief of Boro-
Boudor, in the hand
of the worshiper, but
it rests upon a sort of
support which the
* Crawfurd s " History of
the Indian Archipelago," 3
vols. in 12rao. Edinburgh,
1820; vol. ii, plates xix,
xxii, and xxiii.
FIG. 1. "Worshiper offering a flower to the image
of Buddha.
FIG. 2. Bas-relief found at Palenque.
D EICHTHAL S "STUDY.
129
worshiper presents to the divinity ; but this same disposition, or
one that is analogous, may be seen in Crawfurd s plate xix.
Moreover, this same flower is twice found upon the head of our
divinity, and is also frequently found associated with the figures
of the gods of Palenque. (See, among the rest, Stephens s " Cen
tral America," vol. ii, p. 316, plate No. 2.) The two lions, or
leopards, facing in opposite directions, upon which our divinity
is seated, recall the lions which, in the paintings of India, some
times support the seat of Buddha (and even sometimes of other
divinities), and of which an example is given in the image of
Buddha reproduced in Fig. 1.
But they also recall the figures of animals in pairs, facing in
opposite directions, which are found so often in th6 sculptures
and paintings of Asia. Such are notably the celebrated capi
tals of the columns of Persepolis, and of the temple of Delos,
formed of two horses ; and the group of the lion and the bull
placed back to back, attributed to Ardahnari ; finally, they
agree in every particular with the group of two crouching lions
which, although brought from the island of Cyprus, are of
Assyrian type which may be seen in the Museum of Napoleon
III, and of which an engraving is here given (Fig. 3).
Nevertheless, the resemblance of this last group with that
which serves as a seat for our Buddha is much less than that
which it presents to two other groups of lions or leopards, placed
back to back, one found at the base of a niche of the edifice
called the " House of the Nuns," at Uxmal,* the other discovered,
or more properly disinterred, by Stephens in the same city. A
FIG. 3. Sculpture from the island of
Cyprus.
F I0 . 4. Sculpture found at Uxmal, Yu
catan.
* Catherwood, "Views of Ancient Monuments of Central America, Chiapas,
and Yucatan," plate xv.
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
picture of the latter is given in the "Incidents of Travel in
Yucatan," vol. i, p. 183, and we reproduce it in Fig. 4, p. 129,
in order that the reader may be able to appreciate its resemblance
to the Cyprian group.
Upon the plinth of the Cyprian group there is seen the image
of the winged globe, so frequently represented upon the pedi
ments and friezes of the temples of Egypt, Assyria, and Persia.
This emblem does not occur in the last-mentioned American
group, but an ornament, either identical or at least very similar,
may be seen above a door opening into the interior of a sanct
uary at Ocosingo, a city not very far distant from Palenque.
" In the back wall of the central chamber of this temple,"
says Stephens,* " was a doorway of the same size with that in
front, which led to an
apartment without any
partitions, but in the
center was an oblong in-
closure, eighteen feet by
eleven, which was mani
festly intended as the
FIG. 5.-Ornament above a door of a ruin at mogt important part o f
Ocosmgo. A /
the edifice. The door
was choked up with ruins to within a few feet of the top, but
over it, and extending along, the whole front of the structure,
was a large stucco ornament, which at first impressed us most
forcibly by its striking resemblance to the winged globe over
the doors of Egyptian temples. Part of this ornament had
fallen down, and, striking the heap of rubbish underneath,
had rolled beyond the door of entrance. We endeavoured
to roll it back and restore it to its place, but it proved too heavy
for the strength of four men and a boy. The part which
remains is represented in the engraving, and differs in details
from the winged globe. The wings are reversed ; there is a
fragment of a circular ornament, which may have been intended
for a globe, but there are no remains of serpents entwining it."
Even at Palenque, above the door and upon the frieze of the
sanctuary of the edifice described by Stephens under the name
of " Casa No. 3," we see the two extremities of a similar orna
ment, the central part having been destroyed. Stephens has re-
* Stephens s " Central America," vol. ii, p. 259.
D EICHTHAL S "STUDY." 131
produced this ornament, or at least the two extremities which
still remain of it, without making it the object of any observa
tion in his text.*
At our first step into the study of the antiquities of Central
America, we, therefore, find again the same singularity which
struck us in the traditions relative to the Deluge. We see our
selves carried in one direction to Western Asia and the banks of
the Mediterranean, and in the other to India and Eastern Asia.
Between the two lies the land of Chaldea, and it is from this
intermediate point that traditions and rites, as well as civiliza
tion, have radiated.
"It is in Chaldea," says M. Alfred Maury,f "that civilization
arose for the first time upon our globe, or at least this country
was one of the first centers from which it was spread abroad into
neighbouring lands. It is therefore easy to conceive that a legend
existing in Chaldea may have been carried among the nations
who from all quarters resorted to this country."
Bearing in mind, again, that we have every reason to believe
Samarcand to have been the point of departure of the Buddhism
propagated in America, this circumstance makes it more easy to
conceive of the presence in the New World of Asiatic elements
borrowed even by Western Asia.
But the course of our work has brought us again into the
presence of very serious and difficult questions. We shall there
fore content ourselves with the presentation of the facts which
we have given, and conclude this article with a return to the
examination of the figure of Buddha at Palenque.
The oval in which the figure is inscribed, although it is true
it is a little larger, recalls that which envelopes the bust of
our Boro-Boudor (see Fig. 1, upon page 128), an oval which
in itself is nothing more than the aureola which at first -sur
rounded only the head of Buddha, but which was gradually
enlarged.
But there is another point of resemblance which, although it
relates to a simple detail only, is still more striking and decisive.
Stephens relates, as we have remarked, that the oval was origi
nally surrounded by a border in stucco, of which he saw only
the remains, and which he did not indicate in his design ; but
* Stephens s " Central America," vol. ii, p. 354.
f " Encyclopedic Moderne," t. xii, p. 71.
132 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
in the design of Castaiieda * this border is clearly shown, although
even then very dilapidated. It is after this model that, in our
copy of the design of Stephens, we have attempted to restore the
border in question, in part at least, and at the same time we
have restored a series of small ornaments, also given by Cas-
taneda, of which the form is somewhat crescent-shaped. These
ornaments have given rise to the most singular interpretations ;
but the same ornaments, similarly disposed, are found about the
aureola of the figure of an East Indian divinity which Raffles
has given in his " History of Java " (vol. ii), and which is re
produced below.
Moreover, if the origin and signification of this ornament is
sought, it will be found, from a study of the other figures given
by Raffles, that it grew from successive
transformations of the flames originally
drawn about the aureola of the divinities,
and of which an example is found in our
figure itself.
Such analogies as these, we believe,
can not be the effect of chance.
In order to explain them, it must be
admitted that the Buddhist artists who
came to America brought with them the
Fia. 6^-Aureola about the game collection o f plans and de signs, the
head of an East Indian
idol. same albums, if I may use the word, which
were found in the hands of the Buddhist
missionaries in the south of India and in the Indian Archipelago.
It is a supposition which is confirmed by all the analogies that
we know to exist between American and Asiatic art, and more
over it is a very natural supposition, fully justified by the his-
tory-of Buddhist propagandism, and without which the existence
of so marked a connection between American and Asiatic art
appears an insoluble problem.
It should, however, be borne in mind that, between the primi
tive types imported by the Buddhists and the different monuments
which we are examining, we should expect to find all the differences
produced by an inevitable decadence in art, as well as by the influ
ence of local causes and the aspect of novel natural surroundings.
* " Antiquites Mexicaines," vol. ii, plate xxvi ; and Kingsborough s " Antiqui*
ties of Mexico," vol. iv, part third, plate xx.
D EICHTHAL S " STUDY."
133
Below and in front of our bas-relief there was also found a
species of table, or bracket-shelf, which Castaiieda gives in his
design, but of which Stephens saw no more than the mark upon
the wall of the place where it had stood, which he reproduces
with dotted lines " after the model of similar tables existing in
other places." *
"Del Rio," says Mr. Squier, in his "Researches regarding
the Serpent Symbol in America," describes this table as a large
flag-stone, six feet in length, f three feet four inches wide, and
seven inches thick, placed upon four legs like a table. These
legs were ornamented by figures in bas-relief. Along the tab
let against the wall there reached a sort of border similarly
sculptured.
Now, this is precisely the character of the Balang-ko of the
Hindoos, or the Then-balang of the Siamese stones or altars of
FIG. 7. Table or altar found at Palenque.
Buddha, upon which fruits and flowers were offered instead of
bloody sacrifices. These are found in the Siamese and Japanese
temples, as well as in all Buddhist temples generally. J
* "Central America," vol. ii, p. 318. " Antiques Mexicaines," vol. ii, plate
xxvi, Fig. 33.
f This length is in fact that which is indicated in the report of Del Rio (see
"Memoires de la Societe Geographique de Paris," vol. ii, p. 170) and in the Ger
man translation given by Minutoli, " Beschreibung einer alten Stadt," etc., Berlin,
1832. Nevertheless, this measure does not agree with that given by Stephens, and
by Del Rio himself, in the place cited for the length of the bas-relief a measure
which, according to the engraving, should be equal to that of the tablet.
\ Squier, " The Serpent Symbol and the Worship of the Reciprocal Principles
of Nature in America," New York, 1851, p. 89. Squier himself refers to an arti
cle by Captain James Low r " On Buddha and the Phrabat Explanation of the
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Quite recently an English journal, the " London Illustrated
News " (February 25, 1865, p. 193), has given, with an image of
Buddha, a specimen of a Buddhist altar, perfectly conformable
to the Mexican altar, of which an illustration is given in Fig. 7.
The presence of this altar, added to all the resemblances of detail
which we have pointed out in the bas-relief, seems to us to clear
ly prove the Buddhistic character of the Sanctuary of Palenque.
The figure which we have described is, to our knowledge, the
only one of the kind which exists at Palenque. Outside of this
city, and in all the other ruins of Central America, we do not
know of any other figure at all similar, unless it is a figure
which M. Waldeck has given in his " Voyage to Yucatan," and
which he says he saw repeated four times in that number of
niches of the southern f acade of the " House of the Nuns " at
Uxmal.
It is noticeable that this artist, who thought that he found
the imprint of Buddhism at Uxmal in a
number of details, perhaps indifferent,
seems not to have remarked the resem
blance of this figure drawn by him to the
reformer of India. He contents himself
with the statement that " upon the sill of
the niche which surmounts each door
there is placed a small seated figure"
FIG. 8.-Seated figure Qn thig occasion at least M . Waldeck
found in niches of /.. - A i
a building at Uxmal. can not therefore be accused of taking
sides. Moreover, the southern fa9ade of
the " House of the Nuns," of which he speaks, has been drawn
again by Stephens in a general view of the site, and has since
been drawn by Catherwood.* The niches indicated above each
Symbols on a Prapatha or Impression of the Divine Foot," in the " Transac
tions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland," vol. iii, p. 77.
I have verified the citation, and it is entirely correct. I fear, however, that there
may have been an error in the transcription of the Indian name given as Ealang-
ko or Tlien-balang. The word is unknown to all the Indian scholars whom I have
been able to consult. May there not have been a confusion with the stone Bin-
lang of the worshipers of Siva ? (See Coleman s " Mythology of the Hindus," p.
176.) I have not succeeded, however, in discovering the true name of these
altars. The authors who describe them merely mention them without stating the
name by which they are called.
* Stephens, " Yucatan," vol. i, p. 306. Catherwood, " Views of Ancient Monu-
D EICHTHAL S " STUDY."
135
door are perfectly distinguishable, although, by reason of the
distance from which the view is supposed to be taken, it is im
possible to distinguish whether any object is or is not contained
in them.*
Admitting as authentic, therefore, the image given by M.
Waldeck (and there is every reason for so doing), it is impossible
to fail to be struck by the analogy which it presents with the
representations of Buddha in general, but particularly with the
figure of Buddha sitting cross-legged, which is found placed and
repeated in an entirely similar manner in the four hundred niches
of the temple of Boro-Boudor at Java.f The characteristic posi
tion of the right arm is the same in both cases. The head-dress
is different, but we find an almost exactly similar head-dress
upon other figures of Buddha, or
upon the heads of other divinities.
It is a sort of fan which adorns
the head of the divine person
age, and which is formed by a ser
pent with several heads.J It is an
ordinary attribute of Vishnu.* It
is also found upon the head of
Hanouman, || upon that of Gane-
sa, A of Vira-Badhra, Q etc., and
finally upon that of Buddha him
self 4 A Buddha with this head
dress somewhat modified is sculpt
ured upon the wall of the temple of Indra-Saba at Ellora ; it has
ments in Central America^ plate viii. It is true that there are not merely four
of these niches visible upon the southern fa9ade, as stated in the account, but
eight. At the same time, however, it is also true that the fa9ade is divided into
two compartments, each containing four niches, and this fact may possibly explain
Waldeck s error.
* The part of this f a9ade photographed by M. de Charney contains only two
of the eight niches, and, even with the magnifying-glass, it is impossible to distin
guish any appearance of a statue in either of them. But the form of the niche
is exactly as given by Waldeck, and it is possible that the statues have been de
stroyed since the visit of that traveler.
f Crawfurd s " History of the Indian Archipelago," vol. ii, plate xxix.
\ Moor s " Hindu Pantheon," plate xxiv.
* Ibid., plate viii. II Ibid., plate xcii.
A Ibid., Frontispiece. Ibid -> P late xxvi - $ Ibid> > plate lxXV
FIG. 9. Figure of Buddha from
a temple at Ellora.
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
been reproduced by Daniel,* and we give it in our Fig. 9 (page
135), that it may be compared with the figure at Uxmal.t
The existence of these niches, with their uniform statues,
often found in very great numbers in the walls of the terraces
which support the temples, is one of the common traits of the
religious architecture of the Indian Archipelago and of Central
America. We content ourselves here with merely pointing out
this analogy. "VVe shall return to the subject again when, after
our review of American history, we return to the examination
of the antiquities of Palenque.J
GUSTAVE D EICHTHAL.
Supplement to the First Article. Reply to some Observations of
M. Vivien de Saint-Martin upon de Guignes s Memoir.
The first question which presents itself to us, in connection
with this work, is that of the geographical connections and the
ancient communications between Asia and America, which could
have permitted the passage of Buddhist missionaries to the New
World. We have said that it seems to us to be possible to reduce
this question to the analysis and development of de Guignes s
memoir upon the subject. In our first article we therefore took
up the examination of this memoir, and concluded by adopting
* " Oriental Scenery." Description of Ellora.
f Even the modification which is presented by the head-dress of the statue
at Uxmal seems to be an indication of its authenticity.
| Before terminating this article, we think it necessary to again call the atten
tion of our readers to another bas-relief which decorates the house designated by
Stephens as Casa No. 4. It is an unknown divinity, but one which has complete
ly the appearance and attitude of an East Indian divinity. M. Lenoir, in his
" Parallel of the Ancient Mexican Monuments with those of the Old World," was
the first to make the remark. " This bas-relief," says he, " represents a divinity
who offers, especially in his attitude, a great resemblance to the divinities of
India or Japan" ("Antiquites Mexicaines," vol. ii, p. 78); the figure itself is
found in the same volume, plate xxxiii, and also in the " Antiquities of Mexico "
of Lord Kingsborough, vol. iv, third part ; also in the " Memoircs de la Societe"
de Geographic," vol. ii, plate xvi. Unfortunately this bas-relief was, by 1840,
almost destroyed. Stephens saw only a fragment ("Central America," vol. ii, p.
S55). Compare this bas-relief with the figure of Parvati, given by Moor, "Hindu
Pantheon," plate v, figure 5 ; and with a statuette of Lakchmi which is to be seen
in the Imperial Library. A bas-relief discovered by Stephens at Chichen-Itza, in
Yucatan, is the only one among the American figures with which we are acquainted
that shows a similar attitude. (" Incidents of Travel in Yucatan," vol. ii, p. 292.)
D EICHTHAI/S "STUDY." 137
the opinion expressed by de Guignes, that the Fu-sang of the
Chinese tradition can be nothing else than a portion of America.
An eminent geographer, M. Vivien de Saint-Martin, has com
bated this conclusion in a chapter of his " Annee Geographique "
(1865), entitled "Une Vieille Histoire remise & Flot " (i. e., An
Old Story Set Afloat).
There is always profit to be found in a work emanating from
M. Vivien de Saint-Martin, and we ourselves have found it in
this article ; but we persist none the less in the opinion which
we have expressed : we even think that the observations of M.
Vivien de Saint-Martin have only added a new force to our con
viction. The memoir of de Guignes is composed of two quite
distinct parts : one is the account of the country of Fu-sang,
written in the fifth century of our era by a Buddhist missionary
named Hod Shin, which de Guignes extracted from the history
of Li-yan-cheu the other part is a commentary intended to
determine the geographical position of the country of Fu-sang.
In the first part, de Guignes is merely a translator ; in the sec
ond, he appears as a critic, and a critic of the first order.
His merit, as we formerly remarked (and upon this point
M. Vivien is in accord with us), is that, enabled by his vast
knowledge of Chinese literature, he discovered two itineraries
one maritime, the other terrestrial ; both of which terminate at
the country of Ta-han, the point of Asia which, according to the
account, is nearest to the country of Fu-sang.
The meeting of the two routes at their northern extremity
proves that the country of Ta-han is necessarily situated at some
point upon the northeastern coast of Asia. De Guignes thinks
that this point is in Kamtchatka. M. Vivien de Saint-Martin
thinks that it should be sought upon the river Amoor, near the
point at which it empties into the Sea of Ochotsk, in the region
in which, as we have already said, Buddhist monuments in a
state of excellent preservation have been recently discovered.
We were instantly struck by the same thought as M. Vivien de
Saint-Martin, and r after a new examination of the question, we
declare that we are convinced of the correctness of this view.
In fact, even according to the description of the route trans
lated by de Guignes, we see that by traveling five clays to the
east, in the direction of the Amoor River, the Shy-wei Ju-che
are reached ; from there, after traveling five days to the north,
AN INGLOKIOUS COLUMBUS.
the country of Ta-han is reached, surrounded on three sides
by the sea. Now, below its junction with the Soungari-Oula,
and especially below its junction with the Oussori, the Amoor
turns directly to the north, and the country of Ta-han may
probably be located near its mouth. The circumstance that it
is surrounded on three sides by the sea, may be accounted for
by supposing that it is situated in some bend described by the
river. But de Guignes, who was but imperfectly acquainted
with the course of the Amoor and with the geography of this
region, has thought it necessary to go as far north as Kam-
tchatka to find a locality which corresponds with the descrip
tion of his itinerary.
We, therefore, very willingly make this concession to M.
Vivien de Saint-Martin, or, rather, we thank him for the recti
fication which he has led us to adopt. But this fact does not
prove that de Guignes s memoir should be considered any the
less worthy of interest, or that the solution of the question
which he proposes is any the less probable. But let M. Vivien
speak for himself :
" The few germs of rudimentary civilization, of which the
trace is found among the tribes of the Amoor, are of Buddhist
origin : they undoubtedly appertain to several different epochs,
but the oldest are connected with the missions of the sixth cent
ury and the three following centuries, which are mentioned in the
texts which de Guignes was the first to describe. This is a real
service, among many others, which the scholarly author of the
* History of the Huns has rendered to science, and of which
his error as to the location of Ta-han does not at all dimmish
the merit." *
After calling attention to the Buddhist monuments discov
ered some ten years ago upon the lower bank of the Amoor
River, near the village designated as " Ghiliak of the Tower,"
M. Vivien continues thus :
" We, therefore, now have positive proof that the mission
aries of the religion of Buddha, or of Fo, as it is called by the
Chinese, not only carried shamanism into all of Central Asia,
but pressed to the east and descended the valley of the Amoor
River as far as to the shores of the Eastern Sea, at the same time
that other propagators of this pre-eminently proselyting religion
* " L Ann^e Geographique," Paris, 1865, p. 258.
D EICHTHAL S "STUDY." 139
spread themselves by the maritime route into all the islands
contained within the boundaries of the sea inclosed between the
Japanese Archipelago and the coast of Mantchooria, designated
upon our maps as the Sea of Japan." *
Having traveled this distance, would the Buddhist mission
aries arrest their voyage here, or would they not rather, profiting
by the ease with which the chain of the Aleutian Islands would
enable them to pass from one continent to the other, press on
until they had penetrated to America ? A tradition, mentioned
by de Guignes, states that at an early epoch " the Tartars who
lived in the neighbourhood of the Amoor River were accustomed
from this point to reach the southern portion of Kamtchatka,
after five days navigation toward the north."
This is the most direct route to reach the Aleutian Islands.
They could also reach them almost equally well by turning the
point of the island of Saghalien, or Taraikai, upon the south, and
coasting along the chain of the Kurile Islands. It is true that
we have no historical proof of navigation across what may be
called the Aleutian Sea, either by the Tartars or by the Bud
dhist missionaries. But the ease of this navigation is an incon
testable fact, and here, moreover, the tradition of Fu-sang is
found.
This tradition is not founded merely upon the unsustained
statement of an obscure missionary ; it is attested by a multi
tude of legendary beliefs, of which Klaproth himself has made
known to us the principal monuments. From that time the
question has been, " Where is this land of Fu-sang situated ? "
De Guignes founded his answer to this question upon the dis
tance of twenty thousand li, at which distance to the east from
Ta-han, Hoei Shin stated that this country was situated, and
thus arrived at the conclusion that Fu-sang must be found at
some point upon the American coast, probably in California.
As for us, we believe (and M. Vivien is of the same opinion)
that the round distance of twenty thousand li is purely emphatic,
and merely indicates that the distance is very great. But even
this interpretation does not at all weaken de Guignes s conclu
sion : " The Chinese," says this illustrious scholar, " have pene
trated into countries very distant toward the east. I have ex
amined their measures, and they have conducted me to the coast
* " L Annee GSographique," p. 259.
140 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
of California. I have concluded from this that they have known
America since the year 458 A. D. In the countries near to those
where they landed we find the most civilized nations of America.
I have thought that they were indebted for their civilization to
the commerce which they have had with the Chinese. This is all
that I have sought to establish in this memoir." If, at the epoch
when de Guignes lived, this conclusion offered itself to him as
a probable hypothesis, how much stronger would he have con
sidered the proof if he had known, as we now know, both the
character of Buddhism, and its diffusion in the countries along
the coast of the Sea of Japan and near the mouth of the Amoor
River, and, in addition, the proofs, which we dare call incontest
able, of its presence in America.
It is, nevertheless, against this fortunate divination of an
illustrious scholar that M. Vivien de Saint-Martin now protests.
Undoubtedly he has shown that in the account of the shaman
Hoei Shin several particulars do not agree with America. We
may, therefore, conclude that Hoei Shin, not having any one
to check his account, and perhaps never having been himself in
Fu-sang (for the text is mute, or at least doubtful, as to this
point), may have, as to some points, consulted his imagination
rather than his recollection ; but making all concessions on
this account, there remain two important points in his story as
to which no doubt can be raised : the essentially Buddhistic
character of the customs of Fu-sang, and its situation at a
great distance to the east of the Kingdom of Ta-han and the
" Middle Kingdom." Now, from these two characters, Fu-sang
can not be located elsewhere than in America. M. Vivien de
Saint-Martin is not of this opinion. It is true that he does not
offer any conclusion that is well-founded ; he merely thinks that
the " supposition of Klaproth (who sees in Fu-sang a portion of
Japan) is, as has been said of it, the most probable." But the
supposition of Klaproth, as we have repeated time after time,
and as, moreover, M. Vivien himself acknowledges, has insur
mountable objections opposed to it : it places to the south of
Ta-han that which, according to the account, should be found at
the east, and it supposes the existence of a Buddhist kingdom in
Japan at an epoch when Buddhism was not known there. It
remains, therefore, to return to de Guignes s hypothesis, which,
moreover,, is now a hundred times more probable than it seemed
D EICHTHAL S "STUDY."
at the epoch when it was first produced by its illustrious author.
" Old stories," in spite of the displeasure of M. Vivien de Saint-
Martin, are good to revive when they are true old stories.
To the documents which we named in our second article, as
showing the association which has existed between Buddhism
and the Brahmanic religions, particularly the worship of Siva,
there should be added those given by Koeppen, in his history of
Buddhism in Thibet, " Die Lamaische Hierarchic und Kirche,"
vol. i, page 296 and following.
CHAPTER IX.
COINCIDENCES NOTED BY HUMBOLDT, LOBSCHEID, AND PEESCOTT.
Extracts from the " Views of the Cordilleras " Similarity of Asiatic and Ameri
can civilizations The struggles of the Brahmans and Buddhists The divis
ions of the great cycles The Mexicans designated the days of their months
by the names of the zodiacal signs used in Eastern Asia Cipactli and
Capricornus Table of resemblances The tiger and monkey found only
in southern countries The Aztec migration from the north Resemblance
between certain Mexican and Tartarian words The cutting-stones of the
Aztecs The sign ollin and the foot-prints of Vishnu Effects of a mixture of
several nations Changes resulting from changed circumstances and lapse of
time Analogies in religious customs Analogy in the fables regarding the
destructions of the universe Lobschcid s reasons for thinking the American
Indians to be one race with the Japanese and Eastern Asiatics Similarity
of customs Tiles Anchors The route from Asia to America Shipwrecks
of fishing-boats Head-dresses Languages Religion Customs Marriage
solemnized by tying the garments together Extracts from Prescott s " History
of the Conquest of Mexico " Analogies in traditions and religious usages
Disposal of the bodies of the dead The analogies of science The calendar
General conclusions.
Extracts from the " Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of
the Indigenous Nations of America" by Alexander von
Hurnboldt.
1579 J T j g a gur p r j ge t fi n( ^ toward the end of the fifteenth
century, in a world that we call " new," the ancient institutions,
the religious ideas, the forms of edifices which, in Asia, appear
to belong to the first dawn of civilization. It is true of the
characteristic traits of the nations, as of the interior structure of
the vegetation scattered upon the surface of the globe, that
everywhere they exhibit the imprint of a primitive type, in spite
of the differences which are produced by the nature of the cli
mates and of the soil, and by the combined influences of various
accidental causes. .
COINCIDENCES NOTED BY HUMBOLDT. 143
1580 If the languages offer but feeble proof of ancient commu
nication between the two worlds, this communication is indispu
tably shown in the cosmogonies, the monuments, the hieroglyphics,
and the institutions of the nations of America and Asia. . . .
IMS jf we re fl ec t ever so little upon the epoch of the earliest
Toltec migrations, upon the monastic institutions, the symbols of
worship, the calendar, and the form of the monuments of Cholula,
Sogamozo, and Cuzco, we perceive that Quetzalcoatl, Bochica, and
Manco-Capac did not draw their code of laws from the north of
Europe. Everything appears to carry us to Eastern Asia, to the
nations that have been in contact with the Thibetans, the sha-
manistic Tartars, and the bearded Ainos of the islands of Jesso
and Saghalien. . . .
USB ^ prolonged struggle between two religious sects, the
Brahmans and the Buddhists, ended by the emigration of the
shamans of Thibet into Mongolia, China, and Japan. If any
of the tribes of the Tartarian race passed by the way of the
northwestern coast of America, and from there southerly and
easterly to the banks of the Gil a and those of the Missouri, as the
etymological researches of Yater in his work upon the peopling
of America appear to indicate, it would be less surprising to find,
among the semi-barbarous tribes of the new continent, idols and
architectural monuments, a hieroglyphic writing, an exact knowl
edge of the duration of the year and traditions concerning the
first condition of the world, which all recall the knowledge, the
arts, and the religious opinions of the Asiatic nations. ...
1592 We have seen that the Mexicans, the Japanese, the Thibe
tans, and several other nations of Central Asia, have followed
the same system in the division of the great cycles and in the
names of the years that compose them. It remains for us to
examine a fact which more directly concerns the history of the
migrations of the nations, and which appears to have hitherto
escaped the attention of scholars. I expect to be able to prove
that a great part of the names by which the Mexicans designated
the twenty days of their months are those of the signs of a
zodiac used, from the most remote antiquity, by the nations of
Eastern Asia. To make it evident that this assertion is less
hazardous than it appears at first sight, I will give in a single
table first, the names of the Mexican hieroglyphs as they have
been transmitted to us by all the authors of the sixteenth cent-
144
AN INGLOKIOUS COLUMBUS.
ury ; second, the names of the twelve signs of the zodiac among
the Tartars, Thibetans, and Japanese ; third, the names of the
nakchatras, or lunar houses of the calendar of the Hindoos. I
dare flatter myself that those of my readers who will examine
this comparative table attentively will be interested in the dis
cussion into which we must enter regarding the first divisions of
the zodiac.
SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC.
Hindooi,
Mantchoo-
of the
Mexican Calendar.
Lunar Houses of
the Hindooi.
Greeks, and
Japanese.
Thibetan*.
Eastern Nations.
Aquarius.
Capricornus.
Sagittarius.
Singueri.
Ouker.
Pars.
Ne.
Ous.
Torra.
Tchip, rat, water.
Lang, ox.
Tah, tiger.
Atl, water. [ster.
Cipactli, marine mon-
Ocelotl, tiger.
(The mahara
is a marine
Scorpio.
Taoulai.
Ov.
To, hare.
Tochtli, hare.
monster.)
Libra.
Virgo.
Leo.
Cancer.
Lon.
Mogai.
Morin.
Koin.
Tats.
Mi.
Ouma.
Tsitsouse.
Broil, dragon.
Prow/, serpent.
7%a, horse.
Zon, goat.
Cohuatl, serpent.
Acatl, reed.
Tecpatl, flint (knife).
Ollin, path of the pun.
Serpent.
Eeed.
Kazor. [Vishnu
Foot-tracks of
Gemini.
Petchi.
Bar.
Prehou, monkey.
Ozomatli, monkey.
Monkey.
Taurus.
Tukia.
Torri.
Tcha, bird.
Quauhtli, bird.
Aries.
Pisces.
Nokai.
Gacai.
In.
Y.
y, dog.
Pah, hog.
Itzcuintli, dog.
Calli, house.
A dog s tail.
House.
From the most ancient times, the people of Asia have known
two systems of dividing the ecliptic : one into twenty-seven or
twenty-eight houses, or lunar mansions, the other into twelve
parts. The opinion which has been advanced, that this last
method of division existed only among the Egyptians, is erro
neous. The oldest monuments of Indian literature, the works of
Kalidasa, and of Amarsinh, mention both the twelve signs of
the zodiac, and the twenty-seven " Companions of the Moon. *
From our knowledge concerning the communications which oc
curred several thousand years before our era, between the nations
of Ethiopia, of Upper Egypt, and of Hindostan, we are justified
in dismissing the supposition that all that the Egyptians trans
mitted to the Grecian tribes appertained exclusively to them.
The division of the ecliptic into twenty-seven or twenty-eight
lunar houses, is probably more ancient than the division into
twelve parts, connected with the annual movement of the sun.
The phenomena which are repeated in the same order with every
revolution of the moon, attract the attention of mankind more
readily than changes of position, of which the cycle is com
pleted only in the space of a year. . . .
COINCIDENCES NOTED BY HUMBOLDT. 145
1593 Examining first the analogy which the names of the
Mexican days offer to the signs of the Thibetan, Chinese, Tar
tarian, and Mongolian zodiac, the analogy is found to be very
striking in the eight hieroglyphs called atl, cipactli, ocelotl,
tochtli, cohuatl, quauhtli, ozomatli, and itzcuintli. Atl, water, is
often indicated by a hieroglyph, of which the parallel lines and
undulations recall the sign which we employ to designate
Aquarius. The first tse, or catasterism, of the Chinese zodiac,
the rat (chit), is also frequently found represented by the figure
of water. At the time of the reign of the emperor Chuen-hiu,
there was a great deluge ; and the celestial sign hiuen-hiao,
which corresponds in position with our Aquarius, is the symbol
of his reign. So Pere Souciet observes, in his " Researches upon
the Cycles and the Zodiacs," that China and Europe agree in
representing, under different names, the sign which we call
Amphora, or Aquarius. Among the western people the water
which falls from the vase of the water-bearer forms another con
stellation (Hydor), to which the beautiful stars Fomahand and
Deneb Jcaitos belong, as is proved by several passages from
Aratus, Geminus, and Scholiaste de Germanicus.
Cipactli is a marine animal. This hieroglyph presents a strik
ing analogy with Capricornus, which the Hindoos and other
people of Asia call a marine monster. The Mexican sign indi
cates a fabulous animal, a cetacean armed with a horn. Gomara
and Torquemada call it espadarte, a name by which the Spaniards
designate the narwhal, of which the great tooth is known by the
name of the unicorn s horn. Boturini has mistaken this horn
for a harpoon, and erroneously translates cipactli by " serpent
armed with harpoons." As this sign does not represent a real
animal, it is very natural that its form should vary more than
those of the other signs. Sometimes the horn appears to be a
prolongation of the muzzle, as in the famous fish oxyrinque, rep
resented in the place of the southern fish beneath Capricornus
in some Indian planispheres ; in other cases the horn is lacking
entirely. Casting the eyes upon figures copied from very an
cient designs and reliefs, it is seen that Valades, Boturini, and
Clavigero have all erroneously represented the first hieroglyph
of the Mexican days as a shark, or a lizard. In the manuscript
of the Borgian Museum, the head of the cipactli resembles that
of a crocodile ; and this same name of crocodile is given, by Son-
10
OF THt
UNIVERSITY
OF
146 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
nerat, to the tenth sign of the Indian zodiac, which is our Capri-
cornus.
In addition, the idea of the marine animal cipactli is found
united in the Mexican mythology with the history of a man, who,
at the time of the destruction of the fourth sun, after having
floated upon the water for a long time, was saved, alone, by
attaining the top of the mountain of Colhuacan. We have else
where observed that the Noah of the Aztecs, who was usually
called " Coxcox," bore also the name of " Teo-cipactli," in which
the word "god" or " divine" is added to that of the sign cipactli.
In casting the eyes upon the zodiac of the Asiatic tribes, we find
that the Capricornus of the Hindoos is the fabulous fish mahara,
or souro, celebrated for its exploits, and represented from the
most remote antiquity as a marine monster with the head of a
gazelle.
As the people of India, as well as the Mexicans, often indi
cate the naJcchatras (lunar houses) and the laquenons (the
twelve signs of the zodiac) merely by the heads of the animals
which compose the lunar and solar zodiacs, it is not at all sur
prising that the western nations have transformed the mahara
into Capricornus (alyonepG)^), and that Aratus, Ptolemy, and the
Persian Kazwini have not given it even a fish s tail. An ani
mal which, after having lived in the water for a long time, takes
the form of a gazelle, and climbs the mountains, reminds the
people, of whom the restless imagination seizes upon the most
distant affinities, of the ancient traditions of Menu, of Noah, and
of the Deucalions celebrated among the Scythians and the Thes-
salians. It is true that, according to Germanicus, Deucalion,
who may be considered to resemble Coxcox, or Teo-cipactli of
the Mexican mythology, should be placed, not in the sign Capri
cornus, but in Aquarius, the sign which immediately follows it.
This circumstance, however, is not surprising, as it merely con
firms the ingenious view of M. Bailly regarding the ancient con
nection of the three signs, Pisces, Aquarius, and Capricornus or
the fish-gazelle.
Ocelotl, tiger, the jaguar (felis oncd) of the warm regions of
Mexico ; tochtli, hare ; ozomatli, she-monkey ; itzcuintli, dog ;
cohuatl, serpent ; quauhtli, bird, are the catasterisms which are
found under the same name in the Tartarian and Thibetan
zodiac. In Chinese astronomy the hare is not only the fourth
COINCIDENCES NOTED BY HUMBOLDT. 147
tse, or sign of the zodiac, but the moon, since the remote epoch of
the reign of Too, has been figured as a disk, in which a hare, sit
ting upon its hind feet, turns a stick in a vessel, as if making but
ter ; a puerile fancy which may have had its origin in the plains
of Tartary, where hares abound, and which are inhabited by pas
toral tribes. The Mexican monkey, ozomatli, corresponds to the
heu of the Chinese, thepetchi of the Mantchoos, and the prehou
of the Thibetans, three names which designate the same animal.
Procyon appears to be the monkey Hanuan, so known in the
Hindoo mythology, and the position of this star, placed upon the
same line with Gemini and the pole of the ecliptic, corresponds
very well with the place which the monkey occupies in the Tar
tar zodiac, between Cancer and Taurus. Monkeys are also found
in the heaven of the Arabs. They are the stars of the constella
tion Canis Major, called El-Jcurttd in the catalogue of Kazwini.
I enter into these details concerning the sign ozomatli because it
is a very important point, not only in the history of astronomy,
but also in that of the migrations of the tribes, to find an animal
of the torrid zone placed among the constellations of the Mon
golian, Mantchoo, Aztec, and Toltec tribes.
The sign itzcuintli, dog, corresponds with the last sign but one
of the Tartarian zodiac, the ky of the Thibetans, the nokai of
the Mantchoos, and the in of the Japanese. Pere Gaubil informs
us that the dog of the Tartarian zodiac is our sign Aries ; and it
is very remarkable that, according to le Gentil, although the
Hindoos were not acquainted with the series of signs which com
mences with the rat, Aries is sometimes replaced by a wild dog.
In the same way, among the Mexicans itzcuintli designates the
wild dog, for they call their domestic dog techichi. Mexico
formerly abounded with carnivorous quadrupeds which united
the qualities of the dog and the wolf, and which Hernandez
has described to us but imperfectly. The race of these animals,
known by the names of xoloitzcuintli, itzcuintepotzotli, and tepeitz-
cuintli, is probably not entirely extinct, but they have more likely
retired into the wildest and most remote forests ; for in the part
of the country which I have passed through I have never heard
a wild dog mentioned.
Le Gentil and Bailly have been misled in the opinion which
they have advanced that the word mdcha, which designates our
ram, signifies a wild dog. This Sanskrit word is the common
AN" INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
name of the ram, and it has been employed very poetically by an
Indian author who, describing the combat of two warriors, says
that " by their heads they were two mtchas (rams), by their
arms two elephants, by their feet two noble coursers."
The following table shows at one view the signs of the Tar
tarian zodiac and the names of the days of the Mexican calendar,
which are alike :
Zodiac of the Tartar-Mantchoos. Zodiac of the Mexicans.
Pars, tiger. Ocelotl, tiger.
Taoulai, hare. Tochtli, hare, rabbit.
Mogai, serpent. Cohuatl, serpent.
Petchi, monkey. Ozomatli, monkey.
Nokal, dog. Itzcuintli, dog.
Tufaa, bird, fowl. Quauhtli, bird, eagle.
Without connecting the hieroglyphs water (atl) and the
marine monster (cipactli), which offer a striking analogy with the
zodiacal signs of Aquarius and Capricornus, the six signs of the
Tartarian zodiac which are also found in the Mexican calendar
are sufficient to make it extremely probable that the nations of
the two continents have drawn their astronomical ideas from a
common source, and it is worthy of notice that the points of
resemblance upon which we insist are not derived from rude
pictures or allegories, susceptible of being interpreted in ac
cordance with any hypothesis that it is desired to sustain. If
we consult the works composed at the time of the conquest, by
Spanish authors, or by American Indians who were ignorant of
the existence of a Tartarian zodiac, it will be seen that in Mex
ico, from the seventh century until our era, the days have been
called "tiger," "dog," "monkey," "hare" or "rabbit," as,
throughout Eastern Asia, the years bear the same names among
the Thibetans, the Tartar-Mantchoos, the Mongols, the Calmucks,
the Chinese, the Japanese, the Coreans, and among the nations
of Tonquin and Cochin-China.
It is conceivable that nations which never had any connection
may have similarly divided the ecliptic into twenty-seven or
twenty-eight parts, and given to each lunar day the name of the
stars near which the moon is found to be placed in its progress
ive movement from west to east. It also appears very natural
that pastoral and hunting nations should designate the constel
lations and the lunar days by the names of the animals which
COINCIDENCES NOTED BY HUMBOLDT. 149
are the constant objects of their affections or their fears. The
heaven of the nomad tribes may be found to be peopled with
dogs, deer, bulls, and wolves, without furnishing sufficient ground
for the conclusion that the tribes have ever formerly made parts
of the same nation. Traits of resemblance which are purely acci
dental, or which arise from a similarity of circumstances or lo
cation, should not be confounded with those which are the results
of a common origin or of ancient communication.
But the Tartarian and Mexican zodiacs are not confined ex
clusively to animals found in the regions inhabited by these
nations now ; in both, the tiger and the monkey are also found.
The two animals are unknown upon the plateau of Eastern and
Central Asia, to which the great elevation gives a colder temper
ature than that which is found in the same latitude farther east.
The Thibetans, the Mongolians, the Mantchoos, and the Cal-
mucks have therefore received from a more southerly country the
zodiac which has, too exclusively, been called the Tartarian cycle.
The Toltecs, the Aztecs, the Tlascaltecs migrated from the north
toward the south ; we know of Aztec monuments as far north as
the banks of the Gila, between 33 and 34 north latitude, and
history informs us that the Toltecs came formerly from regions
still farther north. The colonists coming from Aztlan did not
arrive as barbarian tribes ; everything announces the remains of
an ancient civilization as existing among them.
The names given to the cities which they constructed were
the names of the places which their ancestors had inhabited ;
their laws, their annals, their chronology, the order of their sacri
fices, were modeled upon the knowledge which they had acquired
in their father-land. Now, the monkeys and the tigers, which
figure among the hieroglyphs of the days, and in the Mexican
traditions of the four ages, or destructions of the sun, do not live
in the northern part of New Spain, or on the northwestern coast
of America. As a consequence, the signs ozomatli and ocelotl ren
der it extremely probable that the zodiacs of the Toltecs, the
Aztecs, the Mongolians, the Thibetans, and many other nations,
which are now separated by a vast extent of country, originated
at the same point in the Old World.
The lunar houses of the Hindoos, in which we find also a
monkey, a serpent, a dog s tail, and the head of a gazelle, or of
a marine monster, offer still other signs, of which the names re-
150 AN INGLOEIOUS COLUMBUS.
call those of calli, acatl, tecpatl, and ollin of the Mexican calen
dar.
Indian Nakchatras. Mexican Signs.
Magha, house. Calli, house.
Venu, cane (reed). Acatl, cane (reed).
Critica, razor. Tecpatl, flint, stone knife.
Sravana, three foot-prints. Ollin, movement of the sun,
figured by three foot-prints.
We can not help noticing that the Aztec word calli has the
same signification as kuala or holla, among the Wogouls, who
live upon the banks of the Kama and the Irtish, as ail, the
Aztec word for water, and itels (river) recall the words atel,
atelch, etel or idel (river) in the languages of the Mongolian Tar
tars, the Tcheremissians, and the Tchuwassians. The denomina
tion of calli, house, also designates very well a lunar station or
inn (mendzil el kamar, in Arabian), a place of repose. So, also,
among the Indian nakchatras, in addition to the houses (magha
and punarvasu), we also find a bedstead and a couch.
The Mexican sign acatl, cane, is generally drawn as two reeds
tied together ; but the stone found in Mexico in 1790, and which
offers the hieroglyphs of the days, represents the sign acatl in a
very different manner. We recognize there a bundle of rushes,
or a sheaf of maize, contained in a vase. We recall, in this con
nection, the fact that, in the first period of thirteen days of the
year tochtli, the sign acatl is constantly accompanied by Cinteotl,
who is the goddess of maize, the Ceres of the Mexicans, the di
vinity who presides over agriculture. Among the western peo
ple, Ceres is placed in the fifth of the twelve signs. We also
find very ancient zodiacs in which a bundle of ears of grain fills
all the place which should be occupied by Ceres, Isis, Astre"e, or
Erigone, in the sign of the harvests and vintages. Thus we
find that, from a high antiquity, the same ideas, the same sym
bols, the same tendency to think physical phenomena dependent
upon the mysterious influence of the stars, existed among nations
the most widely separated from one another.
The Mexican hieroglyph tecpatl indicates a cutting-stone of
an oval form, elongated toward the two extremities, similar to
those which are used as knives, or which are attached to the
end of a pike. This sign recalls the critica, or cutting-knife,
of the lunar zodiac of the Hindoos. Upon the large stone (rep-
COINCIDENCES NOTED BY HUMBOLDT.
resented in a plate given in the original French edition), the
hieroglyph tecpatl is figured in a different manner from the form
ordinarily given to it. The stone is pierced in the center, and
the opening appears to be intended to receive the hand of the
warrior who uses this two-pointed weapon. It is known that
the Americans had a peculiar method of piercing the hardest
stones and of working them into shape by friction. I brought
from South America, and deposited in the Berlin Museum, an
obsidian ring, which had served for a young girl s bracelet, and
which formed a hollow cylinder of almost seven centimetres in
ternal diameter, and four centimetres height, and of which the
thickness is not more than three millimetres. It is difficult to
conceive how a vitreous and fragile mass can have been reduced
to so thin a band. Tecpatl, however, differed in other respects
from obsidian, a substance which the Mexicans called iztli. Un
der the name tecpatl, jade, hornblende, and flint were con
founded.
The sign ollin, or ollin tonatiuh, presided, in the beginning of
the cycle of fifty-two years, over the seventeenth day of the
first month. The explanation of this sign greatly embarrassed
the Spanish monks, who, destitute of the most elementary prin
ciples of astronomy, attempted to describe the Mexican calen
dar. The Indian authors translated ollin by movements of the
sun. When they found the number nahui (four) added, they
rendered nahui ollin by the words " the sun (tonatiuh) in its
four movements." The sign ollin is made in three ways : some
times like two interlaced ribbons, or rather like two parts of
the curved lines, which intersect and have three distinct folds
upon their summits ; sometimes, like the solar disk, inclosed by
four squares, which contained the hieroglyphs of the numbers one
(ce) and four (nahui) ; sometimes like three foot-prints. The
four squares, as we shall hereafter show, alluded to the famous
tradition of the four ages, or four destructions of the world,
which occurred upon the days four tiger (nahui ocelotl),four
wind (nahui ehecatl), four rain (nahui quiahuitl), and four
water (nahui atl), in the years one reed (ce acatl), one flint (ce
tecpatl), and ce calli, one house. The solstices, the equinoxes,
and the passages of the sun past the zenith of the city of
Tenochtitlan, correspond very nearly to these days. The repre
sentation of the sign ollin by three xocpalli, or foot-prints, such as
152 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
are often found in the manuscripts preserved in the Vatican and
in the Codex Borgianus, folio 47, n. 210, is remarkable from the
analogy which it offers in appearance with sravana, or "the
Three Foot-prints of Vishnu," one of the mansions of the lunar
zodiac of the Hindoos. In the Mexican calendar the three foot
prints indicate either the course of the sun in its passage to the
equator, and in its movement toward the two tropics, or the
three positions of the sun, in the zenith, upon the equator, and at
one of the solstices. It may be possible that the lunar zodiac
of the Hindoos contains some sign which, like that of Libra, re
lates to the course of the sun. We have seen that the zodiac of
twenty-eight signs may have been transformed, little by little,
into a zodiac of twelve mansions of the full moon, and that some
nakchatras may have changed, their name since the zodiac of
the full moon has, from a knowledge of the annual movement
of the sun, become a true solar zodiac. Krishna, the Apollo of
the Hindoos, is in fact nothing but Vishnu under the form of the
sun, who is adored more particularly under the name of the god
Surya. In spite of this analogy of ideas and of signs, we think
that the three foot-prints which indicate sravana,, the twenty-
third of the nakchatras, have only an accidental resemblance
with the three foot-tracks which represent the sign ottin. M. de
Chezy, who unites a profound knowledge of the Persian to that
of the Sanskrit, observes that the sravana of the Indian zodiac
alludes to a legend which is very celebrated among the Hindoos,
and which is recorded in most of their sacred books, particularly
in the Bhdgavat Pdrdnd. Vishnu, wishing to punish the pride
of a giant, who thought himself as powerful as the gods, present
ed himself before him in the form of a dwarf, and begged him to
give him in his vast empire the space which he could inclose by
three of his paces. The giant smilingly granted his request ; but
immediately the dwarf grew so prodigiously that with two paces
he measured the distance between the heavens and the earth.
As he demanded a place to set his foot for the third pace, the
giant recognized the god Vishnu, and prostrated himself before
him. This fact explains so well the figure of the naJcchatra named
sravana, that it seems difficult to admit that the sign can be
connected with that of ollin, as cipactli and the Mexican Noah,
Teo-cipactli, are connected with the constellation Capricornus
and with Deucalion, placed formerly in Aquarius.
COINCIDENCES NOTED BY HUMBOLDT. 153
We have thus developed the connection which exists between
the signs composing the different zodiacs of India, of Thibet, and
of Tartary and the hieroglyphs of the days and the years of the
Mexican calendar. We have found that among the proofs of
such connection the most striking and the most numerous are
those which are presented by the cycle of twelve animals, which
we have designated by the name of the Tartarian and Thibetan
zodiac. In terminating a discussion of which the results are so
important in regard to the history of the ancient communication
of the nations, it remains for us to examine the last zodiac more
closely, and to prove that in the system of Asiatic astronomy,
with which the Mexican astronomy appears to have had a com
mon origin, the twelve signs of the zodiac presided not only over
the months, but also over the years, the days, the hours, and even
the smallest divisions of the hours. . . .
1594 \vherever we observe at the same time several divisions
of the ecliptic which differ, not in the number of the signs, but
in their general names, as the tse, the tchi, and the celestial ani
mals of the Chinese, the Thibetans, and the Tartars, this multi
plicity of signs is probably due to a mixture of several nations,
which have been subjugated one by another. The effects of this
mixture, particularly of the influence exercised by the conquerors
upon the conquered, are especially manifest in the northeastern
part of Asia, in which the languages, in spite of the great num
ber of Mongolian and Tartarian roots which they contain, differ
so essentially among themselves, that they seem to be incapable
of any methodical classification. The greater the distance from
Thibet and Hindostan, the greater the difference in the type of
the civil institutions, in knowledge, and in culture. Now, if the
tribes of Eastern Siberia, among whom the dogmas of Buddhism
have evidently penetrated, show but feebly their connection
with the civilized nations of Eastern Asia, we need not be sur
prised that in the New Continent we find only a few points of
analogy in the traditions, in the chronology, and in the style of
the ancient monuments, while in other respects we discern a
great number of striking differences. When nations of Tartarian
or Mongolian origin, transplanted to foreign shores, mixed with
the hordes indigenous to America, and traced out painfully a
path toward civilization, their languages, their mythology, their
divisions of time, all took a character of individuality which
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
effaced, so to say, the primitive type of their national physiog
nomy. . . .
1597 Thibet and Mexico present very remarkable traits of
connection in their ecclesiastical hierarchy, in the number of
their religious fraternities, in the extreme austerity of their pen
ances, and in the order of the processions. It is impossible to
fail to be struck with these resemblances, when reading with
attention the account which Cortez gave to the Emperor Charles
the Fifth of his solemn entry into Cholula, which he called the
holy city of the Mexicans. . . .
1598 Of all the traits of analogy which have been observed
in the monuments, in the manners, and in the traditions of the
nations of Asia and America, the most striking is that which the
Mexican mythology presents in its fable regarding the system of
the universe, of its periodic destructions and regenerations.
This fable, which unites the idea of a renewal of matter sup
posed to be indestructible with the completion of great cycles,
and which attributes to space that which appears to appertain
only to time, goes back to the greatest antiquity. The sacred
books of the Hindoos, especially the Bhdgavat P&rdnd, speak
of the four ages and of the pralayas, or cataclysms, which at
different epochs have caused the destruction of the human spe
cies. A tradition of five ages, analogous to that of the Mexicans,
is found upon the plateau of Thibet. It is true that this astro
logical fable, which has become the basis of a system of cos
mogony, had its birth in Hindostan ; it is probable, also, that
from there it passed to the western nations by the way of Iran
and Chaldea. The resemblance between the Indian tradition of
the yugas and the Jcalpas, the cycles of the ancient inhabitants
of Etruria, and this series of exterminated generations, charac
terized by Hesiod under the emblem of four metals, should not
be forgotten.
The nations of Culhua, or of Mexico, says Gomara, who
wrote in the middle of the sixteenth century, believed, according
to their hieroglyphical paintings, that before the sun which now
shines upon them, there existed four others which were de
stroyed one after another. The "five suns " are as many ages in
which our species has been annihilated by inundations, by earth
quakes, by a universal conflagration, and by the effect of hurri
canes. After the destruction of the fourth sun, the world was
COINCIDENCES NOTED BY LOBSCHEID. 155
plunged into darkness for the space of twenty-five years. It was
in the middle of this profound night, ten years before the ap
pearance of the fifth sun, that the human race was re-created.
599 As it may cause surprise to find five ages, or suns, among
the Mexican tribes, while the Hindoos and the Greeks admit
only four, it is worthy of notice that the Mexican cosmogony
is in accord with that of the Thibetans, who also regard the
present age as the fifth. If we examine with care the beautiful
fragment of an earlier tradition, preserved by Hesiod, in which he
explains the Oriental system of the renewal of nature, it will be
seen that this author really counts five creations in four ages.
He divides the period of bronze into two parts, which make up
the third and fourth creations ; and it is surprising that so clear
a passage has sometimes been misinterpreted.
We are ignorant as to the number of ages referred to in the
Sibylline books ; but we think that the analogies which we indi
cate are not accidental, and that it is not without interest for the
philosophical history of man to see the same fables scattered
from Etruria to Thibet, and from there to the Cordilleras of
Mexico.
Extracts from the " Grammar of the Chinese Language" by
the Hev. W. Lobscheid.
1756 AMERICAN INDIANS APPARENTLY ONE RACE WITH THE
JAPANESE AND EASTERN ASIATICS. ... In passing across the Isth
mus of Panama, and in Mexico, I was struck with the similarity
of architecture between the Chinese and these people. Instead of
excavating mountains, instead of making expensive vaults, all the
principal edifices are erected on elevated ground. The tiles of the
roofs are concave and convex, just as we have them in China ;
the anchors of their boats are the same as we find them in Japan
and the north of China, i. e., with four hooks without a barb ;
and innumerable other manners, customs, and peculiarities of
civilization agree exactly with those of Eastern Asia, as in no
other country of the world.
We now come to inquire as to how these tribes could reach
America. During the summer months, when the sun did not set
for one whole month, the inhabitants of the extreme parts of
Northeastern Asia, either pressed by hostile tribes, or from an im
pulse of adventure, must have crossed over to the American Conti-
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
nent, where, either by hunting or fishing, they could easily sup
port themselves and provide for their wants during the coming
winter. Wave after wave of immigration is likely to have rolled
on ; and if only at long intervals a few returned to their native
place, that was sufficient to account for a knowledge of a large
Eastern Continent, floating among the Chinese, Japanese, and
other Asiatics.
The large fleets of fishing-boats about the coasts of Japan and
China are, we know, frequently overtaken by tremendous gales,
and either destroyed or carried eastward. We know of Japa
nese junks having been picked up beyond the Sandwich Islands,
and close to the shore of America, after an absence of more than
nine months. But much more. Large fleets of war-junks, some
times manned by as many as one hundred thousand men, have
left the coast of China and Japan, and have been scattered by the
northwest gales, and but few of these ever survived or returned.
It is not unlikely that these junks, being well provisioned,
have continued in their eastern course, until, within 28 north
latitude, they fell in with the trade-wind, which compelled them
to change their course, and carried them toward Mexico or Lower
California, where they laid the foundation of that kind of civiliza
tion which resembles so closely that of the Chinese and Japanese.
Look at the Chinese dress five or six centuries ago, and you have
the head-dress of the Mexicans ; look at the monstrous uniforms
and coats-of-mail, and at the head-dress of the Japanese women,
and you will be struck with their similarity to the Mexicans. As
all the kings, chiefs, and priests in one word, all the creators of
that peculiar civilization were destroyed by the Spaniards, we
need not wonder at the low ebb of education of the present race,
who are merely the children of peasants and the lower classes.
Were Chinese who speak the different dialects and well versed
in their own literature, and Japanese of education, well furnished
with ancient works, sent with scientific men to America, we
may rest assured, they would soon decipher the inscriptions now
fast going to ruin.
SUMMARY OF SIMILARITY OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS WITH THE
JAPANESE, CHINESE, AND NORTHERN ASIATICS. I. LANGUAGE.
Monosyllabic, as spoken by the Otomi and other tribes. Hiero
glyphs, or ideographic characters, on the same principle as the
COINCIDENCES NOTED BY LOBSCHEID. 157
Chinese ; absence of the R among the tribes where the ideo
graphic characters are found ; prevalence of hissing sounds and
gutturals, and most words terminating in a vowel. 2. Poly
syllabic language of a syllabic character, representing, not sound,
but syllables, as in Japan. Japanese words detected in the Indian
language ; Japanese form of the possessive case ; prevalence of
the R, and the termination of every word in a vowel except
theN.
II. RELIGION. The most ancient religion of the Indians, now
forming the wandering tribes, is the belief in one Great Spirit,
whom they worship, like the Japanese their Sin (spirit), without
image. In both places, long, hortatory addresses are delivered to
the audience, and both exhibit profound reverence of that spirit,
and deep religious feelings. The polytheistic form of worship, as
found in Mexico, etc., is, according to accepted history, the most
modern one, and was, if we believe Chinese legends, introduced by
Buddhists and shaman priests, about the beginning of the sixth
century of our era, which nearly coincides with the commence
ment of the Toltecan history, which is put down at A. D. 596. The
dragon or serpent worship was very prevalent. That the Chi
nese dragon is nothing but a serpent, can be proved from the fact
that at this moment serpents are kept in temples as representa
tives of the ancient dragon. They resembled the Chinese and
(Buddhist) Japanese in their ideas of " the transmigration of the
soul ; in the monastic forms and discipline ; in their penances,
ablutions, alms-givings, and public festivals ; in the worship of
their household gods ; in the devotions of the priests to the study
of astrology and astronomy ; in the admission of virgin females
to the vows and rites of the cloister ; in the incense and chants
of their worship ; in their use of charms and amulets ; in some
of their forms of burning their dead, and the preservation of the
ashes in urns, and in the assumption of the right to educate the
youth." Among other superstitious notions is the one of a celes
tial dragon endeavouring to devour the sun during its eclipse,
and their fondness for the drum, gong, and rattle.
III. CUSTOMS. The dragon-standard ; banner-lances, as we
find them in Chinese Buddhist temples ; ensigns and banners
stuck in a ferula, fixed at the back of a warrior. A kind of her
aldry as we meet among the Japanese. Some of their nuptials
were symbolized by the ceremony of tying the garments of the
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
two contracting parties together. There was only one lawful
wife, though a plurality of concubines. I have already referred
to the similarity of dress, architecture, and anchors of ships.
Physiologically considered, there is not the slightest difference
between these tribes and those of Japan and China, and the tribes
among themselves differ no more from each other than the peo
ple of Europe of one and the same stock.
Extracts from the " History of the Conquest of Mexico "by
William H. Prescott.
2083 An obvious analogy is found in cosmogonal traditions
and religious usages. The reader has already been made ac
quainted with the Aztec system of four great cycles, at the end of
each of which the world was destroyed, to be again regenerated.
The belief in these periodical convulsions of nature, through the
agency of some one or other of the elements, was familiar to
many countries in the Eastern Hemisphere ; and, though varying
in detail, the general resemblance of outline furnishes an argu
ment in favour of a common origin. The fanciful division of
time into four or five cycles or ages was found among the Hin
doos ("Asiatic Researches," vol. ii, mem. 7), the Thibetans
(Humboldt, " Vues des Cordilleres," p. 210), the Persians (Bailly,
" Traite de PAstronomie," Paris, 1787, tome i, discours prelimi-
naire), the Greeks (Hesiod, ""Epya KCU -H^epai," v, 108 et seq.),
and other people, doubtless. . . .
2084 " I have purposely omitted noticing the resemblance of re
ligious notions, for I do not see how it is possible to separate
from such views every influence of Christian ideas, if it be only
from an imperceptible confusion in the mind of the narrator."
(Quoted from Vater s " Mithridates," Berlin, 1812, Theil III,
Abtheil 3, p. 82, note.) . . .
15 These coincidences must be allowed to furnish an argu
ment in favour of some primitive communication with that great
brotherhood of nations on the Old Continent among whom simi
lar ideas have been so widely diffused. The probability of such
a communication, especially with Eastern Asia, is much strength
ened by the resemblance of sacerdotal institutions, and of some
religious rites as those of marriage and the burial of the dead ;
by the practice of human sacrifices, and even of cannibalism
traces of which are discernible in the Mongol races ; and, lastly,
COINCIDENCES NOTED BY PRESCOTT. 159
by a conformity of social usages and manners so striking that
the description of Montezuma s court may well pass for that of
the Grand Khan s, as depicted by Maundeville and Marco Polo.
It would occupy too much room to go into details in this mat
ter, without which, however, the strength of the argument can
not be felt, nor fully established. It has been done by others ;
and an occasional coincidence has been adverted to in the preced
ing chapters. . . .
2086 There are certain arbitrary peculiarities, which, when
found in different nations, reasonably suggest the idea of some
previous communication between them. Who can doubt the
existence of an affinity, or at least intercourse, between tribes
who had the same strange habit of burying the dead in a sitting
posture, as was practiced to some extent by most, if not all, of
the aborigines, from Canada to Patagonia ? The habit of burn
ing the dead, familiar to both Mongols and Aztecs, is, in itself,
but slender proof of a common origin. The body must be dis
posed of in some way ; and this, perhaps, is as natural as any
other. But, when to this is added the circumstance of collecting
the ashes in a vase, and depositing the single article of a precious
stone along with them, the coincidence is remarkable. Such
minute coincidences are not unfrequent ; while the accumulation
of those of a more general character, though individually of little
account, greatly strengthens the probability of a communication
with the East. . . .
2067 A proof of a higher kind is found in the analogies of
science. We have seen the peculiar chronological system of the
Aztecs their method of distributing the years into cycles, and
of reckoning by means of periodical series, instead of numbers.
A similar process was used by the various Asiatic nations of the
Mongol family, from India to Japan. . . .
2088 It is scarcely possible to reconcile the knowledge of Oriental
science with the total ignorance of some of the most serviceable
and familiar arts, as the use of milk and iron, for example arts
so simple, yet so important to domestic comfort, that, when once
acquired, they could hardly be lost. . . . Yet there have been
people considerably civilized, in Eastern Asia, who were almost
equally strangers to the use of milk. ... It is possible, more
over, that the migration may have been previous to the time
when iron was used by the Asiatic nation in question. . . . Such
160 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
is the explanation, unsatisfactory indeed, but the best that sug
gests itself, of this curious anomaly. . . .
2089 TI^ rea d e r of the preceding pages may, perhaps, acquiesce
in the general conclusions not startling by their novelty :
First, that the coincidences are sufficiently strong to authorize
a belief that the civilization of Anahuac was, in some degree, in
fluenced by that of Eastern Asia ; and, secondly, that the discrep
ancies are such as to carry back the communication to a very
remote period so remote, that this foreign influence has been
too feeble to interfere materially with the growth of what may
be regarded, in its essential features, as a peculiar and indigenous
civilization.
CHAPTER X.
SHORTER ESSAYS.
" Where was Fu-sang ? " by the Rev. Nathan Brown, D. D. Difficulties attending
a decision Horses Grapes Reason for thinking Fu-sang more distant than
Japan Length of the li Distances of the route Difficulties attending
Klaproth s theory The military expeditions of the Japanese The introduc
tion of the Buddhist religion The Hans Great Han Identification of the
fu-sang tree with the bread-fruit tree Conclusion Remarks of the Abbe
Brasseur de Bourbourg The paper and books of the Mexicans and Central
Americans Civilization of New Mexico Chinese boats Animals Mr. Lc-
land s " Fusang" An earlier article Who discovered America ? J. Hanlay s
essay The fu-sang tree identified with the maguey Metals Resemblance
in religion and customs Also in features Language Civilization on Pacific
coast Letter of Mr. Th. Simson The Mexican aloe The fu-sang tree
Japan Letter of E. Bretschneider, M. D. Accounts of Fu-sang by the
Chinese poets "The Kingdom of Women" Verdict of Father Ilyacinth
The distance Horses and deer The fu-sang tree The t ung tree The paper-
mulberry Metals" The Kingdom of Women " and Salt Lake City Fu-sang
not Japan Ta-han in Siberia Envoys from Fu-sang Contradictory fancies
Mr. Leland s criticism Letter of Fere Gaubil Unreliability of Chinese
texts The peopling of Japan Chinese knowledge of surrounding countries
Remarks of Humboldt Letter of the Rt. Rev. Channing M. Williams The
Chinese " Classic of Mountains and Seas " Fabulous stories Translation of
extracts therefrom Remarks of M. Leon de Rosny Passage from Asia to
America The distance Character of the Esquimaux An article from a
newspaper of British Columbia Discovery of Chinese coins in the bank of a
creek Evidence that they had been buried for a long time.
" Where was Fu-sang f " by the Rev. Nathan Brown, D. Z>. 850
IT is not a little amusing to observe the regularity with which
the discovery of an ancient connection between China and Mex
ico annually goes the rounds of the newspapers.
The author of the discovery is generally stated to be Pro
fessor Karl Neumann, who has lit upon some old Chinese record
containing it ; but no dates are given for verifying the fact, and
no translation of the documents upon which he relies.
11
162 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
The following paragraph, from the first chapter of Riviero s
" Peruvian Antiquities," translated by Dr. Hawks, is somewhat
more definite. After speaking of various theories framed in ref
erence to the colonization of America, he says :
" But the hypothesis which in importance surpasses all these
is that of de Guignes, who, relying upon the chronicles of
China, attributes Peruvian civilization to emigration proceeding
from the i Celestial Empire, or the East Indies. Recent inves
tigations would seem to confirm this opinion." . . .
Signer Riviero goes on to say there is " no doubt " that Que-
tzalcoatl, Bochica, Manco Capac, and other reformers of Central
America were Buddhist priests. Such random assertions are a
positive injury to archaeological science ; they destroy confidence,
not only in the author who makes them, but in antiquarian re
searches generally. The connection of the Mexican mythology
with Buddhism is a thing to be proved, not assumed as a matter
beyond doubt. Buddhism is the most gentle and inoffensive of
all the heathen religions ; it is as unlike to the bloody religion
of the Aztecs as it is to the cruel rites of the Brahmanical wor
shipers of Siva and Durga. If an idol is to be found in Yuca
tan combining these two opposite forms of worship, it is a
phenomenon well worth the study of the learned. But, before
attempting a solution of the enigma, we want certain proof that
such a combination exists. . . .
The difficulties presented ... are formidable, whether, with
Klaproth, we suppose that the Chinese account refers to Japan,
or with de Guignes, that it refers to America. The former
asserts that neither the vine nor horses were known in America
till after the time of Columbus, and that this circumstance alone
disproves the theory of de Guignes. But such a summary dis
posal of the question can not be admitted. The fossil remains
of this continent have not been sufficiently examined to decide
that the bones of the horse are not among them. But were this
point settled, it would still be very supposable that some other
animal might be intended by the word translated "horses." In
regard to the grape, M. Klaproth is certainly mistaken. New
England, as early as the year 1000, was called by the Norwe
gians Vinland, or " the Land of Vines," from the abundance of
grapes which they found there.
The narrative of Hoei Shin is classed by Klaproth with the
SHORTER ESSAYS.
163
stories and exaggerations of the Chinese poets, who make Bu
sang their land of fables, a country lying in the remote East,
where the sun rises and makes his toilet. . . .
Other passages say that beyond the Southeastern Ocean, be
tween the Kan-shui, or " Sweet Rivers," lies the kingdom of
Ghi-wa-kof, where lived the virgin Ghi-wa, or Ili-ho, who mar
ried the prince of Ghi-ica and gave birth to ten suns.
But these fables are rather against than in favour of M. Klap-
roth s theory ; for the poets would have been more likely to
select, as the scene of the marvelous, a remote and unknown
country rather than one so near as Japan. The life-like particu
larity of Hoei Shin s account evidently raises it out of the region
of fable, and compels us to regard it as a matter-of-fact descrip
tion of some existing country. But where is Ta-han? De Guig-
nes says this country is Kamtchatka ; Klaproth says it is Taraikai,
or Saghalien. . . .
The distance from the mouth of the Hoang-ho to the coast of
North America, by a direct eastern course, would be from 6,500
to 7,000 miles ; corresponding very well to 20,000 Chinese li, as at
present reckoned. But the question arises, whether Hoei Shin in
tends to say that Fit-sang is equally distant from China and from
Ta-han, or whether he means that Fa-sang is at the same dis
tance from Ta-han that Ta-han is from China. The latter sense
would require the translation to read : " Fu-sang is 20,000 li east of
the country of Ta-han, and it [meaning Ta-han] is equally distant
to the east of China." This would locate Ta-han on the road to
Fu-sang, instead of making Ta-han and China the basis of an
isosceles triangle, of which Fu-sang is the apex. It would render
the account more natural and consistent ; for if Fu-sang is in
an easterly direction from both the other countries, we must infer
that the three were nearly in a line.
If we adopt Li-yan-cheits statement of the route to Ta-han,
whether the latter be Saghalien or Kamtchatka, we must contract
our estimate of the U, and that will bring Fu-sang proportionately
nearer.
As navigation in those early times was generally along the
shore, with very little means of accurately measuring distances
by water, it will not perhaps be unreasonable to allow, on the
average, six nautical li to the mile, and then 20,000 K would
just be sufficient to land us in Oregon or California. From the
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
southern point of Kamtchatka to Alaska the distance is about
one thousand miles, and to Oregon as much farther ; so that of
the 20,000 li, or 3,300 miles, we would have a surplus of 1,300
miles to allow for the windings along the coast. The stages of
the voyage would then become : From Corea to the chief port in
Japan (making a very large allowance for winding course), 2,000
miles ; thence to Wen-shin (either in Jesso or Saghalien), 1,100
miles ; thence to Kamtchatka, 800 miles ; thence to Fu,-sang, a
long stretch of 3,300 miles.
Thus we see there is no insuperable objection to the theory
of de Guignes. On the contrary, the supposition of Klaproth,
that Fa-sang was the southern part of Japan, involves us in inex
tricable difficulties.
It makes Li-yan-cheu and Hoei Shin contradict each other :
one affirming that Japan is 12,000 li distant, the other that it is
20,000 ; one declaring that it is east of Ta-han, the other that it is
directly south. Klaproth endeavours to show that thefu-sang tree
is the mulberry, of which the Japanese make paper ; but it would
be very difficult to discover any resemblance between a mulberry-
plant and the shoot of a young bamboo. Nor would its fruit be
compared to a pear, which it does not at all resemble in form.
At the period in question, the beginning of the sixth century,
Japan was governed by the tyrant Burets Teno, who, according
to the imperial annals, sent some thousands of soldiers to destroy
a rival. Of course, it could not be said of such a people :that
" they had neither arms nor troops."
The northern and southern prisons, described by Hoei Shin,
find no confirmation in the Japanese annals. There is no evi
dence that the Japanese reared stags instead of cattle ; they were
not without iron, nor did they esteem gold and silver of no ac
count Finally, as Klaproth himself acknowledges, the Buddhist
religion was not introduced into Japan till the year 552, when it
was brought in from Corea ; consequently, the priest Hoei Shin
could not have spoken of it as the religion of the country in the
year 500.
But another supposition still remains. The Han were a peo
ple, rather than a country : Ta-han, the Great Han. The Hans
were among the oldest of the Chinese races ; they occupied the
northern part of the empire, overspread Corea, and ultimately
became masters of Japan. The Japanese historians trace back
SHORTER ESSAYS. 165
their line of emperors to Eu-kung, king of Chou, whose great-
grandson, Wu-wang, became emperor of China, 1122 B. c. The
kings of Chou were of the Han race. Gutzlaff says " the state of
Han [424 to 230 B. c.] was ruled by a line of kings who traced
their descent from the founders of the Chou dynasty." (" Chin.
Hist.," p. 202.) Klaproth gives us the testimony of Chinese
writers that Wu T ai-pe, elder son of Ku-kung, prince of Chou,
founded the kingdom of WM, where his descendants reigned 659
years. Being conquered and driven out by the king of Yue,
they sailed for Japan, and became the founders of that empire :
" The children, the grandchildren, and the relatives of the last
king of Wu y put to sea, and became the Wo or Japanese." In
the third century of our era, these Han rulers of Japan took
possession of Corea, which, after the fall of the Han dynasty in
China, appears to have become the general rendezvous of the
Han races. The country was known as that of the San-han, or
San-kan, the " Three Hans" namely, the Ma-han, composed of
fifty-four tribes, the Shin-han, twelve tribes, and the Pian-han,
also twelve tribes. It is highly probable that Hoei Shin, in
speaking of the country of the Great Han, meant Japan, in dis
tinction from Corea, the common residence of the three principal
Han families.
It would seem, from the descriptions by other writers, of coast
wise and overland journeys to the Great Han, that this term was
also used for a more northerly region, either the northern part of
Japan (including Saghalien) or a portion of the continent. With
these accounts the narrative of Hoei Shin has no necessary con
nection. It is a strong argument in favour of a Southern Ta-han
as a point of departure for America, that it would make the
deviation from an eastern course far less than by the northern
route.
We must wait for a more perfect knowledge of the former
flora and fauna of America before we can identify, with any cer
tainty, the plants and animals mentioned by Hoei Shin. It has
been suggested that the maguey, or Mexican aloe, is the fu-sang ;
but we think a more substantial tree is indicated. In many re
spects the description would agree better with some tree of the
bread-fruit family, which includes the artocarpus, moms or mul
berry, maclura, and fig. Of the bread-fruit no less than fifty
varieties are enumerated as indigenous to the South Sea Islands,
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
and there is no reason why they should not have been abundant
in the tropical regions of the American coast.* Williams, in his
" Narrative of Missionary Enterprises," gives this description of
the most common variety :
" Among all the trees that adorn the islands of the Pacific,
the bread-fruit deserves the pre-eminence for its beauty and value.
It frequently grows fifty or sixty feet high, and has a trunk be
tween two and three feet in diameter. The leaves are broad and
sinuated, something similar in form to those of the fig-tree.
They are frequently eighteen inches in length, and of a dark-
green colour, with a glossy surface resembling that of the richest
evergreens. The fruit is oval, about six inches in diameter, and
of a light pea-green." Ellis adds that "it subsequently changes
to brown, and when fully ripe assumes a rich yellow tinge."
Williams continues : " The value of this wonderful tree ex
ceeds its beauty. It is everything to the natives their house,
their food, their clothing. The trunk furnishes one of the best
kinds of timber they possess. It is the colour of mahogany, ex
ceedingly durable, and is used by the natives in building their
canoes and houses, and in the manufacture of the few articles of
furniture they formerly possessed. From the bark of the
branches they fabricate their clothing ; and, when the tree is
punctured, there exudes from it a mucilaginous fluid, resembling
thick cream, which hardens by exposure to the sun, and, when
boiled, answers all the purposes of English pitch. The fruit is,
to the South Sea Islander, the staff of life. It bears two crops
every season. Besides this, there are several varieties which
ripen at different periods, so that the natives have a supply
of this palatable and nutritious food during the greater part of
the year."
Our conclusion is this : That the narrative of Iloei Shin is en
titled to full credence ; that before the Anglo-Saxons invaded
England , before France became a nation ; a hundred years be
fore the birth of Mohammed, and more than fourteen hundred
* The bread-fruit tree, like its congener, the jack-tree of India, requires care
for its preservation, and its non-cultivation in a particular country at the present
time does not prove its non-existence a thousand years ago. Mr. Ellis (" Polynesian
Researches," chap, ii.) says the tree " is propagated by slips from the root " ; but
he expresses his fear that it will in a few years become scarce, as the indolent na
tives " are generally adverse to the planting of bread-fruit trees."
SHORTER ESSAYS. 167
years before the daring Columbus ventured upon unknown waters
in search of a new world, the Orientals were passing and repassing
the broad Pacific, from China to the American coast, either by
the shore line, where the current would aid in carrying them
around and down the Mexican coast, or by a direct route over
calmer seas, passing the Sandwich Islands and falling into the
Mexican current a little north of Peru ; that, previous to the
year 500, there was an empire on this continent which must
have rivaled China in civilization, laws, and good government ;
that its ruler was so powerful as to maintain his authority with
out the use of armies ; that the people had a written language ;
that they used, in their reckoning of time, the Chinese cycle of
sixty years ; that they had domestic animals, and used wheel
carriages ; that among the chief productions of the country was
a tree resembling or identical with the bread-fruit tree ; that the
Buddhist religion had been recently introduced, but had not
exterminated the more ancient idolatry, which consisted in the
worship of images representing spirits. These general facts we
consider established on as good authority as we could ask for
that of a Buddhist priest, probably himself one of the mission
aries to whom reference is made.
Remarks of the Abbe J3rasseur de Bourbourg.
Without undertaking to defend here the argument of M. de
Guignes regarding Fu-sang^ recently revived by M. Gustave
d Eichthal by the article in which he ascribed the American
civilization to a Buddhist origin, an argument attacked by Klap-
roth and more lately by M. Vivien de Saint-Martin, we will,
since we are upon known ground, digress sufficiently to call at
tention to some errors in the article of the latter in the " Anne*e
Geographique." We shall not seek to prove that either the/w-
sang tree or any very similar tree existed in America ; but it is
certain that most of the books of the natives that have been pre
served to our times, without counting those of the collection of M.
Aubin, are made from the fibers of the bark of a tree from which
the Americans made a true paper. (See Gomara, " Conquista de
Mexico," t. i, p. 424 ; Landa, " Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan,"
p. 44 ; Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres," t. ii, pp. 269, 304.) Such
are, among others, the "Dresden Manuscript," the manuscript
of the Imperial Library, called " Mexican Manuscript, No. 2," the
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
" Codex Trdano," etc., which, it may be observed, in passing, are
written in alphabetical characters. M. Vivien de Saint-Martin
in his article says that writing, properly so called, or alphabetical
writing, does not exist in America ; nevertheless, it was well known
in 1865 that alphabetical writing really existed, and nothing more
is necessary to prove this than the work of Landa, which the
scholarly geographer cites, two pages farther on, which, if not
sufficient to satisfy him of its existence, should at least have de
terred him from stating the contrary in a manner so absolute.
He adds that " it has never been stated that the miserable
savages of the northwest coast had a method of writing or made
paper." There may, however, have been other nations upon these
coasts at an earlier date who were in possession of these two arts ;
for it is known, says M. von Humboldt (" Vues des Cordilleres,"
t. ii, p. 96), that in the last century, " among the inhabitants of
Nutka, the Mexican month of twenty days was found in use,"
which conveys the idea of a state of civilization passably ad
vanced. The remains of gigantic edifices have also been found
from time to time in these quarters, certainly the works of a
people more advanced in civilization than the miserable savages
in question.
In spite of Klaproth s skillful refutation of the hypothesis
of de Guignes, it has been reproduced several times, says Alex
ander von Humboldt, by the pens of a number of estimable
scholars, who think that they have found in the Vinland of
Asiatic explorers more than one characteristic trait of America.
It is now unquestionably established, moreover, from the ac
counts of the first Spanish explorers, which have been studied
upon the spot by the Americans of our days, that the countries
situated in the center of the American Continent, and upon its
western coasts, from the banks of the Rio Gila to the copper
mines of Lake Superior, were formerly inhabited by tribes which
were scarcely inferior in civilization to those of Mexico proper.
They existed only in a state of decadence at the time of the
Spanish conquest, and the remains of this civilization are found
even now in the villages of houses of several stories in New
Mexico.
As to Chinese or Japanese voyages to the northwestern
coasts : from time to time their traces have been thought to be
found in the ports of California (Bradford, " American Antiq-
SHORTER ESSAYS. 169
uities," p. 233) ; and Gomara states that, at the time of the expe
ditions of Cortez and Alarcon in these regions, " they heard of
boats which had pelicans of gold and silver at the prow, which
were loaded with merchandise, and which they thought to come
from Cathay and China, because the sailors of these boats caused
it to be understood by signs that their voyage had taken thirty
days."
There also exists a well-known tradition, among the inhabit
ants of the Pacific coast of North America, that men of distant
nations came formerly from beyond the sea to trade at the prin
cipal ports of the coast (Bustamante, " Supplement to Book III of
the Work of Sahagun "). It is also known that the northern tribes
were much more peaceable than the Mexicans, and that in their
country there exist "plains covered with trees, among which
there are vines, mulberries, and rose-bushes." (See, in the collec
tion of Ternaux-Compans, Castaiieda s "Relation du Voyage
de Cibola en 1540," p. 126.)
They also possessed great numbers of dogs, which carried
their effects, and perhaps even the bison may have been used
as a draught animal and beast of burden ; and it is certain, at
least, that the chiefs of the country had quite large herds of tame
deer and domestic bisons (see letter written by the Adelantado
Soto, etc., in the " Collection of Narrations regarding Florida,"
edited by Ternaux-Compans, p. 47, and in the "Relation of
Biedma," p. 101) ; and, according to the accounts of various
authors, it is probable that they were used much as are our
domestic animals.
Gomara, in his "Hist. Gen. de las Indias," in several places
mentions the accounts of travelers of his days, and those of the
conquerors, who speak of numerous herds of domestic bisons ex
isting among the northern tribes, and which furnished them with
clothing, food, and drink. Humboldt and Prescott remark that
the drink must have been their blood, for the natives of these
countries appear to have this, in common with those of China
and Cochin-China, that they make no use of milk (" Tableau de
la Nature," trad. Galuski, Paris, 1863, p. 213). It is known
that other Indians in the northern part of the United States,
and in Canada, used certain large deers as draught animals for
their sledges, in the same way that, at the present day, elks are
used by the Indians of the country north of Canada.
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
M. de Saint-Martin says that, before the arrival of the Span
iards, neither draught animals nor beasts of burden were known
in America. What can he call the vicunas and llamas of
Peru, which are used as beasts of burden exactly as camels are
in Asia ? (See Cieya de Leon, " Cronica del Peru," cap. ex and cxi ;
and as for North America, consult Gomara, who was the chap
lain of Cortez.) " There are also great dogs, capable of fighting
with a bull, and which carry two arrobas weight (fifty pounds)
upon a sort of saddle when they go to the chase." (" Hist, de
las Indias," p. 289 ; see also Casteiiada, " Relation de Cibola,"
p. 190.)
In any case, before pronouncing so positively as to what is
known or not known regarding the Americans, it seems to us
to be prudent to wait ; for every day, it may be said, throws
some new light upon the diverse ancient civilizations of the
continent discovered by Columbus. The "Old Stories Set
Afloat " are not always as improbable as may be thought, and
M. Gustave d Eichthal may be right in his reply to the scholarly
editor of the " Annee Geographique," that " old stories are good
things to revive when they are true old stories." . . .
94 The Abbe de Bourbourg says, in his introduction to the
" Popol-Yuh " : " It has been known to scholars for nearly a cen
tury that the Chinese were acquainted with the American Con
tinent in the fifth century of our era. . . . Readers, who may
desire to make comparisons between the Japanese description of
Fu-sang and some country in America, will find astonishing
analogies in the countries described by Castaneda and Fra Mar
cos de Niza in the province of Cibola." ... 91 Speaking of the
Mexican religion, he is constrained to say : " Asia appears to
have been the cradle of this religion, and of the social institu
tions which it consecrated."
The book, entitled " Fusang ; or, the Discovert/ of America
by Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth Century? by Charles
G. Leland (l%mo, London, 1875).
This work opens with a memoir of Carl Friedrich Neumann.
This is followed by a translation of Professor Neumann s argu
ment regarding Fa-sang, which is succeeded by a chapter of
comments and suggestions by Mr. Leland. Then follows a chap
ter regarding the navigation of the North Pacific, and embody-
SHORTER ESSAYS.
ing a letter from Colonel Barclay Kennon, setting forth the
ease with which a voyage may be made from Asia to America,
by way of the Aleutian Islands, even in an open canoe, and
calling attention to the frequency with which this voyage is
made by the natives of those regions. Next come a chapter of
remarks upon Colonel Kennon s letter and a chapter detailing
the venturesome travels of other Buddhist priests. The affinities
of Asiatic and American languages are next considered, the pos
sible connection of the Mound-builders with the Mexicans is
then discussed, and attention is called to the wide distribution
of images of Buddha, The arguments of de Guignes, Klaproth,
and d Eichthal are next reviewed. Then follow two letters from
Theos. Simson and E. Bretschneider respectively, with comments
by Mr. Leland. An appendix, describing the Ainos, and discus
sing the resemblance between the American Indians and the
tribes of Northeastern Asia, closes the work.
It should be remarked that this book is an amplification of
an article written by Mr. Leland, which appeared in the " Gen
tleman s Magazine " many years before, and Professor Williams
is, therefore, wrong in stating that Mr. Bancroft s digest of the
arguments upon the subject preceded Mr. Leland s argument.
As the article from which the following extracts are taken
was credited by the " Chinese Recorder " (from which it is here
copied) to the " Gentleman s Magazine," it is probably Mr. Le
land s early argument.
Who discovered America? Evidence that the New World was
knoicn to the Chinese fourteen hundred years ago. 171
. . . There are among the Chinese records, not merely vague
references to a country to the west of the Atlantic, but there is
also a circumstantial account of its discovery by the Chinese
long before Columbus was born.
A competent authority on such matters, J. Hanlay, the Chi
nese interpreter at San Francisco, has lately written an essay on
this subject, from which we gather the following startling state
ments, drawn from Chinese historians and geographers.
Fourteen hundred years ago, even, America had been discov
ered by the Chinese, and described by them. They stated that
land to be about twenty thousand Chinese miles distant from
China. About five hundred years after the birth of Christ,
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Buddhist priests visited there, and brought back the news that
they had met with Buddhist idols and religious writings in the
country. Their descriptions, in many respects, resemble those
of the Spaniards a thousand years later. They called the coun
try "Ifa-sang" after a tree that grew there, whose leaves re
semble those of the bamboo, of whose bark the natives made
cloths and paper, and whose fruit they ate. These particulars
correspond exactly and remarkably with those given by the
American historian, Prescott, about the maguey-tree in Mexico.
He states that the Aztecs prepared a pulp for paper-making out
of the bark of this tree. Then, even its leaves were used for
thatching ; its fibers for making ropes ; its roots yielded a
nourishing food ; and its sap, by means of fermentation, was
made into an intoxicating drink. The accounts given by the
Chinese and Spaniards, although a thousand years apart, agree
in stating that the natives did not possess any iron, but only
copper ; that they made all their tools for working in stone and
metals out of a mixture of copper and tin ; and that they, in
comparison with the nations of Europe and Asia, thought but
little of the worth of silver and gold. The religious customs and
forms of worship presented the same characteristics to the Chi
nese fourteen hundred years ago as to the Spaniards four hun
dred years ago.
There is, moreover, a remarkable resemblance between the
religion of the Aztecs and the Buddhism of the Chinese, as well
as between the manners and customs of the Aztecs and those of
the people of China. There is also a great similarity between
the features of the Indian tribes of Middle and South America
and those of the Chinese, and, as Hanlay, the Chinese interpreter
of whom we spoke above, states, between the accent and most of
the monosyllabic words of the Chinese and Indian languages.
The writer gives a list of words which point to a close
relationship, and infers therefrom that there must have been
emigration from China to the continent at a most early period,
as the official accounts of the Buddhist priests fourteen hundred
years ago notice these things as existing even at that time. Per
haps now, old records may be recovered in China, which may
furnish full particulars of this question.
It is, at any rate, remarkable, and confirmative of the idea of
emigration from China to America at some remote period, that
SHORTER ESSAYS. 173
at the time of the discovery of America by the Spaniards, the
Indian tribes on the coast of the Pacific, opposite to China, for
the most part enjoyed a state of culture of ancient growth, while
the inhabitants of the Atlantic shore were found by the Euro
peans in a state of original barbarism. . . .
Letter of Theos. Simson.*
" ( Buddhist Priests in America. Under this heading, 1719 a quer
ist in the last number of * Notes and Queries submits to inquiry
a statement of Professor Carl Neumann, of Munich, respecting
the supposed entry of Buddhist priests into the American Con
tinent some thirteen hundred years ago, and their passage into
the land of the Aztecs, which they called Fu-sang, after the
Chinese name of the American aloe.
" Now, in the first place, this statement, if true, inf erentially
proves much more than it asserts ; the Mexican aloe is a native
of Mexico only, and it is manifest, therefore, that if these sup
posed Chinese travelers named the country after the Chinese
name of the Mexican aloe, that plant must have been well known
to them before the period of their visit to its native country ;
hence, we are carried further back, to a time when the Mexican
aloe must have been known in China, and we must allow a con
siderable period for it to have become so well known as to sug
gest to the travelers a name for a newly discovered or, as it
must needs have been in this view, a rediscovered country. This
consideration takes us back into the question of the original
peopling of the American Continent, to the age of stone or
bronze, perhaps, which is beyond the intended scope of the
querist s quotation.
"At the period when the land of Fu-sang is first mentioned
by historians, China, exclusive of the neighbouring * barbarous
tribes, over whom she held sway, was not so extensive as she is
at present, but comprised only what we now call the Northern
and Central Provinces. Does the Mexican aloe grow in that
part of the country at all ? I am inclined to think not, though
I can not speak positively upon the point. In Canton it is said
by the Chinese to have been introduced from the Philippine Isl
ands, and is called Spanish (or Philippine) hemp, its fibers being
sometimes employed in the manufacture of mosquito-nets.
"But the fu-sang (or, more correctly, the fu-sang free), as
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
described in Chinese botanical works, appears to be a malvaceous
plant ; at any rate, whatever it may be, it certainly is not the
Mexican aloe, or anything similar to it.
"The land of Fu-sang is described by Chinese authors as be
ing in the Eastern Sea, in the place where the sun rises. Consid
ering the geographical limits of China at the time referred to
(some thirteen hundred years ago), surely we need not look far
ther than Japan for a very probable identification of the Fu-sang
country according with this description, which indeed appears to
be embodied in the more modern name Jih-pen-kicoh, Japan,
which is translatable as the Country of the Rising Sun. It is
a matter of fact, too, that Buddhism was introduced into that
country some thirteen hundred years ago ; and this by no means
extraordinary event is a very much more probable version of
the incident referred to than the marvelous story given by Pro
fessor Neumann."
" Fa-sang ; or, Who Discovered America" ly E. Bretschnei-
der, M. D. 714
" In the May number of the f Chinese Recorder there is an
article, reproduced from the Gentleman s Magazine, in which
it is sought to be proved that the Chinese had discovered Ameri
ca as early as 500 A. D. . . . I have not read the dissertations of
M. Paravey. ... I am also equally unacquainted with the article
of Mr. Neumann ... I believe, however, that the Chinese no
tices about Fu-sang are all derived from one and the same source,
and each and all rest upon the statements of a lying Buddhist
priest, Hui-shen, who asserts that he was in Fu-sang. . . .
"In later times the Chinese poets, who seem to be gifted
with a much livelier imagination than some of our savants, have
developed and richly embellished the reports with regard to the
land of Fu-sang, and have made out of it a complete land of fa
bles, where mulberry-trees grow to a height of several thousand
feet, and where silk-worms are found more than six feet in
length. The statements about Fu-sang given by M. Leon de
Rosny, in his * Yarietes Orientales, from a Japanese Encyclo
paedia, are probably borrowed from the Chinese. I have not,
however, read M. Rosny s work. (Cf. Notes and Queries, vol.
iv, p. 19.)
" In order to place the credibility of the Buddhist priest Hid-
SHORTER ESSAYS.
175
sh$n in the proper light, I will yet mention what he further re
lates of his journeys. He asserts, namely (loco citato), that there
is a kingdom, 1,000 li east of Fu-sang, in which there are no men,
but only women, whose bodies are completely covered with hair.
When they wish to become pregnant, they bathe themselves in
a certain river. The women have no mammae, but tufts of hair
on the neck, by means of which they suckle their children.
" Upon these vague and incredible traditions of a Buddhist
monk, several European savants have based the hypothesis that
the Chinese had discovered America 1,300 years ago. Neverthe
less, it appears to me that these Sinologues have not succeeded
in robbing Columbus of the honour of having discovered Amer
ica. They might have spared themselves the writing of such
learned treatises on this subject. It appears to me that the ver
dict passed upon the value of the information of the Buddhist
monk Hui-shtn by Father Hyacinth is the most correct. This
well-known Sinologue adds the following words merely, after the
translation of the article Fu-sang J out of the History of the
Southern Dynasties : Hui-shen appears to have been a consum
mate humbug. (Cf. The People of Central Asia/ by F. Hya
cinth.)
" I cannot, indeed, understand what ground we have for be
lieving that Fu-sang is America. We can not lay great stress
upon the asserted distance, for every one knows how liberal the
Chinese are with numbers. By tamed stags we can, at all events,
only understand reindeer. But these are found as frequently in
Asia as in America. Mention is also made of horses in Fu-sang.
This does not at all agree with America, for it is well known that
horses were first brought to America in the sixteenth century.
Neumann appears to base his hypothesis on the assumption that
the tree fit-sang is synonymous with the Mexican aloe. Mr.
Sampson has already refuted this error. ( Notes and Queries,
vol. iii, p. 78.)
"According to the descriptions and drawings of the tree/w-
sang, given by the Chinese, there is no doubt that it is a malvacea.
In Pekin, the Hibiscus rosa Sinensis is designated by this name,
while Hibiscus Syriacus is here called mu-Jcin. These names seem
to hold good for the whole of China. The description which
is given in the Pun-tsdo-Jcang-mu of both plants (xxxvi, pp. 64 and
65) admits of no doubt that by the tree fu-sang, chu-kin, chi-kin,
176 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
ji-Jsij is to be understood Hibiscus rosa Sinensis. It is also
mentioned that this tree has a likeness to the mu-kin (Hibiscus
Syriacus). Its leaves resemble the mulberry-tree. Very good
drawings of both kinds of hibiscus are found in the Chi-wu-ming-
shi-tu-k ao (xxxv, pp. 58 and 34). The Buddhist priest Hui-shen
compares the tree fu-sang with the tree fung. Under this
name the Chinese denote different large-leaved trees. In the
Chi-wu-ming-shi-tu-tfao (xxx, p. 46), the tree fung is represented
with broadly ovate, cordate, entire, great leaves, and with great
ovoid, acuminate fruits. Hoffman and Schultes ( Nonas Indi
genes des Plantes du Japon et de la Chine ) have set down the
tree Vung as Paulownia imperialis. This agrees quite well with
the Chinese drawing.
" The tree tfung must not be confounded with the yu-fung
tree (synonyma, ying-teMung, jZn-tfung), from whose fruit is
furnished the well-known and very poisonous oil Vung-yu, which
the Chinese employ in varnish and in painting. It should be the
Dryanda cordata / according to others, JZlceococca verucosa. I
have not seen the tree, but it is known to occur very abundantly
in Central China, and especially on the Yang-tse-Jciang. There 1
is a Chinese description in the Pun-fsao (xxxv, p. 26), and a draw
ing of it in the Chi-wu-ming-shi-tu-Jc ao (xxxv, p. 26).
" There is also a tree which the Chinese call wu-tfung (syn-
onyme, chen). This tree has already been mentioned by Du
Halde (< Description de 1 Empire Chinois ) as a curiosity, in which
the seeds are found on the edges of the leaves. This phenomenon
is also described in the drawings of the Chi-wu-ming-shi-tu-Wao
(xxxv, p. 56). Compare, further, the description in ihePim-fsao
(xxxv, p. 25). It is the Sterculia plantanifolia, a beautiful tree
with large -leaves, lobed so as to resemble a hand, which is culti
vated in the Buddhist temples near Pekin. The Chinese are
quite right in what they relate about the seeds. The seed-folli
cles burst, and acquire the form of coriaceous leaves, bearing
the seeds upon their margin.
" The leaves of all the trees just now mentioned allow them
selves to be compared, as is done by the Chinese, with those of the
hibiscus, or other plants of the malvaceous family, but have not
the slightest resemblance with the Mexican aloe, or maguey-tree
(Agave Americana), which has massive, spiny-toothed, fleshy
leaves. Mr. Hanlay ( Chinese Recorder, vol. ii, p. 345), of San
SHORTEPw ESSAYS. Iff
Francisco, can not, therefore, succeed in proving that the Bud
dhist priest Hui-sMn understood by fu-sang the Mexican aloe.
" Finally, I have to mention a tree which, as regards its ap
pearance and usefulness, corresponds pretty much with the de
scription given by Hui-shtn of the fu-sang tree. I am speaking
of the useful tree Broussonetia papyrifera, which grows wild
in the temperate parts of Asia* especially in China, Japan, Corea,
Mantchooria, etc., and is, besides, found on the islands of the
Pacific ; while, as far as I know, it does not occur in America.
The leaves of this tree are remarkable for their varying very
much in shape. The same tree produces at once very large and
quite small leaves. They are sometimes entire, sometimes many-
lobed. The fruit is round, of a deep scarlet colour, and pulpy.
It is a well-known fact that, in the parts where the tree grows,
its bark is used for the making of paper and the manufacturing
of clothing material. From ancient times it has been known to
the Chinese under the name cttu (synonyma, kou, kou-sang,
Jcou-shu : cf . Pun-tfsao-kang-mu, xxxvi, p. 10). An excellent en
graving of the tree is found in the Chi-wu-ming-shi-tu-k ao
(xxxiii, p. 57). Hui-shen, in his botanical diagnosis, perhaps
made a mistake with regard to thefu-sang tree, and confounded
broussonetia with hibiscus.
"Just as little as the Mexican aloe, does the non-existence of
iron in the country Fu-sang prove that America is to be under
stood, for there were many countries in ancient times which
possessed copper, but where the art of working iron was un
known. The Chinese report also that the natives of the Loo-
choo Islands did not possess iron, but only copper.
"Mr. Hanlay (I. c.) appears to have received the discovery
of America by the Chinese with the greatest enthusiasm. Per
haps I have furnished him, by means of the above notice about
the Kingdom of Women, which Hui-shtn visited, a new proof
for his view of the case. Fu-sang lies, according to Hui-shen,
directly east from China, more than 20,000 li, thus about the
situation of San Francisco at the present day. The celebrated
Women s Kingdom lies 1,000 li farther toward the east, thus
about the country of Salt Lake City, where, at the present day,
the Mormons are, which, if not a women s country, is nevertheless
* Saghalien, where Mr. Bretschneider would put Fu-sang, can hardly be called
temperate. Note by C. G. Leland.
12
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
a country of many women, and where to the disgrace of the
United States prostitution is carried on under the mask of the
Christian religion.
"I do not agree with Mr. Sampson ( Notes and Queries,
vol. iii, p. 79) in supposing that Fa-sang must be identified with
japan g ^ Ji-pen, the Land where the Sun rises ; for Japan
has been well known to the Chinese since several centuries before
our era, under another name. I avail myself of this opportunity
to add a few words about the earliest accounts which the Chinese
have of Japan. This country was primitively known to them
under the name Wo, which occurs for the first time in chapter
cxv of the History of the Posterior Han? (A. D. 25-221). I
can not afford to give here a translation of the whole article, and
shall, therefore, only touch upon some of the most important
points. The kingdom Wo, it is said, is situated on a group of
islands in the Great Sea, southeast of Han (in the southwestern
part of Corea), and is composed of about a hundred principali
ties. Since the conquest of Chao-sien (Corea) by the Emperor
Wu-ti, 108 B. c., about thirty of these principalities entered into
relations with China. The most powerful of the rulers has his
capital in Ye-ma-fai. It is mentioned that neither tigers and
leopards, nor oxen, horses, sheep, and magpies exist. As far as I
know, this last remark is not true at present, at least as far as
horses and oxen are concerned ; it is true, however, that sheep
can not thrive in Japan, and the attempts of the Europeans to
acclimatize them have been, until now, unsuccessful.
" In the reign of Juang-wu, A. D. 25-58, envoys came from
the Wo-nu with presents to the Chinese court. They stated that
their country was the southernmost of the kingdom. . . .
" A Nu-wang-kuo, a Country of Women, is spoken of in the
southern part of Japan. This statement is confirmed by the
Japanese annals. (Cf. Klaproth, Annales des Empereurs du
Japon, p. 13.) The Japanese call this country Atsowma.
"The land Ta-han must have been a province in Siberia.
Fa-sang is said to lie to the east of Ta-han. Supposing, then,
that a country, Fu-sang, really existed, and was not an invention
of a Buddhist monk, it does not necessarily follow that it is to
be sought on the other side of the ocean. Let me here observe
that this monk mentions in no place in his account having passed
over a great sea. Klaproth, in assuming that Fu-sang is meant
SHORTER ESSAYS.
179
for the island of Saghalien, is, I believe, more near to the truth
than the other Sinologues.
"In Notes and Queries (vol. iv, p. 19) there is a passage,
cited out of the Liang-ssti-kung-kiJ that the kingdom of Fu-
sang had sent envoys to China. This would, of course, prove
that the so-called country of Fu-sang had political intercourse
with China; but it makes it more unlikely that America was here
meant. We will, therefore, in the mean time, still consider Fa-
sang as a terra incognita nee non dubia, and bestow upon Mr.
Burlingame the double honour of having been the first American
embassador at the Chinese court, and the first Chinese embas-
sador in America.
" The contradictory fancies about China that originate in the
brains of European literati are truly astonishing. Some main
tain that the Chinese discovered America 1,300 years ago ; while
a well-known Frenchman, Count Gobineau, some years ago as
serted that the Chinese had immigrated from America. In his
Essay upon the Inequality of Human Races, vol. ii, p. 242,
Count Gobineau says : * Whence came the yellow nations ?
From the great Continent of America. This is the answer both
of physiology and philology.
" All these unfounded hypotheses have much the same value
as the supposed discovery of America by the Chinese."
This letter, and that of Mr. Simson, are copied, by permission,
from the work of Mr. Charles G. Leland, entitled, " Fusang ; or,
the Discovery of America." Mr. Leland s criticism is short, but
sharp :
i72i j n k r i e f ? j) r Bretschneider asserts that there was no
Fu-sang it being all the invention of a lying priest ; but that it
was in Siberia. There was never any such place ; but still Mr.
Simson is wrong in placing it in Japan, and Klaproth is right in
declaring it was at Saghalien. There was no fit-sang tree either ;
but the monk who saw it meant the kou-sang, describing more
accurately, however, a Mexican plant. Klaproth refuted de Guig-
nes, and exposed his errors by proving that Fu-sang was also in
Japan ; only, in Dr. Bretschneider s opinion, it was elsewhere.
And it is certainly curious that the writers who utterly discredit
the very existence of Fii-sang, and all that is said of it, have each
a theory as to where it really was."
180 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Extract from a letter written by Pere Gaiibil to M. de
risle, }m dated Pekin, August 28th, 1752:
" The translation made by M. de Guignes from the Wen-Man-
Vung-k ao concerning the nations Wen-shin, Ta-han, etc., situ
ated a great distance to the northeast of Japan, may have led
you to believe that in the times of the Liang dynasty (or even
more than three hundred years earlier) the Chinese were ac
quainted with America.
" All these texts prove nothing, however, when they are care
fully examined, and corrected by the clearer writings of earlier
and more trustworthy authors.
" From similar vague accounts, and from the distances indi
cated by several authors, it might be concluded that at the be
ginning of the Christian era, or even earlier, the Chinese were
acquainted with Europe, as, for instance, Italy, France, etc.
Now,, this is certainly not the case. All these texts should be
carefully examined ; and the thing is not at all difficult. Before
the days of M. de Guignes, a number of missionaries had sent
to Europe translations of texts similar to those of his ; but there
were numerous mistakes in the texts, and there was especially
shown in them a lack of critical judgment, which should have
been sufficient to prevent the occurrence of any misunderstand
ing based upon them.
" I can not admit your idea that America, or at least North
America along the coast of California, may have been peopled by
the tribes of Northeastern Chinese Tartary.
" The ancient and modern Chinese authorities agree in the
following statements :
"First, that under the dynasty Cheu, before the Christian
era, Japan was peopled by the Southern Chinese ; and,
" Second, that the last emperor of the Hia dynasty, after
having been dethroned by Ching-tang, his son, fled to Tartary
with a great number of Chinese, and founded the different Tar
tarian powers to the north and northeast of China.
" It is certain that at the time that the Russians concealed
their establishments in Kamtchatka, the court of Pekin had a
knowledge of that country; and it also seems certain that long
before the present dynasty the Chinese had known Jesso, and, in
general, the countries to the northeast, including Kamtchatka,
but not fully or in detail."
SHORTER ESSAYS. 181
Humboldt makes the following observation in regard to this
letter : ltw7
"According to the learned researches of Father Gaubil (found
in an astronomical MS. of the Jesuits, preserved in the Bureau
des Longitudes at Paris), it appears doubtful whether the Chi
nese ever visited the western coast of America a thousand years
before that period (the eighteenth century), as was advanced by
M. de Guignes, the justly celebrated historian."
"Concerning Fa-sang " -from the "Magazine of American
History" for April, 1883 *. 2483
The question, "Where was Fa-sang?" has long excited
interest, and some have supposed that Fu-sang was the west
ern coast of America, which had been discovered by the Japan
ese. The literature of the subject is extensive, but unsatis
factory in the extreme. An almost unknown book, or rather
essay, on Fu-sang was put out somewhat privately, a few years
ago, by the Rev. William Brown, D. D., who is now in Japan
translating the Bible into the Japanese tongue. One of the
later efforts in connection with the subject is Leland s "Fu-
sang ; or, the Discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests
in the Fifth Century," London, Triibner & Co., 1875. About
all that concerns the bibliography of Fu-sang may be traced
in this work. We have frequently been treated to pretended
extracts from the chronicles containing the voyage to "Fu-
sang" wherever it may have been ; but, having a desire to learn
the exact facts from a known American scholar, we addressed
a note to the Rt. Rev. Channing M. Williams, Bishop of Japan,
asking for information, who, in reply, kindly wrote as follows :
" It is only within a day or two that I have been able to
procure the information that you wish. The Shan Hai Xing
( Mountain and Sea Classic which the Japanese pronounce
San Gai Hfio) is a very old Chinese work, many of the ac
counts of which are entirely fabulous. It treats largely of drag
ons and fanciful beings of all sorts men with ten heads or
one eye, creatures with bodies of animals, birds, snakes, and in
sects, and heads of men, etc.
" I have, however, gotten one of the best scholars I know to
examine the work ; and he has found three places in which refer
ence is made to the fu-sang (Jap., fu-soo) tree. These I have
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
translated quite literally, and herewith inclose. The Japanese
think the reference is to their country, and one of the names
which have been given to it is Fa-soo-Jcoku. There is a Japanese
work I have seen which speaks of the fu-soo (Chinese, fu-sang)
tree in the island of Ki-shu, which was 9,700 feet in length, and
dark, petrified wood is said to be now dug up where the tree is
supposed to have stood.
" The subject has, I see by the Shanghai papers, been brought
before the North China branch of the Asiatic Society, and Dr.
Macgowan promised to read a paper at the autumn meeting
proving that the Chinese did not go to America.
" Yours, very truly,
" C. M. WILLIAMS.
" Vol. 4. To the south the water goes 500 li (three Chinese
li make a mile), the flowing sand 300 li (when you) reach the
Wu-ko Mountain. To the south (you) see the Tu Sea. To the
east (you) see the/^-tree silsofu-sang. No trees or grass (but)
great wind (on) this mountain.
"Vol. 9. North of this* is Heh Chi KwoJc (Black Teeth
Country). The people of Heh Chi Kwolc are black, eat rice, use
snakes, colour of which is red. Below there is a hot-water valley.
Above the hot-water valley is the fu-sang (tree). The place
where the ten suns bathe is to the north of the Heh Chi IZwok.
(They) dwell in the water. Nine suns dwell in the lower
branches. One sun dwells in the upper branches.
" Vol. 14. * Within the great uncultivated waste is a mount
ain called Nie Tao Kiun Li. On it is the /w-tree. Its height is
300 li. The leaves are like mustard. There is a valley called
Warm Spring Valley. Above this hot- water valley is the fu-
tree. Just as one sun reaches (or arrives) another sun comes
forth. All bear (lit., cause to ride) a crow. "
" P. S. Since writing the above, I have looked at Klaproth s
introduction to Nipon o dai itsi ran, and find that he has trans
lated a little freely one of the passages from the Shan Hai
King? The longer account of Fu-sang, which he gives in a
note, is translated from another Chinese work, called Nan Szu
( Histoire du Midi )."
* A place which can not be identified.
SHORTER ESSAYS. 183
Extract from the Remarks of M.Leon deRosny upon a Note of
M. Foucaux " Regarding the Relations which the Buddhists
of Asia and the Inhabitants of America may have had with
Each Other at the Commencement of our Era" 21S1
" It is true that the passage from Asia to America, by the way
of Behring s Straits, does not offer any difficulty ; that the fleets
of the Esquimaux resort annually from Kamtchatka to the coun
try known until recently as Russian America. But it should be
remarked that the tribes which go from the deserts of Asia to
the deserts of America belong to a race that is purely boreal,
which lives only in a certain circle, which neither in Asia nor in
America extends its excursions to the south. Between China,
Japan, and civilized Asia, on the one side, and Kamtchatka, on
the other, there are immense distances to be passed. Great
distances also separate the peninsula of Alaska from the warm
regions in which were located the ancient civilized states of Cen
tral America.
" How can we suppose that the Esquimaux, who always shun
precisely these warm regions, can have served as the medium of
connection between China and Mexico, Japan and Peru ? And
what kind of people are these Esquimaux ? The most miserable
of all races. Living in their inhospitable climate, in the lowest
stage of civilization, they are contented with the poorest shelter,
and with food that is gross and repugnant. Buried for whole
months under the snow, and having only the most elementary
rudiments of human culture, how can we suppose that these
guzzlers of the oil of cetaceans can have been the creators of
the high civilizations of Mexico, of Yucatan, and of Peru ;
the authors of the colossal monuments of Uxmal or of Pa-
lenque?"*
The accompanying newspaper article is given as having a
possible connection (although I can not say that I have much
* It is sufficient to say, in reply to M. de Rosny, that he is combating a man
of straw. The theory is, not that the Esquimaux made the journey to Mexico,
but that the Buddhist priests went from Asia to Mexico via the home of the Es
quimaux; and that, as the most difficult part of the journey, the trip from Asia to
America, by way of the Aleutian Islands, is not too difficult a voyage for the
Esquimaux, the difficulty of the route can not be fairly claimed to be so great aa
to make the theory of such a voyage by the five Buddhist priests incredible or
improbable. E. P. V.
184 AN INGLOKIOUS COLUMBUS.
confidence in the truth of the story) with some visit in ancient
times from Asia to America :
(" The Weekly Colonist," Victoria, E. C., Wednesday, October 25tli, 1882.)
" THE OLDEST INHABITANTS. WERE THE CHINESE HERE 3,000
YEARS AGO ?
" What if antiquarians are able to prove that the Chinese were
the earliest settlers of this continent ? That from the loins of the
children of the Flowery Kingdom are descended the native
tribes whom the white pioneers found possessing the land ? This
theory has been often advanced. A few weeks ago a party of
miners, who were running a drift in the bank on one of the
creeks in the mining district of Cassiar, made a remarkable find.
At a depth of several feet the shovel of one of the party raised
about thirty of the brass coins which have passed current in China
for many centuries. They were strung on what appeared to be
an iron wire. This wire went to dust a few minutes after being
exposed ; but the coins appeared as bright and new as when they
first left the Celestial mint. They have been brought to Vic
toria, and submitted to the inspection of intelligent Chinamen,
who unite in pronouncing them to be upward of three thousand
years old. They bear a date about twelve hundred years ante
rior to the birth of Christ. And now the question arises, how
the coins got to the place where they were found. The miners
say there was no evidence of the ground having been disturbed
by man before their picks and shovels penetrated it ; and the fact
that the coins are little worn goes to show that they were not
long in circulation before being hidden or lost at Cassiar.
Whether they were the property of Chinese mariners who were
wrecked on the north coast, about three thousand years ago, and
remained to people the continent ; or whether the Chinese min
ers who went to Cassiar seven or eight years ago deposited the
collection where it was found, for the purpose of establishing
for their nation a prior claim to the land may never be known.
But the native tribes of this coast resemble the Mongolian race
so closely, that one would not be surprised at any time to hear
of the discovery of yet more startling evidences of the presence
of Chinese on this coast before the coming of the whites."
CHAPTER XL
REMARKS OF MM. VIVIEN DE SAINT-MARTIN AND LUCIEN ADAM.
"An Old Story Set Afloat" The route to Fu-sang Identity of the Amos with
the Wen-shin To-Aawnear the mouths of the Amoor River Route of Buddh
ist missionaries to the Amoor Civilization of Buddhist origin Pillars with
Buddhist inscriptions Necessity of accurate translation Twenty thousand
li signify only a very great distance The fu-sang tree Warlike habits
Lack of draught animals Civilization of Mexico Difficulty of the voyage
Conclusion Remarks of M. Adam Chinese acquainted with America Ease
of the journey Travels of Buddhist monks Points characteristic of Ameri
can civilization Ten-year cycle The fu-sang tree The f ung tree The
hibiscus The Dryanda cordata The maguey, or agave Zoological objec
tions Punishments Slave children Absurdities Legend of Quetzalcoatl
He came from the East The legend a myth Colleges of priests Prac
tice of confession The alleged figure of Buddha The elephant s head Lack
of tusks America for the Americans Theory that Hwui Sh&n repeated the
stories of Chinese sailors Remarks of M. de Hellwald and Professor Joly.
"An Old Story Set Afloat" by M. Vivien de /Saint-Martin. 466
CONDENSED TRANSLATION.
IT was the scholarly and industrious de Guignes, the justly
renowned author of that monument of Oriental erudition enti
tled " The History of the Huns," who was the first to make the
name of Fu-sang known in Europe. . . . An erroneous opinion
on this subject does not diminish the merit of his great works,
any more than it is affected by his other idea, equally strange,
of the Egyptian origin of the Chinese. . . .
As the route from Leao-tong to Fa-sang passes by way of
Japan, Wen-shin, and Ta-han, the precise situation of the coun
try of Ta-han becomes of interest in considering the true loca
tion of Fu-sang. This can not be determined with certainty
from the statements of the historian. The point in Japan which
is touched en route is not specified, the directions are but vaguely
130 Atf INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
noted, and, worse than all, the distances that are indicated can
not be relied upon, for we are not only ignorant as to the length
of the U (an extremely variable measure) which is referred to in
the account, but it should be remembered that the Chinese sail
ors can have had but very imperfect means of measuring the
distances, and their figures can therefore be taken as nothing
more than rough approximations.
Hence, we can be guided only by the general indications.
Fortunately, there are several which prevent us from straying
far from the true course. The Hairy Men among the mountains
of Northern Japan, and the Wen-shin, or Painted (or Tattooed)
Men, are clearly the Ainos ; from which it follows that the coun
try of the Wen-shin must be looked for along the shores of the
Sea of Japan (lying between the Japanese Archipelago and the
coast of Tartary), either at the northern extremity of the great
island of Niphon, or in the island of Jesso (which is also called
Matsmai), or, finally, upon some point of the Asiatic Continent
(Mantchooria) which borders the Japanese Sea on the west.
From the land of the Wen-shin, a maritime route conducts
us to the country designated by the name of Ta-han. Neither
the distance (five thousand U) nor the direction (toward the
east) can be of much service to us in looking for this last point.
Fortunately, there is another document, which furnishes us with
indications so precise as to remove all doubts, which are not
scattered by the account of the Chinese coasting voyage. The
result, as will be seen, is to place Ta-han near the mouths of the
Amoor, perhaps in the great island of Saghalien (or Tarakai),
which lies opposite them, but more probably upon the Asiatic
Continent.
This document is a description of the journey, written by
Buddhist missionaries of the time of the T ang dynasty (618 to
907 A. D.), who went to preach their doctrine among the barbar
ous hordes and half-savage tribes of Central and Eastern Asia.
It is to this dissemination of the Buddhist religion, dating at least
as far back as the first half of the fifth century of our era, that
the shamanism of the nomadic tribes of Central Asia is due.
The Buddhist missionaries of China, who undertook this voy
age, set forth from the great bend which the Hoang-ho makes
west of Pekin, and crossed the desert of Gobi, thus gaining the
principal encampment of the Turkish Hoei-khe, from which they
REMARKS OF M. VIVIEN DE SAINT-MARTIN. 187
afterward reached the celebrated Mongolian city of Caracorum,
of which the ruins may still be seen, not far from the sources of
the Orkhon, about one hundred and fifty leagues to the south of
Lake Baikal. From that point the route continued to this lake,
and, turning to the east, they, after having visited a number of
Turkish and Mongolian tribes of the Daourian region, and of
the high valleys of the Amoor, reached the country of the Yu-
che, a people whom the Mantchoos (who pronounce their name
"Djourdje") regard as the parent tribe of their nation. This
country lies about half way down the Amoor River.
Here we are upon known ground. During the ten years that
the Russians have had possession of this vast basin of the
Amoor, it has been thoroughly explored, maps and descriptions
of the country have been published, and the land and its people
have become familiar to us. The indigenes are miserable tribes
of semi-savages, living by the chase and by fisheries. They be
long to the nation of the Tunguses, which is a branch of the race
of the Mantchoos. There are some tribes, however (the Ghiliaks),
spread along the sea-shore, which belong to the insular race, and
differ but slightly from the Ainos, whose long beards, and the
singular development of whose hairy system, not less than their
physical appearance and the combination of their physiognomi
cal traits, distinguish them broadly from the beardless Tartarian
races which are confined to the continent.
The few germs of rudimentary civilization, of which the
trace is found among the tribes of the Amoor, are of Buddhist
origin ; they undoubtedly appertain to several different epochs ;
but the oldest are connected with the missions of the sixth cent
ury and the three following centuries, which are mentioned in
the texts which de Guignes was the first to describe. This is a
real service, among many others, which the scholarly author of
the "History of the Huns" has rendered to science, and of which
his error as to the location of Ta-han does not at all diminish
the merit. A very curious discovery, made some ten years ago,
upon the banks of the lower portion of the Amoor River, by one
of the first Russian explorers, confirms the accuracy of the old
accounts collected by the Chinese historians. Near the Ghiliak
" Village of the Tower," the remains of pillars were found, hav
ing Chinese and Mongolian inscriptions, containing Buddhist
formulas. The pillars are delineated, and the inscriptions copied,
188 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
in the interesting volume published at Paris in 1861 by M. de
Sabin (from recent Russian material) under the title, "The Amoor
River; its History, Geography, and Ethnography." One of the
inscriptions, if the translation is exact, is of the time of the Yuan
(Mongolian) dynasty, which reigned in China from 1260 to 1338
A. D. ; but there were older establishments there, for the inscrip
tion itself speaks of a re-established convent.* We therefore
now have direct proof that the missionaries of the religion of
Buddha (or of Fo, as the Chinese write his name) not only intro
duced shamanism throughout all Central Asia, but pushed to
the east and descended the valley of the Amoor to the shores of
the Eastern Sea ; while other propagators of this worship, so
distinguished for its proselyting spirit, overspread (by the mari
time route) all the shores of that sea enclosed between the Japa
nese Archipelago and Mantchooria, which our maps designate
by the name of the Sea of Japan. The country of Ta-han, at
which the two parties of missionaries arrived, one from the west
by land, and the other from the south by sea, and which was,
for both, the extreme limit of their journeys, can be found no
where else than near the mouth of the Amoor. The maritime
voyage carries us in this direction, and the terrestrial route can
lead us nowhere else. It is, in fact, said of the Yu-che (the Tun-
guses of the valley of the Amoor, near the middle of its course)
that by a ten days journey to the north the country of Ta-han
may be reached. . . .
Arrived at Ta-han, we are, as it were (in spite of the dis
tance), upon the threshold of Fu-sang, the final point of our
search ; for the single Buddhist traveler, who made the name of
the mysterious country of Fu-sang known to the Chinese, set
forth from Ta-han, and no intermediate country is mentioned.
But, in this controverted question, it is a matter of the first
importance to have a translation free from suspicion. Although
we do not wish to cast any doubt upon the general accuracy of
de Guignes s translation, which has, in addition, been criticised
by Klaproth, nevertheless, in order to have all possible assur
ance of freedom from error, we have had recourse to the inex
haustible kindness of M. Stanislas Julien, and give the literal
version with which this scholar kindly favoured us. It may be
depended upon that he has given a scrupulously faithful tran-
* Sabin, p. 158.
REMARKS OF M. VIVIEN DE SAINT-MARTIN. 189
script of the Chinese text. (This translation is given in Chapter
XVI.)
A few short remarks will suffice to show that it is quite im
possible that the country of Fu-sang could have been located in
America. To the reasons, sufficiently decisive, which were given
by Klaproth, it is now possible to add others more direct and
more convincing.
First, as to the distance. We have already seen how dan
gerous it is to rely upon statements of this nature contained in
Chinese books, especially when they relate to great distances in
countries that are known but little or not at all ; and, when they
are given by men who are generally ignorant, they are without
any guarantee whatever of even approximate accuracy. As
suredly this is the case as to the account which we are now con
sidering. It is evident that, in the mouth of the Buddhist mis
sionary to whom the Chinese are indebted for their only knowl
edge of the country of Fu-sang, twenty thousand li signify
nothing more than a very great distance. Nevertheless, if we
adhere to the letter of his account and to the direction, " to the
east," where are we conducted ? Leaving the neighbourhood of
the lower Amoor, turning past the island of Saghalien, passing
by the way of the Kurile Islands and along the long chain of
the Aleutian Islands (i. e., following the line the most favour
able to the American hypothesis), we scarcely reach beyond the
peninsula of Alaska, and are placed in the midst of a region
having a climate that is almost polar, and of which the miser
able indigenous population does not correspond in any way with
the statements of the text.
For those who have thought that Fu-sang might be sought
for as far as Mexico, we would simply observe that the part of
the American coast to which the twenty thousand li conduct us
is distant more than fifty degrees, or at least twelve hundred
leagues, from the Mexican coast.*
This first argument would seem sufficient ; but other impossi
bilities are revealed by merely reading the text.
The description of the fu-sang tree, and of its uses, is abso
lutely foreign to America, either to Mexico, or to the northwest
coast. Klaproth very justly remarked that the description, by
* This argument falls to the ground, if Ta-han is located either in the Aleu
tian Islands or in Alaska. E. P. V.
190 AN INGLOKIOUS COLUMBUS.
confusion, or from some other cause, appears to apply to the
Morus papyri/era, although the tree commonly known in China
by the name oifu-sang must be the Rose of China, the Hibiscus
rosa Chinensis.
It has never been said that the miserable savages of the
northwestern coast of America had a method of writing, or that
they made paper; and it could not be said of the more southerly
tribes, or of the nations of Mexico, whose whole life was always
a combat, "that they did not make war."
The cattle (if this term is applied to the bisons) have never
been employed as draught animals by any of the indigenous
tribes of America. The aboriginal Americans have never had
carts drawn by horses, cattle, or deer, for two excellent reasons :
first, because the Americans, before the arrival of the Spaniards,
had no horses ; and, second, because they knew no more of draught
animals than of beasts of burden. The tribes of America had no
idea of raising animals for their milk ; they knew nothing either
of milk or of the articles made from it, and therefore made no
cheese.
It seems useless to insist further on these radical points of
difference between Fa-sang and America. Those who seek for
Fu-sang in Mexico should reflect that, at the time of the old
Toltec monarchy (according to the historic traditions, which are
our only guides), it then had, in its local civilization, religious
monuments, palaces, and numerous cities, of which it is surpris
ing that the Buddhist account says not a word. So that, on one
side, no part of the story is applicable to any country or tribe
whatever of America, and, on the other side, the account says
not a single word of the only things which would most strike a
stranger coming into Western America in the times of the Tol
tec monarchy.*
We have said nothing of the difficulties, or rather the mate
rial impossibilities, of a navigation, going and returning, between
the Sea of Japan and America, at the time spoken of in the Bud
dhist account ; as contradictions and radical impossibilities have
accumulated, it would appear too fastidious to insist upon f ur-
* M. Vivien overlooks the fact that the Toltec civilization may have been
founded mainly upon the teachings of the Buddhist monks, and that, therefore,
the religious monuments, palaces, etc., may not have existed until after the date
of their arrival. E. P. V.
REMARKS OF M. VIVIEN DE SAINT-MARTIN.
ther details. It should be noted that reference is made, not to
an accidental voyage, but to a communication, regular, and, as
it seems, habitual.* That de Guignes may have believed in the
possibility of such a communication, in the state in which the
ideas of Europe then were in regard to the northwestern coast
of the American Continent above California, can be conceived.
In order to see how far the general notions prevailing a hundred
years ago were from the truth, it is only necessary to cast our
eyes upon the map made by Philippe Buache to accompany the
memoir of de Guignes. This map, it is true, would make d An-
ville smile ; but Buache was not a d Anville, and it is not neces
sary to go back a hundred years to see how frequently it is the
case that men, otherwise sagacious, have but a vague idea of the
important part which the study of positive geography should
have in the solution of scientific questions.
It would remain to seek the true situation of Fu-sang, if this
question had the least importance ; but its sole interest lies in its
having been attached to the complicated question of the origin
of the Americans; which has given rise to as many vain hypothe
ses as useless and false speculations. Like all problems in which
the effort is to penetrate the depths of the centuries in order to
find the half-obliterated traces of events anterior to history, this
question presents a powerful attraction ; but such researches have
their conditions and their limits, to which scarcely any attention
has been paid in the investigations regarding America. Fu-sang
has nothing to do with American questions. From that which
the Buddhist priest tells us, it is evident that he speaks of a
country in which there existed a certain degree of civilization
which excludes all the savage countries of Asia to the north
of Ta-han (Eastern Siberia and Kamtchatka). It is therefore
necessary to look in some other direction. The disposition of
the insular countries of Eastern Asia leaves only one : that to the
southeast or the south. Klaproth thought that Fu-sang might
be a part of Niphon, the largest island of the archipelago ; and
this supposition is, as has been said, the most probable. It be
comes a certainty, if, as Klaproth affirms, Fu-sang is in fact one
of the names which Japan has borne.
I will add only a word on the subject of the memoir of M.
Gustave d Eichthal. The essay of this scholarly author is an at-
* I can find no authority for this statement. E. P. V.
192 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
tempt to prove that the Mexican civilization not only comes
from Asia, but that it has a Buddhistic origin. It is for this rea
son, evidently, that he has warmly taken in hand the defense of
the ideas of de Guignes, which, in fact, if they could be sus
tained, would furnish a direct explanation of the analogies which,
as some believe, have been discovered between certain delinea
tions figured upon the Aztec monuments and some of the monu
ments of India.
Whether well founded or not, these analogies have no neces
sary connection with the question of Fu-sang. This question is
entirely one of geography, and it is only from this stand-point
that I have regarded it. The other question has an archaeologi
cal side, of which the examination should be conducted by those
more competent than myself.
Condensed Translation of an Article read by M. Lucien
Adam before the International Congress of Americanists,
at Nancy, 1875. 1T
It is not my intention to fully go over the discussion regard
ing the Chinese account of the country of Fu-sang (dating from
the fifth century), which discussion has been going on from 1761
to the present time ; but it is plain that the advantage remains
with de Guignes, at least as far as regards the geographical de
termination of the location of this country.
The elements of this first part of the problem are in substance
as follows :
Li-yen, a Chinese historian who lived during the first part
of the seventh century, speaks of a country called Fu-sang, dis
tant more than twenty thousand li from China, toward the east.
He said that, in order to reach that country, it was necessary to
set forth from the coast of the province of Leao-tong, situated
to the north of Pe-kin; that, after traveling twelve thousand
li, Japan, properly so called that is to say, Niphon was reached;
that from there, after a voyage of seven thousand li to the
northeast, the country of the Wen-shin was reached; and that five
thousand li from this last-named country, toward the east, the
country of Ta-han was found, from which the country of Fu-
sang could be reached, which lay twenty thousand li farther
east. The total distance from Leao-tong to Fa-sang, touching
REMAKES OF M. LUCIEN ADAM. 193
successively at Niphon, Wen-shin, and Ta-han, was therefore
forty-four thousand li.
Of these five terms two are known, Leao-tong and Niphon.
De Guignes and Klaproth agree in placing the third in the island
of Jesso. But while de Guignes identifies Ta-han with Kam-
tchatka and Fu-sang with California, Klaproth thinks that the
fourth country named must be the island of Krafto, and the
fifth the southeastern coast of Niphon.
I agree with Messrs. Neumann, de Paravey, Perez, d Eich-
thal, Godron, and Leland, that upon these two points de Guignes
has the best of the argument as against Klaproth, and that in
fact the Chinese have known, at least from the sixth century,
of the existence of the New World; since discovered in the year
1000 by the Icelander Leif Erikson, in 1488 by Jean Cousin
of Dieppe, and in 1492 by Christopher Columbus.
I think it important to add the fact mentioned by Com
mander Maury and Colonel Kennon,* an old officer of the United
States Navy, that it is possible to go from China to America by
way of the islands of Japan, the Kurile Islands, the coast of
Kamtchatka, the Aleutian Islands, and Alaska, without ever los
ing sight of land for more than a few hours, and that the dis
covery of America would not present any very serious difficulty
to Chinese sailors.
After having established the fact of this discovery, by the
geographical article of the historian Li-yen, de Guignes pub
lished a description of Fu-sang, borrowed by him from Ma
Twan-lin, which was published for the first time in a portion
of the " Great Annals of China," entitled Nan Szu.
The story of the Buddhist monk is rendered the more proba
ble from the established fact that in the fifth century of the
Christian era numerous Buddhist monks, actuated entirely by
religious motives, accomplished voyages nearly as long as, and
certainly more dangerous than, that from Leao-tong to the coast
of California. Again, at the time when the predecessors of
Hoei Shin visited Fu-sang, Samarcand, situated almost in the
center of Asia, was incontestably one of the principal centers of
Buddhist propagandism.
* Mr. Leland has, in his book entitled " Fusang," inserted a letter from Colo
nel Kennon, who, during the years 1853- 56, was connected with the expedition
sent out for the purpose of surveying the shores of Behring s Strait.
13
AN INGLOEIOUS COLUMBUS.
From this double point of view, it is far from being improba
ble that, coming into the country lying in the neighbourhood of
the Amoor River, the monks of Samarcand should have heard a
country mentioned as lying far to the east, and that these apos
tles should have sailed in the direction of the rising sun, coast
ing along by the way of the islands which connect the Old
World with the New.
For the rest, it is necessary to determine whether the de
scription of Fu-sang given by Hoei Shin is applicable to any
particular portion of the American Continent with a precision
such that we will be compelled to consider the Chinese monk as
an eye-witness.
To this question I answer, without hesitation, that a very
small number of the details reported by Hoei Shin present a
character that is truly American ; that the remainder are purely
fanciful and absurd, and that the story as a whole can not be
considered as testimony worthy of credit.
The lack of iron, the paper made from bark, and the absence
of metallic money, are indeed points that are characteristic of
America ; but it should also be borne in mind that the same
facts were found in the history of several other countries situ
ated to the east of China, notably in the Loo Choo Islands.
The cycle of ten years is used in Peru ; but Fu-sang can not
be placed in South America, and Mr. Leland, who does not wish
to lose the benefit of the decennial cycle, supposes that in the
fifth century Mexico may have been inhabited by the ancestors
of the present Peruvians !
Except these four statements of which the first three are
not exclusively American, and the last is not applicable to the
civilization of North America I can not see anything worthy of
credit in the account of Hoei Shin.
In the first place, the fu-sang tree described by this monk
can not be the maguey, or great American aloe. "I do not
know," said Dr. Godron, speaking in 1868, "to what botanical
species the tree mentioned by the Chinese narrator can be re
ferred." The scholarly botanist has not changed his opinion,
and has kindly written me a note which settles the question
definitely :
" The Buddhist monk, Hoe i Shin, describes, as existing in
the country of Fu-sang, a tree of which the fruit is red and pear-
REMARKS OF M. LUCIEN ADAM. 195
shaped, and which produces this fruit all the year round ; its
leaves being similar to those of the tree t ung, and its sprouts
to those of the bamboo. Some have believed that in this plant
they recognized the Hibiscus rosa Sinensis or the Hibiscus
Syriacus. The second is out of the question, since it is a native
of no other country than Syria. It is cultivated as an ornamental
tree in our gardens. The first grows spontaneously in China, as
well as in Cochin-China, according to Laureiro ; it is cultivated
in all the gardens of the two peninsulas of India, and may also
be seen in our orangeries. These two species of hibiscus do not
have red or pear-shaped fruit. Their fruit is surrounded by
large bracts, which envelop it ; it is capsular, and opens at ma
turity.
" It has also been said that the fu-sang tree is the Dryanda
cordata. This plant, of the family of the Euphorbiaces, is a
tree of little height, which grows wild in Japan. The fruit is a
globular and woody capsule of the size of a walnut with its husk ;
it contains several kernels, from which a very acrid poisonous oil
is extracted, which is much used as an oil for lamps, and which
in China bears the name of Mu-yeu. The leaves are large,
and disposed in tufts at the ends of the branches ; they have a
leaf-stalk, are heart-shaped, and do not in any way resemble
(any more than those of the Hibiscus rosa Sinensis and Sy~
riacus) the leaves of the bamboo, which are shaped like
those of the grasses. The bamboos appertain to an entirely
different grand division of the vegetable kingdom from the
Malvaces and the Euphorbiaces. But Hoei Shin was no bot
anist.
"The maguey, or Agave Americana, answers still less to the
description of the Buddhist monk ; its fruit is neither red nor
pear-shaped, but is a hexagonal capsule, and its extremely large
leaves form a rosette about the roots.
" Of the plants to which that mentioned by the Buddhist
monk has been compared, none are American, with the exception
of the agave, and, moreover, it seems as impossible to reconcile
any plant of China or Japan with the description, as any plant
of the New World. The question seems to us, up to the pres
ent time, to be insoluble."
I remark, upon the subject of the fu-sang tree, that Hoei Shin
does not mention the long thorns which characterize the maguey,
196 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
and does not say anything of the alcoholic liquor which is ex
tracted in Mexico from the heart of the plant.
The zoology of the Buddhist monk is no more correct than
his botany, for horses were brought to America from Europe in
the sixteenth century ; and it is well known that at the time of
the conquest the inhabitants of the New World had neither
beasts of burden nor draught animals. The pretended herds of
deer of Fu-sang are evidently herds of reindeer ; and as to the
cattle, or bisons, they have been found domesticated, not upon
the coast of the Pacific, where we would naturally look for Fit-
sang, but rather in the ancient country of Cibola that is to say,
in the region now known as New Mexico, where the houses are
constructed of unburned bricks, and where the Indians, called
Pueblo Indians, live in fortified towns, in order to defend them
selves against the incursions of the red-skins.
Messrs. d Eichthal and Leland have ingeniously sought to
explain this part of the account of Hoei Sfdn by substituting,
for horses, animals of a great height, and with branching horns,
which the Spaniards call " horse-deer," and by transporting Fu-
sang into the interior of the continent, because of the bisons
found in Cibola. But the details given by the monk, relative to
the construction of the houses, to the cities, and to the military
weapons, absolutely exclude New Mexico, Arizona, and Califor
nia itself.
M. d Eichthal has endeavoured to explain the idle tale of the
two prisons, by the dogmas as to future punishment held by the
Mandans : the prison of the north being understood as hell, and
that of the south as paradise. What, then, becomes of the mar
riages contracted by the prisoners, and the children sold as
slaves, the boys at the age of eight years and the girls at that
of nine ? Evidently Hoei Shin speaks of temporal punishment
and of prisons in the present life.
Of the ceremonies of marriage, the punishments inflicted
on criminals of the different classes of society, and of the coun
try inhabited by white women, I can see nothing to say, except
that it is all imaginary, and stamped with the imprint of mani
fest absurdity.
I now hasten to discuss the most important question raised
by the account. Is it certain, or even credible, that Hoei Shin
found Fu-sang- America converted to Buddhism, as he expressly
REMARKS OF M. LUCIEN ADAM. 197
declared? If the apostles, who came from Samarcand, spread
abroad the worship of Buddha, and with it the sacred books and
holy images of that religion, we should expect to find some
thing of all this in their traditionary history (since writing was
unknown), and in their monuments.
History, properly so called, is absolutely mute concerning any
religious revolution of the fifth century. It is true, however,
that this silence might be explained by claiming that the natives
formerly had books, which have been destroyed. Let us, there
fore, examine their traditions, and see whether, as has been
thought by some, Quetzalcoatl, the god of the city of Cholula,
may not have been one of the five monks of Samarcand.
According to Motolinia, Quetzalcoatl was a white man, of
good height, having a large forehead, and great eyes ; his hair
was long and black ; he wore a large beard, trimmed to a round
shape. He was chaste and peaceable, and very moderate in all
things. So far was he from asking that the blood of men, or
even of animals, should be shed in sacrifice, that he held no of
ferings as agreeable except those of bread, flowers, or perfume ;
he prohibited all acts of violence, and detested war. Finally, he
lacerated his body with the thorns of the agave, and recom
mended the practice of the most severe penances.
I admit that the resemblance is specious ; but if there is one
point upon which the legend is particularly plain, it is that Que
tzalcoatl came from a country situated to the east of America,
and that, when he took leave of his disciples on the eastern
coast, he told them that white men, bearded like himself, would
come by sea from the east and subdue the entire country. It is
said that the cause of Montezuma s ruin was his blind faith in
this prophecy. To this first reason for doubting that Quetzal
coatl can have been a Buddhist priest, there may be added a
second, which I think decisive. Quetzalcoatl, who, according to
the legend, came from Tula to Cholula that is to say, from one
Toltec capital to another appeared as the ideal representative of
the Toltec race ; but before he was invested with this marvelous
form, under which there was poorly concealed an energetic pro
test of the vanquished nation against the belligerent disposition
and sanguinary tastes of the Aztecs, Quetzalcoatl had been a god
similar in appearance to all the rest. At Tula his visage was
hideous. At Cholula his body was that of a man, and his head
198 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
that of a bird with a red beak. Finally, at a much older period,
Quetzalcoatl had been, in the north, purely and simply a bird,
representing the hieroglyphical sign of the air ; and, in the south,
sometimes an aerolite, and sometimes a serpent.
The Quetzalcoatl of the legend is, therefore, a personage not
less fabulous than the Saturn of the Latins, than Bochica, the
legendary white man of the Musca Indians, or Manco Capac, the
legislator of the Incas.*
In America, as in Europe, the golden age, or age of peace, has
been a popular fancy, and it may be affirmed that during the
fifth century the New World was the theatre of incessant wars,
which is, moreover, attested by the immense defensive works
discovered in the valleys of the Gila, the Colorado, the Ohio,
and the Mississippi. As to the colour of the personage in whom
the ideal of the golden age is incarnated, it should be remarked
that Quetzalcoatl has often been represented with a red visage,
and that among all nations, not belonging to the Caucasian race,
whiteness of the skin has been considered a sort of blessing, im
plying a divine mission or a superior nature.
The existence in Mexico of religious orders or of colleges of
priests, of which the members took vows of asceticism, of poverty,
and of mortification of the body, does not necessarily imply the
preaching either of Buddhism or of Christianity, for America is
not the only country in which men who were not connected
with either of these two great religions have united themselves
to practice frightful austerities in common. As for the volun
tary tortures esteemed as honourable by the Mandan Indians,
some of them bear a close resemblance to the tortures which the
fanatics of East India inflict upon themselves ; but, as has been
very judiciously remarked by M. Foucaux, these practices point
us to Brahmanism rather than to Buddhism. Finally, it is no
torious that the races of the New World have, in their life as
hunters, and in their perpetual wars, acquired an incredible
power of supporting suffering stoically, and that most of them
systematically submit their young warriors to the most cruel
trials of their endurance.
The practice of auricular confession by the natives of Mexico
* The same course of reasoning in regard to the myths that in New Mexico
and Arizona have gathered about the name of Montezuma, would prove, quite as
conclusively, that no such chieftain ever lived. E. P. Y.
REMARKS OF M. LUCIEN ADAM. 199
would be an argument more conclusive than the preceding, if it
had not been superabundantly established that the avowal of
faults is a custom that is almost universal.
For the rest, the traditions and beliefs of the ancient races of
America constitute a field in which all investigators find almost
everything that they desire ; and I can oppose to the opinion of
M. d Eichthal, where he recognizes Buddhist influences, the opin
ions of others who think that they see Christian influences of
which the agents were the apostles Saint Bartholomew and Saint
Thorn afc or the colonists of Great Ireland or those of Ilvitra-
mannaland.
It remains, therefore, to verify the uncertain data of tradi
tion by the examination of monuments and antiquities.
In the belief of M. G. d Eichthal, the results of the Buddhist
preaching of the fifth century are visible upon the walls of the
Palace of Palenque, and the House of the Nuns at Uxmal.
It may be objected to the view of d Eichthal that the bas-
relief described by him is identical with others found in Bud
dhist temples ; that, according to Dupaix, Lenoir, Catlin, de Wai-
deck, and M. Viollet-le-Duc, Palenque was built much later than
the fifth century of our era. But this is a question that is still
undecided, and I must recognize the fact that, in the opinion of
Mr. Hubert H. Bancroft, the date of the construction of Pa
lenque can only be uncertainly fixed as some time between the
first and the eighth century of the Christian era.
It should be observed, moreover, that Stephens, who copied
the bas-relief, saw no trace of Buddhism in it. M. Lenoir has
confined himself to saying that there is an analogy between the
attitude of the principal figure and the usual pose of Buddha.
M. d Eichthal, however, does not hesitate to raise a simple an
alogy in the position into a complete identity, doing this with
out paying any attention to the statements of Stephens : that
the character of the principal personage is the same as that of
personages represented elsewhere in the palace ; that the pre
tended worshiper is sitting cross-legged, and not upon his
knees ; that the offering does not consist of a flower, either of
the lotus or of the cacao-tree, but of a bunch of plumes, an
ornament essentially American, which is lacking in the head
dress of the principal personage ; that similar plumes are asso
ciated with the figures of other divinities of Palenque ; and,
200 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
finally, that the ruins of this stone-built city are situated in the
Atlantic state of Chiapas, and not in the kingdom of Cibola, or
upon the western coast. M. Lenoir, when he spoke of analogy,
had nothing else in mind than the pose of the principal per
sonage, sitting with legs crossed. Now, there exists at Copan a
bas-relief in which four personages, incontestably American, are
represented in this same attitude.
Of the figure seated in the niche of the wall of the House of
Monks at Uxmal, Mr. Hubert H. Bancroft assures us that it is
not certainly known whether this figure, which has now disap
peared, was copied from nature or drawn from the more or less
uncertain descriptions of the Indians. In any case, it is true
that M. de Waldeck, who was looking for Buddhist resem
blances, did not himself recognize the figure as that of Buddha,
and this is a very important fact.
Mr. Leland does not share in what I may be permitted to call
the Buddhistic illusions of M. Gustave d Eichthal. " Images re
sembling the ordinary Buddha have been found," says he, " in
Mexico and Central America, but they can not be proved to
be identical with it." This is the truth. The ancient monu
ments of America sometimes present, in certain details, analo
gies with the principle of Grecian art, Assyrian art, Egyptian
art, and Hindoo art ; but these points of resemblance are purely
accidental, and are owing to the unity of the human mind, and,
from the mere fact that the conclusions drawn from them are
contradictory between themselves, it is evident that no impor
tant historical point can be determined by their means.
Mr. Francis A. Allen, who also admits the authenticity of
the tale of Hoei Shin, believes that he has found upon the walls
of the temples of Central America an ornament that is very com
mon in Buddhist countries. I mean the head and trunk of the
elephant, an animal unknown in the New World since the last
glacial period. This 1 time the argument appears to be without
reply. The following is a short extract on this subject, from
the recent work of Mr. Hubert H. Bancroft, on "The Native
Races of the Pacific States " :
"At Uxmal, above one of the doors of the House of the
Governor, Uhere is a sculptured decoration, the central portion
of which is a curved projection, supposed by more than one
traveler to be modeled after the trunk of an elephant. It pro-
REMARKS OF M. LUCIEN ADAM.
201
jects nineteen inches from the surface of the wall. This pro
truding curve occurs more frequently on this and other buildings
at Uxmal than any other decoration, and usually with the same
or similar accompaniments which may be fancied to represent
the features of a monster of which this forms the nose. It oc
curs especially on the ornamented and rounded corners, being
sometimes reversed in its position. The same ornament is found
in the ruins of Zayi, at the angle of the fa9ade of the Casa
Grande, and at Labna at the corner of a palace, where the sup
posed trunk is superposed upon the mouth of an alligator inclos
ing a human head. . . . Finally, the head-dress of one of the
personages represented upon a bas-relief of the Palace at Pa-
lenque presents a somewhat striking resemblance to an elephant s
trunk."
The projection described by Mr. Bancroft reproduces, to a
certain extent, the curve of the trunk of the elephant ; but it
should be noted that the tusks of the animal are lacking. In
the absence of this characteristic part, it may be legitimately
supposed that, if the artist attempted to copy the nasal append
age of any animal (which is not at all evident), his model may
have been the American tapir.*
That which I said above regarding the traditions of the an
cient Americans is equally applicable to their monuments. Every
one interprets them in the sense that serves his theories the best,
and I dare say that too often the archaeology of the New World
is studied to find an argument for the defense of preconceived
theories, or to extend and systematize analogies that are entirely
accidental.
While I lived in the United States, I often heard the claim
that America was made for the Americans ; which I am far from
wishing to contradict. It is to be desired that this formula
should be introduced into the study of American antiquities, to
serve as a fundamental rule, and that, for the future, we should
not seek in America for India, Egypt, Assyria, or Greece, but
for America itself.
Returning to Fa-sang: I think that the Chinese had a
knowledge of America, at least in the seventh century, but I
* But the proboscis of the tapir is hardly noticeable, and it never takes the
curve characteristic of the elephant s trunk, shown in these Central American
decorations. E. P V.
202 AN" INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
reject absolutely the tale of Hoei Shin. I understand thereby
that this missionary had collected fables, mixed with a very
little truth, from the mouths of the Chinese sailors ; that he
played upon his compatriots by boasting that he had visited
this American Fa-sang; and that he was induced to tell this
falsehood by the pious desire to aggrandize the kingdom of
Buddha in their eyes.
M. FREDERICK DE HELLWALD said that the question of Fu-
sang recurs periodically, and is obstinately reproduced from time
to time, just as certain journals occasionally repeat the differ
ent tales regarding the apparition of the sea-serpent : and as it
is a fact that no one has been given an opportunity to study this
monstrous animal zoologically, just so no one has ever given
scientific proof of the discovery of America by the Chinese. In
1871 the " Athenaeum," of London, related this account of the
discovery of America by the yellow men as a thing entirely new.
Dr. Bretschneider at that time amply refuted this fable ; but this
has not prevented an English book from taking the subject up
again recently. It is to be feared that the refutation of Messrs,
de Rosny and Lucien Adam will not prevent a re-appearance
of the monster. The Congress of Americanists will render a
true service to science by declaring that it holds Fu-sang as a
scientific sea-serpent, and by prohibiting it from infesting the
regions of American studies.
Professor JOLT, of Toulouse, could understand this impatience
for a solution of the problem, but did not share in it. Before
rejecting the Asiatic hypothesis, should not the proofs bearing
upon the subject which can be furnished by the auxiliary sciences
be exhausted ? Do we know enough of American archaeology,
zoology, anthropology, and craniology to be able to decide au
thoritatively ? Is it too much to ask that the attempt to solve
the question be postponed, at least until a later sitting of the
Congress ?
Returning to the subject of the herds of tame cattle and of
deer, mentioned by Hoei Shin, M. Joly asked whether these so-
called cattle might not be understood to be the largest of the
domestic quadrupeds of Central America, the llama, which is
used as a pack animal and to draw loads of goods.
M. LUCIEN ADAM observed that the llama inhabits only
REMARKS OF PROFESSOR JOLY. 203
South America, particularly Peru. Fu-sang is at one time sup
posed to be Mexico ; presently it is moved to Arizona, in order
to find the bison there ; and then to Russian America, in order to
find the reindeer : now we descend to Peru, in order that we
may find a sufficiently imperfect representative of cattle in the
llamas of that country.
M. JOLT thought that paleontology might furnish a better
solution of the question of the communication between America
and Eastern Asia. Could not the representations of the elephant
upon the walls of Palenque be explained by a knowledge, on
the part of the natives, not of a contemporaneous elephant, but
of some one of the primitive elephants the mammoth or the
mastodon ? Might not the Mexicans have discovered some
skulls of the Eleplias primogenius which existed in America dur
ing the glacial period? Might not the figure of this animal
have been preserved in some prehistoric design, as in France the
image of the reindeer or the cave-bear has been preserved graven
upon fragments of deer-horns? It is denied that Hoei Shin
could have found horses in America. Undoubtedly the horse
was imported by the conquering Spaniards ; but may not an in
digenous equine race have existed in America ?
Have not beds of the bones of horses been found in the Bad
Lands ? Until the soil of America has been more thoroughly
examined, and more fully studied, so that it shall have deliv
ered up its paleontological secrets, M. Joly asked that c-aution
should be exercised regarding this Asiatic hypothesis.
CHAPTER XII.
D HERVEY S NOTES.
Bibliography The name of the priest The city of King-cheu Ta-han Lieu-
kuei, a peninsula Earlier knowledge of Fu-sang The construction of the
dwellings The lack of arms and armour The punishment of criminals The
titles of the nobles The title Tui-lu found in Corea The colours of the king s
garments The cycle of ten years Peruvian history The long cattle-horns
The food prepared from milk The red pears Grapes The worship of
images of spirits of the dead Its existence in China Cophene The " King
dom of Women" The legumes used as food Wen-shin The punishment of
criminals The name Ta-han The country identified with Kamtchatka Two
countries of that name One lying north of China, and one lying east Un-
warlike nature of the people.
Notes of the Marquis d^Hervey de Saint-Deny s on Ma Twan-
lin s Account of Fa-sang, Wen-shin, Ta-han, and the "King
dom of Women: 1547
MA TWAN-LIN S account of Fa-sang is of exceptional inter
est, for it has raised the important question as to whether the
Chinese knew of America, not only in the fifth century of our
era, as is indicated by the account of Hoei Shin, but back to
the most remote antiquity, as I propose to demonstrate a little
farther on. The Oriental scholar de Guignes was the first to
find in the works of Ma Twan-lin (which had never been inves
tigated before by any European student) the mention of the
country of Fa-sang; which he recognized as belonging to
North America, and which he thought might be identified with
California ; being led to this conclusion by studying the route
followed by the Chinese vessels, which the currents had borne
to the shores of that country. He set forth this opinion in a
very justly celebrated memoir; the assertions contained in which
were opposed by a critic who was very much disposed to deny
everything that he had not discovered himself. But the feeble-
D HERVEY S NOTES. 205
ness of his refutation became a powerful argument in support
of the opinion advanced by de Guignes, for no one was better
able than Klaproth to expose errors of the kind which he ac
cused de Guignes of having committed; and when the poverty of
his contradictory pleas is exposed, as well as the manifest inac
curacy of the statements that he makes, the conclusion is natural
that the author of the " History of the Huns " has the best of
the argument. D Eichthal, the Chevalier de Paravey, Professor
Neumann, and M. Perez have in turn defended de Guignes s
memoir with much force, by adding numerous new proofs in
support of those which had been given by that scholar. Finally,
in a volume full of facts, entitled " Fusang, or the Discovery of
America," an American author, Mr. Charles G. Leland, has very
recently devoted himself to the confirmation of the identification
of Fu-sang with California or Mexico, by means of more recent
documents borrowed from the latest researches concerning the
navigation of the Pacific and the ethnography of the American
tribes. Dr. Bretschneider alone declares his confidence in the
judgment of Klaproth ; undoubtedly from the robust faith with
which there is proof that he was inspired, since he very fairly
admits that he has read nothing that has been written in opposi
tion to his views. Lack of space prevents any analysis of the
works which I have cited, and which it appears sufficient to point
out to the reader. I shall take pains to call attention success
ively to the passages of this notice which have been the subject
of controversy, and to several expressions which have been in
terpreted in very different ways by de Guignes, Klaproth, Neu
mann, and Bretschneider. I have endeavoured to make my ver
sion as literal as possible, so that specialists who are not Sino
logues may easily obtain an accurate idea of the original text.
The same desire to aid in clearing up the question as to Fu-sang
induces me to place in an appendix several documents from
Chinese sources which relate to it, and which I believe have
never before been published in any European language.
The name of the Buddhist priest, i| ^, Neumann writes
Hoei Shin, and Dr. Bretschneider, Hui-shen. This appellation
signifies " very sagacious," or "very intelligent" (not "universal
compassion," as Neumann has translated it ; I can not imagine
why), and is a religious name, from which no indication can be
drawn as to the true nationality of the bonze who bore it. Mr.
206 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Leland writes : " Klaproth says, a native of the country, and by
the country he means Fa-sang ; but in the German version of
the same passage, given by Neumann, * the [or this] country re
fers to China." If Neumann, whose German version I have not
seen, otherwise than in the English translation which Mr. Leland
has made (adding that it has been revised by Neumann himself),
gives it to be clearly understood that Hoei Shin was a native of
China, he is surely in error. The characters of the Chinese text,
ji |U, " of that kingdom " (otherwise, " of this country "), relate
to Fa-sang, and not to China. It is true that there is nothing in
the Chinese text to indicate whether Hoei Shin had become a
bonze in Fu-sang, or whether he was a native of that country.
This question it is necessary to reserve, and my version is abso
lutely literal.
To arrive at the city of IZing-clieu, which was situated in what
is now called Hu-kuang, and upon the banks of the Yang-tse-
kiang, Hoei Shin would be compelled to ascend the river, pass
ing Kien-kang, or Nan+king, which was the capital of the empire
of the Tsi dynasty.
De Guignes believed that he was able to identify the country
of Ta-lian with Kamtchatka, and also with the place of exile
called Lieu-kuei by the Chinese. Klaproth thinks that Ta-han,
which he also recognizes as the same country as Lieu-kuei, must
be the island of Saghalien, otherwise called Tarakai, or Karafto.
He adopts this hypothesis arbitrarily, without making any allow
ance for the fact that Ma Twan-lin says that Ta-Jian lies more
than 5,000 li to the east of Wen-shin, and this in turn more than
7,000 li northeasterly (not northerly) from Japan, and without
making any attempt to reconcile his opinion with that statement,
or with the geographical treatise Long-wei-pi-shu, which says
that Lieu-kuei could be reached by land, and that the sea sur
rounded this country on three sides only. ("Lieu-kuei is to
the north of the Northern Sea, and is surrounded by the sea on
three sides.") Dr. Bretschneider places the country of Ta-han
in Siberia, abandoning Klaproth s opinion on this point ; and
Professor Neumann, with whom Mr. Leland agrees, affirms that
he believes the American peninsula of Alaska to have been in
tended by this designation. The kingdom of Ta-han is the ob
ject of special mention, a little farther on, and I therefore defer,
for discussion in that connection, several documents which I
D HERVEY S NOTES.
207
would be obliged to repeat if they were inserted here, merely
remarking for the present that Ma Twan-lin, and other Chinese
writers, treat separately the countries described by them under
the name of Lieu-kuei and Ta-han, and class the first among the
regions of the north, and the second among the regions of the
east. In any case, whatever may be the exact and definite iden
tification of Fu-sang, it should not be overlooked that when the
bonze Hoei Shin, who arrived in the empire of the Tsi (the
dynasty then ruling a large portion of China) by way of the
Great Itiang, described Fu-sang as being at the same time to the
east of Ta-han and of China, he should be understood as speak
ing, not of a land of limited extent, but of a true continent.
I can not allow the phrase of the account of Hoei Shin read
ing, "It [the country of Fu-sang] contains many fu-sang trees,
and it is from this fact that its name is derived " to pass, without
repeating an observation which I made some years ago (in the pref
ace of my translation of the Li-sao], and without demonstrating
that if the bonze Hoei Shin is the first who made the manners of
the people of Fu-sang known to the Chinese, there was a knowl
edge among the Chinese, centuries before him, of the existence
of such a country. Even during the life-time of Kiu-yuen, the
author of the poem entitled the Li-sao that is to say, in the
third century before our era the name of Fu-sang was em
ployed by the poets to designate the countries to the extreme
east. Now, the fact that this denomination of Fu-sang was
not an imaginary one, but a name drawn from a peculiar product
of a particular country, necessarily implies a real knowledge,
previously acquired, of the existence of the country so designated.
The passage relating to the construction of their dwellings
Klaproth translates : " The planks of the wood [of i\iQ fu-sang]
are used in the construction of their houses " ; and Neumann, ac
cording to Mr. Leland s English version, " The houses are built
of wooden beams." This last translation is the most exact, since
the Chinese text does not expressly indicate that the planks which
were used in the construction of the houses were made from the
wood of the fu-sang tree.
Klaproth has translated another passage : "They have neither
arms nor troops " ; Neumann, " The people have no weapons "; and
Bretschneider, " Arms and war are unknown." No one of these
three versions is strictly exact ; for the expression " kia-ping " con-
208 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
veys the idea of soldiers and their military armament, but with
out excluding them from the bow and arrow for hunting (which
would be included in the collective term " arms ") and of which
it is not said that the inhabitants of Fit-sang were destitute.
The statement is made that, " when a crime is committed by
a person of elevated rank, the people of the kingdom assemble in
great numbers, place the criminal in an excavation, celebrate a
banquet in his presence, and take leave of him as of a dying man,
when he is surrounded with ashes." This is not clear, and leaves
much in doubt as to the exact punishment of the criminal, of
which this ceremony appears to be merely a preliminary, in
tended to give it more solemnity. It has been supposed that he
was then sent to either the northern or the southern prison. Neu
mann says, " He is covered with ashes," which appears to sig
nify that he was buried alive, as de Guignes also understood this
passage ; but the meaning of the character || is " to surround"
and never " to cover"
The passage relating to the degrees of crime and their pun
ishments, Mr. Leland translates, following Neumann : "If the
offender was one of the lower class, he alone was punished ;
but, when of rank, the degradation was extended to his chil
dren and grandchildren. With those of the highest rank, it at
tained to the seventh generation." This interpretation is abso
lutely inadmissible. The word of the Chinese text, Iff, which
should be understood of the gravity, literally of the weighty of a
crime, can not be used in the sense of the rank, more or less ele
vated, of the criminal. Klaproth did not commit this error.
In the following sentence in regard to the designations of the
king and the nobility, the title of the nobles of the first class is
given as gj ]J, Tui-lu. In the great collection, entitled Ku-Jcin-
tu-shu-tsi-ching, the text of the " History of the Liang Dynasty,"
from which this account is borrowed, is reproduced, and this pas
sage reads, ^ ^ ^ Ta Tui-lu (Great Tui-lu), in opposition to
>J\ f ]J, Siao Tui-lu (Petty Tui-lu, or Tui-lu of the Second Rank),
an honourary title, which is mentioned immediately below. It is
therefore probable that the character, ^, ta, has been inadvertent
ly suppressed in my editions of the Wen-hien-tong-kao ; and this
was the opinion of de Guignes, who translated this passage,
" Great and Petty Tui-lu." This detail is of little importance, but
it is deserving of attention (inasmuch as the remark must be new,
D HERVEY S NOTES.
since the notice of Ma Twan-lin regarding Corea has not been
translated into any European language before) that the title
given to the highest dignitaries of Fu-sang is precisely the same
as that borne by the first dignitaries of Kao-kiu-li (Corea). 1546
"The mandarins of Kao-li are called ^ fj Jjj, Ta Tui-lu."
Eleven other titles, by which lower ranks are called, are also
given. " The care of the management of the internal and exter
nal affairs of state is divided among these twelve ranks of func
tionaries. The mandarins, called Ta Tui-lu, are elected and de
posed by the members of this rank, by their own authority,
without consultation either with the king or his ministers."
In regard to the colour of the king s garments, it should be
noted that the Chinese often confound blue and green. The
character ^ , employed here, designates equally the azure of the
sky and the light green of plants commencing to sprout.
In this connection, reference is made to a cycle of ten years,
represented by the cyclic characters ^ kia, y, pj ping, ~J~
ting, tic ou -> tl biy JjE fceng, -^ sin, jin, and 2 kouei, which
the Chinese use in the formation of their cycle of sixty years,
associating additional characters with them. Neumann, who
found a great affinity between the Mongolian Tartars and Mant-
choos and the Indians of North America, cites in this connec
tion the remark of Pere Gaubil : " I do not know where the
Mantchoo Tartars learned to express the ten Jean [or years of the
decennary cycle] by words which signify colours " ; and he gives
this curious information of his own ; " The two first years of the
decennary cycle are called by the Tartars green and greenish, the
two following years red and reddish, and the other years, in their
order successively, yellow and yellowish, white and whitish, and
black and blackish" Finally, Mr. Leland establishes a very close
analogy between the institutions of Peru at the time of the Span
ish conquest and the picture of the manners of Fu-sang sketched
by Hoei Shin, and thinks that the same civilization formerly
reigned in the two Americas. He treats this subject with much
interest (pages 49-59), and makes the following observations re
garding the passage to which this note refers :
" The change of the colour of the garments of the king, ac
cording to the astronomical cycle, is, however, more thoroughly
in accordance with the spirit of the institutions of the Children
of the Sun than anything which we have met in the whole of
14
210 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
this strange and obsolete record ; and it is indeed remarkable that
Professor Neumann, who had already indicated the southern
course of Aztec, or of Mexican, civilization, and who manifested,
as the reader may have observed, so much shrewdness in adducing
testimony for the old monk s narrative, did not search more
closely into Peruvian history for that confirmation which a slight
inquiry seems to indicate is by no means wanting in it. Thus,
with regard to the observations of the seasons, Prescott tells us
that the ritual of the Incas involved a routine of observances
as complex and elaborate as ever distinguished that of any na
tion, whether pagan or Christian. Each month had its appro
priate festival, or rather festivals. The four principal had refer
ence to the sun, and commemorated the great periods of his
annual progress, the solstices, and equinoxes. Garments of a
peculiar wool, and feathers of a peculiar colour, were reserved to
the Inca. I can not identify the blue, red, yellow, and black
(curiously reminding one of the alchemical elementary colours,
still preserved, by a strange feeling for antiquity, or custom, in
chemists windows) ; but it is worthy of remark that the rainbow
was the Inca s special attribute or scutcheon, and that his whole
life was passed in accordance with the requisitions of astronomi
cal festivals ; and the fact that different colours were reserved to
him, and identified with him, is very curious, and establishes a
strange analogy with the narrative of Hoei Shin."
The translation by Klaproth of the sentence, which he gives
as, " The cattle have long horns, upon which burdens are loaded
which weigh as much sometimes as twenty Ao," is absolutely in
admissible. The reference is, not to cattle upon the heads of
which burdens are loaded, but to the hollow horns of the cattle,
which serve as receptacles. The ho is a measure of capacity,
containing ten teu, or Chinese bushels, and the capacity of the
Chinese bushel has, it is said, varied from one litre thirty-five to
one litre fifty-four centilitres. We might be in doubt of the
existence of horns so extraordinary, but we read, in "L Histoire
de la Conquete du Mexique par les Espagnols," that Montezuma
showed them, as a curiosity, cattle-horns of enormous dimen
sions ; and, in his " Tableaux de la Nature," A. von Humboldt
says that, in making excavations in the southwestern part of
Mexico, ancient ruins were found, and cattle-horns were discov
ered which were truly monstrous.
D HERVEY S NOTES. 211
I have not translated literally the phrase which refers to the
food which the people make from milk, owing to the difficulty
of determining the exact meaning of the character gg } lo, which
is used to designate the alimentary preparation of which the
hind s milk furnished the base. The true meaning of the charac
ter is curdled milk, and also cream. It also indicates a sort of
liquor which the Tartars make from fermented mare s milk.
This last sense is adopted by Dr. Bretschneider ; de Guignes has
translated it butter, and Neumann has imitated him. Klaproth
thinks that cheese should be understood ; and M. de Rosny, who
has translated from the Japanese an abridged reproduction of
this notice regarding Fu-sang, says that the inhabitants made
creamy dishes from the milk of their domesticated hinds. I
have preferred to leave the expression somewhat vague, since it
can not be determined just what was meant by the character
used in the original.
The version of the Encyclopaedia, Ku-Jcin-tu-shu-tsi-ching,
cited above, offers the variation, " They have the pears of the
fu-sang tree," etc., instead of the reading in our text, " They
gather the red pears, which are preserved for an entire year."
In the sentence, reading, " They also have to pu-tao " (many
grapes), de Guignes translates the characters 2 fff |fl, tojm-tao,
" a great quantity of iris-plants and peaches," by giving their
isolated value to the characters pu and tao, and by giving to
the first (pu, reeds) a signification which is exceptional, to say
the least. He could not have been ignorant that the compound
pu-tao signified (/rapes ; but he also knew that the word, in re
cent times at least, demands a different orthography. Klaproth
has asserted that the two characters of the expression pu-tao,
employed by Ma Twan-lin, following the " History of the Liang
Dynasty," are nothing but the old form of the orthography more
recently adopted. It has, moreover, been established that these
characters are merely used to render phonetically in Chinese a
word of foreign origin ; and this makes the ideography of their
composition of less importance than it would otherwise be. I
have felt myself compelled to adopt this view; but it is indeed
surprising to see Klaproth seek, in the existence of the vine in
Fu-sang, to find an argument for affirming that that country
could not be America ; as if the Scandinavians had not given to
just this land of North America, where they landed, a name
212 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
which was suggested by the abundance of wild vines which they
found. Neumann has preferred to follow the opinion of de Guig-
nes in regard to translating the characters pu-tao separately,
instead of as a compound. He renders the phrase, " apples and
rushes from which the inhabitants make mats" This last state
ment is in all respects a more-than-free translation, since the
phrase in italics does not occur in the text, and the word tao
should not have the meaning of apple the fruit of which the
Latin name is malum (persicum).
The version of Iu-kin-tu-shu-tsi-ching offers quite an impo r-
tant variation in the phrase relating to the image that is set up
on the death of a member of the family. In place of f $ W$ ffl,
" the image of a spirit is set up" that version reads, J& ft ffi
jpljl |Jk that is to say, " the image of the spirit which represents
the soul of the deceased is set up " or exposed. It is remarkable
that this custom has existed among the Chinese from a great
antiquity, as may be read in the chapter Ou-tse-chi-ko of the
Shu-Icing. Klaproth made the translation from the version of
Ma Twan-lin, and Neumann from that of the Ku-Jcin-tu-shu-
tsi-ching, which accounts for their difference in the rendering of
this passage. But neither of these two scholars appears to me to
have correctly expressed the letter and spirit of the Chinese text
in the interpretation of the complementary member of the
phrase, which immediately follows: j|J] fy ffi -ll> literally, "Morn
ing and night, prostrations are made and oblations offered."
Klaproth says, " Prayers are addressed (to the images of the
spirits) morning and night" ; and Neumann, " They (the relatives
of the deceased) remain from morning to night absorbed in
prayer before the image of the spirit of the dead." ^f, pal (to
salute, to prostrate one s self), and j|, tien (to offer oblations or
libations to spirits), are expressions which do not convey, other
wise than indirectly, the idea of addressing prayers, and the
meaning of the author may be altered, in an account of this na
ture, by modifying thus the expressions which he uses.
As to the country from which the Buddhist priests came, IR-
pi n > St fC> Klaproth writes, in parenthesis, Cophene. The author
of the Japanese Encyclopaedia, San-sai-dzou-ye, from which M. de
Rosny extracted and translated an abridgment of Hoei Shin s
account, adds in a note, after the word Ki-pin, " Ki-pin is one
of the western countries (Si-yu) ; it is San-ma-ceU-kan (Samar-
D HERVEY S NOTES.
213
cand)." Mr. Leland says, "The land of Ki-pin, the ancient
Kophen, is now called Bokhara, the country of Samarcand.
Samarcand, at the times of which we are speaking, was one of
the great strongholds of Buddhism."
The nature of the facts reported in regard to the " Kingdom
of Women " has served for an argument to impeach the veracity
of Hoei Shin ; but it is impossible to fail to distinguish between
the account of this bonze concerning Fu-sang, a country in which
he had resided, and his story about a Kingdom of Women, of
which he knew nothing himself but the marvelous tales which he
had heard related. It may be remarked that all the ancient
nations have had some tradition of Amazons, or kingdoms of
women; and M. d Eichthal has made the curious fact known that
entire tribes of North America have borne the name of " women "
as a national name. It may also be noted that the Chinese au
thors mention several kingdoms of women, entirely distinct from
each other, which fact arose, without doubt, because the Chinese,
among whom the women lived retired in the inner apartments,
without playing any active part in public life, would naturally
give the appellation of Kingdom of Women to those countries of
which the manners contrasted with those of the " Middle King
dom " in this respect. Those which have been mentioned above
are situated to the west of China. The Long-wei-pi-shu speaks
of as many as ten, and in the notice which we translate here the
Wen-hien-tong-Jcao mentions two which should not be confounded.
Finally, under the name of ^C A S> Niu-jin-leoue, an insignifi
cant variation, the Encyclopaedia San-tsai-tu-hoei, published in
the Ming dynasty, speaks also of an island in the South Sea
where the women showed themselves in force and made prison
ers of almost all the sailors of a Chinese vessel which winds
and tempests had driven upon that distant shore.
The expression which I render, " These islanders fed upon
small legumes," is very difficult to translate by an exact equiva
lent, for the botanical classifications of the Chinese are very dif
ferent from ours. The Chinese give the name of j, teu > to a ^
vegetables having distinct grains enveloped in a pod, shell, or
husk. De Guignes, while translating this phrase " little beans,"
thought it possible that maize might be meant.
The short notice which follows, regarding the country of
Wen-shin, or of " Tattooed Bodies," 155 does not vary, except by
214: AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
a few different readings, from the account contained in the por
tion of the Nan-sse, or " Annals of the South," inserted in my
article on Japan. 1552 Ma Twan-lin has, however, suppressed here
the closing sentence concerning the punishment of criminals,
and the trials to which they were subjected. De Guignes and
Klaproth have thought that this country of Wen-shin might be
the island of Jesso. Neumann, who places the kingdom of Ta-
han in the peninsula of Alaska, thinks that the Wen-shin inhab
ited the Aleutian Islands. This last opinion appears very diffi
cult to reconcile with the account, that is given farther on, of the
abundance of provisions among the Wen-shin, and of the sumpt
uous palace of their king. In the " Chinese Recorder " " 4 Dr.
Bretschneider wrote : " Wen-shen, the country in which the peo
ple tattoo themselves, lies 7,000 li northeast from Japan. The
inhabitants make large lines upon their bodies, and especially
upon their faces. By a stretch of the imagination we might
suppose North American Red Indians to be here meant. It is
known, however, that the Japanese have also the habit of tattoo
ing themselves." Without daring to attempt to decide the ques
tion of the identification of the country of Wen-shin, I will call
attention to the following paragraph regarding Ta-han, or rather
regarding the two different countries of that name. It will be
seen that the manners of the people of Ta-han of tJie East were
similar to those of the inhabitants of Wen-shin, and that there
were also affinities between the people of this land and those of
Fu-sang, which therefore seem to show a relationship between
the three nations.
The name of the country of Ta-han is too extraordinary in
itself not to excite attention. Ta-han (ft. SI) signifies literally
" Great Chinese " (han, Chinese, vir fortis), and Ta-han-kwoh,
" Kingdom of the Great Chinese," or " Great Chinese Kingdom,"
which de Guignes attempted to explain as follows : " That part
of Siberia called Kamtchatka is the region which the Japanese
call Oku-yeso, or Upper Jesso. They place it upon their maps
to the north of Jesso, and represent it as being twice as large as
China, and extending much farther to the east than the eastern
shore of Japan. This is the country which the Chinese have
named Ta-han, which may signify as large as China, a name
which corresponds with the extent of the country, and to the
idea which the Japanese have given us of it." Neumann, on the
D HERVEY S NOTES. 215
contrary, who locates Ta-han in the peninsula of Alaska, sup
poses that the Chinese have called this country Great China, or
a great country comparable to China, because they had knowl
edge of the vast continent which exists beyond it. These two
explanations are ingenious, without doubt ; but we find another,
much simpler, in the Chinese Encyclopaedia Yuen-kien-lui-han,
regarding at least one of the two countries called Ta-han of
which that work makes mention. The Yuen-Jcien-lui~han de
serves to be carefully examined, since it may give proof of the
correctness of Dr. Neumann as to the identification of the coun
try of Ta-han situated on the route to Fu-sang, and at the
same time confirm the assertion of de Guignes as to the kingdom
of Ta-han situated in Kamtchatka or somewhere else in Eastern
Siberia, as MM. Perez and Bretschneider have thought. Neu
mann has, in support of his opinion, the express statement of
Li-yen and of Ma Twan-lin, that the Ta-han at which vessels
touched on the way to Fu-sang was an Oriental country, situated
to the east, and not to the north, of Wen-shin. De Guignes, on
his side, produces a very precise account of the route which Chi
nese travelers followed when they went by land to the country
of Ta-han, an itinerary which can not be disputed. Here is what
we read in the Encyclopaedia Yuen-kien-lui-han First : Kiuen
231, fol. 46 : " TAHAN OF THE EAST. This kingdom is to the east
of that of the Wen-shin more than 5,000 li. Its people have no
arms and do not wage war. Their manners are the same as
those of the Wen-shin, but their language is different " (exactly
the same notice as that which the Wen-hien-tong-Jcao gives us).
Second : Kiuen 241, fol. 10 : " TAHAN OF THE NORTH. We read
in the Sing-tang-shu ( Supplement to the History of the Tang Dy
nasty a work published in the eleventh century of our era by
imperial order) : The Ta-han (of the north) live to the north of
the kingdom of Kio, or Kiai. They raise many sheep and horses.
The men of this kingdom are robust and of a great height, from
which fact the name Ta-han ( ( Great Chinese, or, in common
language, Tall Fellows ) is derived. They are neighbours of
the Ke-Jcia-sse (natives who live upon the shore of the lake Pe-
hai, or Baikal). In former times they had no relations with the
empire (of China), but in the years ching-Jcuan and yong-hoei
(627-655) embassadors from their nation came once or twice
offering horses and martens furs as tribute." The kingdom of
216 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
A70, or JTiai, is situated 500 li to the northeast of the territory
of the Pa-ye-Jcu, one of the most easterly tribes of the great
nation of the Hoei-he (Ouigours), which extends as far as the
country of the Shi-wei, or She-goei, occupying the northeast
ern part of Siberia. These last natives of Ta-han (whom Ma
Twan-lin calls Ta-mo, and whom he also classed among the
nations of the north) are those whom de Guignes thought to
be located in Kamtchatka ; but the immediate consequence of
this verification is to make it impossible to find a place in
Asia for the " Ta-han of the East" in which we are solely in
terested. None of the scholars who have studied this ques
tion have suspected the existence of two countries called Ta-
han ; and this fact has compelled them to make great efforts
to bring into agreement the accounts of the two routes to Ta-
han, one by land and the other by water, which led, in fact, to
two different countries. Neumann, whose judgment seems the
least reliable, has therefore very probably been the most in
spired. Although the notice of Tahan of the East is very short,
it contains the proof of a characteristic and very extraordinary
fact, of which the importance should not be overlooked. The
people of Ta-han, we are told, have no arms and know nothing
of war. This fact would be inexplicable regarding a tribe of
upper Asia, exposed to the attacks of the ferocious and belliger
ent nations whom they had upon their frontiers, and it reveals
a civilization analogous to that of the people of Fu-sang, to
whom the same peculiarity is attributed.
CHAPTER XIII.
D HERVEY S APPENDIX.
Difference between Hod Shin s story and other Chinese accounts An earlier
knowledge of Fu-sang The poem named the Li-sao The Shan-hai-king
The account of Tong-fang-so The immense size of the country The burn
ing of books in China The origin of the Chinese The writer Kuan-met
The arrival of Hod Shin in 499 The civil war then raging The delay in
obtaining an imperial audience The " History of the Four Lords of the Liang
Dynasty "An envoy from Fu-sang The presents offered by him Yellow silk
A semi-transparent mirror This envoy was Hod Shin The stories told
by Yu-kie The silk found upon the fu-sang tree The palace of the king
The Kingdom of Women Serpent-husbands The Smoking Mountain The
Black Valley The animals of the country The amusement of the courtiers
The poem Tong-king-fu The route to Fu-sang Fu-sang east of Japan
Lieii-kud The direction of the route.
Appendix to the Account regarding Fu-sang by the Marquis
d^Hervey de Saint-DenysS
THE relation of the bonze ffoei Shin has, for more than a
century, served as the foundation for all that has been written
for the purpose of attempting to decide the question whether
Fu-sang was America or not. This account, so clear and pre
cise, possessed, in the eyes of the Chinese, a character of authen
ticity which distinguished it from quite a large number of other
documents relating to Fu-sang^ which were furnished by authors
with more or less inclination for the marvelous. Ma Twan-lin
contented himself, for this reason, with merely repeating it with
out adding anything to it. Ma Twan-lin never undertook to
unite in his accounts all that the Chinese authors had related
regarding the subject of his work, but confined himself to men
tioning only what appeared to him to be the most worthy of
credit. The merit of his compilation, taken as a whole, results
mainly from this work of elimination, accomplished by judicious
218 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
criticism. But if it is attempted to clear up an obscure point by
means of the comparison of different accounts and by investiga
tions of all kinds, the most fabulous stories, and little points, ap
parently the most trivial, sometimes contain the clew to the
wished-for knowledge. Hence it appears that, in an effort to
decide as to the true location of Fu-sang^ the contrary method
should be followed and no means of information should be neg
lected. I have, therefore, grouped here all the documents which
I have been able to collect relating to this interesting question ;
some much anterior to Hoei Shin s account, and others forming,
to a certain extent, the corollary of the declarations of this
priest.
The first show that, if we admit it to be a fact that Buddhist
missionaries of the fifth century visited America, this is far from
proving that they were the first who discovered the country ;
the second permit us to detect the origin of the introduction of
supernatural elements into the authentic account of the bonze
Hoei Shin, and justify Ma Twan-lin in adhering to the strict
letter of Hoei Shin s account, and in declining to leave it for a
comparison of the different statements, by means of which the
true elements of these accounts might, some day, be separated
from the false.
It is proved that the idea of the existence of a great country,
covered with vast forests made up of a particular species of trees
called fu-sang trees, and situated beyond the eastern seas, was
an old tradition, even to the Chinese authors of the third century
before our era, this fact being attested by the Li-sao. Kiu-
yuen, the author of this celebrated poem, traveled in thought to
the four extremities of the universe. In the north he perceived
the land of long days and long nights ; in the south the bound
less sea attracted his attention ; in the west he perceived the sun
descend and sink in a lake, which has been supposed to be Lake
Tingry, or the Caspian Sea ; and, finally, in the east in spite of
the immensity of the Pacific Ocean, and, in spite of the thought,
which would naturally occur to him, that the sun also rose from
the midst of the waters he caught a glimpse of distant shores
receiving the first gleams of the dawn. It is in a valley in a
land shaded by the fu-sang tree that he places the limits of the
extreme east. The Shan-hai-Tcing, a work of uncertain date, but
of incontestable antiquity, contains an analogous reference to
D HERVEY S APPENDIX. 219
this land. An author, almost contemporaneous with Kiu-yuen,
Tong-fang-so (whose text is supposed to have suffered some al
terations, but at an epoch much anterior to that of Hoei Shin),
expresses himself thus : " At the east of the Eastern Sea, the
shores of the country of Fu-sang are found. If, after landing
upon these shores, the journey is continued by land toward the
east for a distance often thousand li, a sea of a blue colour (pi-
hai) is reached, vast, immense, and boundless. The country of
Fu-sang extends ten thousand li upon each of its sides. It con
tains the palace of Tai-chin-tong-wang-fu (the God who Presides
over the East). Great forests are found, filled with trees of
which the leaves are similar to those of the mulberry, while the
general appearance of the trees is similar to that of those which
are called chin (certain coniferous trees). They attain a height
of several times ten thousand cubits, and it takes two thousand
people to reach their arms around one of them. These trees
grow two and two from common roots, and mutually sustain
each other ; hence their name ot fu-sang (sese sustinentes mori
mulberry-trees which sustain each other). Although they grow
tall and straight, like the conifers, their leaves and their fruit
are similar to those of the mulberry of China. The fruit, of
exquisite flavour and of reddish colour, appears but very rarely,
the tree which produces it bearing it but once in nine thousand
years. The anchorites who eat the fruit become of the colour of
gold, and acquire the power of hovering in celestial space."
The exaggeration of the proportions of the fu-sang tree is
evidently nothing but hyperbole ; but it may be remarked that
this tree is described as resembling the mulberry or the tong tree
in its leaves, and the chin tree in its form ; this last being a spe
cies of conifer of which the wood is used in the manufacture of
arrows. This description, although not having great botanical
precision, reminds one involuntarily of the gigantic Wellingtonia
of California, which may be the last remains of an immense
forest.*
* The Mexicans noticed a resemblance between the century-plant, or agave (the
plant which Hwul Slian called the fu-sang tree), and the conifers ; for they called
the fir-tree 62 "oya-metl," 1915 a term meaning the fake or counterfeit agave; and,
in fact, the flowering-stalk of the century-plant often forty feet in height and
eight inches in diameter at the base with its numerous branches of flowers,
springing out, almost horizontally, from its upper half, is very similar in form
and general appearance to a fir or pine tree. E. P. V.
220 AN INGLOKIOUS COLUMBUS.
The indication of a breadth of ten thousand li for the country
of Fu-sang shows that it was a true continent ; and, if we do
not believe that this curious account of another ocean, found to
the east, beyond the vast territory, should be applied to the At
lantic, it still may be thought that America was better known to
the Chinese before the Christian era than it could be even from
the narration of Hoei Shin himself. In any case, the Buddhist
missionaries who again found the route to Fu-sang were certainly
guided in their voyage by the light of old traditions.
I ventured the following observations when publishing my
translation of the Li-sao, some years ago :
" The general burning of books, two hundred and thirteen
years before our era, was far from being as destructive as has
been imagined ; but still it caused a sensible diminution of the
sum of acquired knowledge. A great number of texts were
preserved in the memory of scholars or by the secretion of manu
scripts, and were thus finally restored, but many others were lost
or altered. Moreover, the Chinese people, at the same time that
they raised the great wall, isolated themselves in other ways, in
order to preserve their unity. No surprise should therefore be
felt at finding that the Chinese in very ancient times were pos
sessed of ideas more just and extensive, regarding a multitude
of subjects, than the Chinese of the following centuries; BO that,
to reach reliable accounts, it is necessary to go back as far as
possible into that antiquity which, perhaps, there is good reason
for vaunting so highly.
" I have sometimes thought that a great mystery might be
concealed in the origin of the old Chinese with black hair, who
arrived from the north (it is not known from what country) at
the banks of the Yellow River not as primitive men, but as the
representatives of a ripened civilization who avoided any inter
mixture with the native population, and who always turned
themselves toward their father-land to seek for light. If it
should be unquestionably proved that Fu-sang is indeed Ameri
ca, and if the first ideas which the Chinese had of that region
should appear lost in the most remote antiquity, would not a
strange enigma be presented to us for solution ? "
Mr. Leland s book has shown me that the thought which dic
tated these lines has also presented itself to several scholars
who have made a specialty of the study of subjects relating to
D HERVEY S APPENDIX. 221
America ; and the Long-wei-pi-shu cites an opinion of the Bud
dhist writer Kuan-mei, which demonstrates to what great an
tiquity some idea of the existence of Fu-sang went back among
the Chinese, if their statements on the subject are to be believed:
" It is in Fu-sang that Hwang-tVs astronomers resided (who were
charged with the observation of the rising sun) ", says Kuan-mei.
" In the first year yong-yuen, of the Tsi dynasty, there was a
bonze named Hoei Shin, who arrived from that country, and
who made it known" (literally, by whose narration it commenced
to be known k., I, fol. 10), an expression which should be un
derstood here merely as referring to a knowledge renewed after
the lapse of centuries. Hwang-ti is the first sovereign of the
times reputed historical, and the first cycle of the Chinese com
menced in his reign, in the twenty-seventh century before our
era. We may assuredly entertain a doubt as to whether the
astronomers of this celebrated emperor, to whom the Chinese
attribute the invention of the astronomical globe and the insti
tution of their cycle, established an observatory in Fu-sang.
Nevertheless, I believe the fact to be established that there was
some account of Fa-sang current among the Chinese long before
the time of Hoei Shin, and this is what I first proposed to make
evident.
Let us now examine the circumstances under which Hoei
Shin s report was made, and attempt to decide what connection
there was between this bonze and the five Buddhist priests who
went to Fu-sang in 458 ; why Hoei Shin ascended the Grand
Kiang to King-cheu, instead of stopping at Nan-king, then the
capital of the empire ; and, finally, consider what should be
thought of an embassy from Fu-sang, which, according to the
work entitled Liang-sse-kong-ki (" Memoirs of the Four Lords
of the Liang Dynasty " ), came to visit the Chinese court in the
years tien-kien, which commenced in the year 502, that is to say,
at an epoch very near to that of the arrival of Hoei Shin a co
incidence which should not be overlooked. We will finally con
sider the account of the route to Fu-sang as given by the histo
rian Li-yen, and the light furnished in this respect by several
passages of Ma Twan-lin, hitherto inedited.
We read in the JZu-kin-tu-shu-tsi-ching : " In the time of
Tong-hoen-heu, the first year yong-yuen (499), the bonze of the
kingdom of Fa-sang, named Hoei Shin, came to China. Never-
222 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
theless, the official annals of the Tsi dynasty make no mention of
him, and it is the books of the Liang dynasty which contain the
account of Hoei Shin regarding Fu-sang, in a section devoted to
the eastern countries."
The year 499, designated as the date of the arrival of Hoei
Shin upon the banks of the Kiang, was a year of civil war, which
preceded the downfall of the Tsi dynasty, and during which that
shadow of an emperor, called Tong-hoen-heu (" Prince of the Dis
orders of the East "), remained a prisoner in his palace, besieged
by his own brother. This brother was declared " Protector of the
Empire," and he resided at the same city of J^ing-cheu, to which
we see that Hoei Shin repaired. This brother soon mounted the
throne, and Was almost immediately deposed by the founder of
the Liang dynasty, known by the name of Liang Wu-ti, in the
first month of the year 502. Now, if we suppose that Hoei Shin
came from Fu-sang and intended to visit the emperor of
China a favour which could never be obtained except after long
entreaties these circumstances explain why it was that he was
compelled to remain at King-cheu, until the complete overthrow
of the Tsi dynasty, without being able to obtain an imperial
audience. The accession of Liang Wu-ti, a prince who was a
believer in the Buddhist religion, must, on the contrary, have
insured him a favourable reception by the new ruler of the empire.
I now come to the statements of the Liang -sse-lcong -lei, and
am convinced that others, like myself, will be struck by the vivid
light which they throw upon the story. The four princes, or
feudal lords, of whom the book contains the memoirs, were
named Ho-tchin* Yu-Tcie, Sho-tuan, and Chang-ki. Nothing is
said as to how they were connected with one another ; but their
memoirs tell us that in the years tien-Men, that is to say, in the
first years of the reign of Liang Wu-ti, an envoy from the
kingdom of Fu-sang presented himself, and, having offered to
the emperor divers objects of his country, the emperor charged
Yu-lcie to interrogate him regarding the customs and the produc
tions of Fu,-sang, the history of the kingdom, its cities, its riv
ers, its mountains, etc., as was the custom in similar cases when
ever a foreign embassador visited the court.
* In the " Ethnography," edited by the Marquis d Hervey de Saint-Denys, this
name is written Hoei-tchin ; while in the same author s " Memoir " it is given as
Ho-tchin. The Marquis d Hervey states that this last form is correct. E. P. V.
D HERVEY S APPENDIX. 223
" The envoy from Fu-sang wept, and responded with respect
ful ardour," says the text a singular phrase, which appears to
give the idea of an old man affected at finding himself again in
his native land after long years of absence. "The offering
which he presented consisted principally of three hundred pounds
of yellow silk, spun by the silk- worm of ihefu-sav.g tree, and of
an extraordinary strength. The emperor had an incense-burner
of massive gold, of a weight of fifty kin. [The kin weighs a
little more than 600 grammes.] This could be lifted and held
suspended by six of these threads without breaking them. There
was also among the presents offered to the emperor a sort of
semi-transparent precious stone, cut in the form of a mirror, and
of the circumference of more than a foot. In observing the sun
by reflection by means of this stone, the palace which the sun
contains appeared very distinctly." (Mention of these mirrors
has been made in the " Notes and Queries," and Mr. Leland pre
sents some very remarkable observations upon this subject.
"Discovery of America," p. 184.)
There is but little probability that Hoei Shin was a native of
Fu-sang, although all the texts agree in calling him " a bonze of
that country." It may be suspected that he had left China,
when very young, in company with the five priests of Ki-pin.
This can not be considered as anything more than a conjecture ;
but that which appears to me to be beyond doubt is, that Hoei
Shin and the envoy from Fu-sang, the bearer of the presents
offered to the emperor Wu-ti, were one and the same person.
To the presumption which is raised by the agreement of the
dates, and the circumstances, as mentioned above, should be
added the convincing fact that the prince Yu-Jcie, when speaking
at length of Mi-sang and other regions of the extreme east, as is
recorded in the Liang-sse-kong-ki, sometimes, as we shall see,
based his declarations upon the statements of the envoy whom
he had had the charge of interrogating, and sometimes upon the
relation given by Hoei Shin, without indicating that there was
any difference between the two sources of his information. It is
here, moreover, that we find the source of all the extravagancies
which have been mixed with Hoei Shin s narration, and which
have resulted in casting suspicion upon even his simplest state
ments.
The account quoted by Ma Twan-lin was probably the official
224: AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
record of the statements made by Hoei Shin, in his quality of
envoy of the kingdom of Fu-sang, in answer to the questions of
Yu-kie y who was delegated for the purpose by the emperor.
The compilation of this account is similar to that of a great num
ber of analogous documents contained in the notices of the Wen-
hien-tong-kao. Nothing is found which approaches the domain of
fable, any more than there is in the description of the presents
offered to the emperor, and the precision of the details gives to
the whole an appearance of truth which can not be mistaken; but
the lord Yu-kie wished to amuse the court in regard to his con
ferences with a person who had excited such general curiosity.
Let us return to the study of the Liang-sse-kong-ki. The
truth will thus be established.
" One day, when the attendants at court were amusing them
selves with stories of foreign countries, the lord Yu-kie took up
the subject, and spoke in the following terms : * At the extreme
east is Fu-sang. Silk-worms are found there which are seven
feet long and as much as seven inches in circumference. Their
colour is golden. It takes a year to raise them. On the eighth
day of the fifth month they spin yellow silk, which is extended
upon the branches of the fu-sang tree, for they make no cocoons.
This silk is naturally very weak ; but it is cooked in lye prepared
from the ashes of the wood of the fu-sang, and thus acquires such
strength that four threads twisted together are sufficient to raise
a weight of thirty Chinese pounds. The eggs of these silk
worms are as large as swallow s eggs. Some were taken to Kao-
kiu-li (Corea) ; but the voyage injured them, so that nothing
issued from them but silk-worms as small as those of China.
c The palace of the king is surrounded by walls of crystal,
which appear clearly before daylight ; but the walls become
quite invisible during an eclipse of the moon.
" The lord Yu-kie said besides : * At the northwest, about ten
thousand li, there exists a Kingdom of Women, who take serpents
for husbands. Moreover, these reptiles are inoffensive. They
live in holes, while their wives or concubines live in houses
and palaces, and exercise all the cares of state. In this king
dom there are no books, and they know nothing of the art
of writing. They believe firmly in the efficacy of certain forms
of prayers or maledictions. The women who act uprightly pro
long their lives, and those who swerve from the right are imme-
D HERVEY S APPENDIX. 225
diately cut off. The worship of spirits imposes laws that none
dare to violate. To the south of Ho-cheu (the Island of Fire)
[probably ^, hwo, "fire," and >)\\,cheu, " an islander district"],
situated to the south of this country, is the mountain Yen-kuen
(Burning Mountain) [probably 0, yen, "smoke," and J|, kwun,
" a peak, a high mountain "], the inhabitants of which eat locusts,
crabs, and hairy serpents, to preserve themselves from the heat.
In this land of Ho-cheu, the ho-mu (trees of fire) [probably
>j, hwo, " fire," and /f;, muh, " wood, a tree "] grow ; their bark
furnishes a solid tissue. Upon the summit of the mountain Yen-
kuen there live fire rats (ho-shu) [probably jfc, hwo, "fire,"
and J3,, shu, " a rat, mouse, weasel, squirrel, or similar animal "],
the hair of which serves also for the fabrication of an incombus
tible stuff, which is cleansed by fire instead of by water. To the
north of this Kingdom, of Women is the Black Valley (He-ko)
[probably Jl|, hoh, " black," and kuh, , " a ravine, gully, gorge,
canon "], and north of the Black Valley are mountains so high
that they reach to the heavens. Snow covers them all the year.
The sun does not show itself there at all. It is there, it is said,
that the dragon Cho-long (the Luminous Dragon) resides. [Prob
ably Q, chuh, " an illumination, a torch, to illumine," and ||,
lung, " a dragon."] At the west is a fountain that inebriates,
and has the taste of wine. In these regions there is also found
a sea of varnish, of which the waves dye black the feathers and
furs that are dipped in them, and another sea of the colour of
milk. The territory surrounded by these natural marvels is of
great extent and extremely fertile. Dogs, ducks, and horses of
a great height live in it, and, finally, birds which produce human
beings. The males born of these birds do not live. The daugh
ters only are raised with care by their fathers, who carry them
with their beaks or upon their wings. As soon as they commence
to walk, they become mistresses of themselves. They are all of
remarkable beauty and very hospitable, but they die before
reaching the age of thirty years.
" The rabbits of this country are white and as large as
horses, their hair being a foot long. The sables are as large as
wolves. Their hair is black and of extraordinary thickness.
" The attendants of the court were much amused at these
stories. They all laughed and dapped their hands, and said
that letter stories had never been told.
15
220 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
"A minister of the emperor, named Wang-yun, interrupted
Yu-kie with this bantering objection : * If we believe the official
accounts which have been collected regarding the Kingdom of
Women, situated to the west of the country of Tsan-yai and to
the south of the Kingdom of Dogs (Keu-kwoh), it is merely in
habited by barbarians of the race of the Kiang-jong, who have
a woman as their sovereign ; but there has never been any ques
tion of serpents filling the office of husbands. How do you ac
count for that ? Yu-kie responded with pleasantry with a new
explosion of extravagancies, in the midst of which there appeared
here and there a true idea, burlesqued for diversion."
This curious fragment shows that the Chinese of the sixth
century were not as credulous as might be believed ; that they
knew how to distinguish between the true and improbable, and
that the extravagancies of their story-tellers, at which they were
the first to laugh, does not diminish the merit of the writers that
they respected.
The Ku-ldn-tu-shu-tsi-cliing is very explicit in this respect ;
citing several poets who in their works make allusions to Fu-
sang, it makes the following statement : " We read in the poem
entitled Tong-king-fu % f I ascended to the source of day and thus
arrived at Fu-sang.^ ffwai-nan-tse has written, ( The sun issues
from the valley Yang-Jco (the Luminous Valley) [probably It,
yang, "the rising sun," and ^J, huh, "a ravine, valley, gully"],*
and rises in the midst of the fu-sang trees. Yang-Hang says,
Beyond the great sea is Fu-sang? 2ii\& Li-tai-pe writes, f At the
extreme west is the jo-mo tree ; at the extreme east, the fu-sang
tree. " "From all this," continues the book from which we
cite, " it follows that Fit-sang lies to the east of China. Some
understand that the sun really comes out of this country, or that
Fu-sang is the sun itself ; but this is mere ignorance on their
part. When it is said that the sun comes forth from Fu-sang,
it simply means that the sun rises in the extreme east."
I will conclude with some remarks regarding the description
of the route from China to Fit-sang, given by the historian Li-
yen, who lived at the beginning of the seventh century of our
era, and regarding the conjectures to which this itinerary has
* Williams s "Chinese Dictionary," p. 1071, defines "Yang-kuh," "the valley
of sunrise in the extreme east, probably in Corea,, where Yao worshiped the sun
at the Ternal equinox. *
D HERVEY S APPENDIX. 22T
given rise. According to Li-yen, the route sets out from the
coast of Leao-tong, skirts along Japan, touches at the country of
the Wen-shin, and then reaches the kingdom of Ta-han, from
which the route to Fu-sang is quite direct, the distance being
almost equal to the entire distance already traveled. The total
length of the journey is about 44,000 li, and each of the interme
diate distances is specified. The length of the li can not serve as
the basis for any certain calculation as to the exact distance, be
cause of the variations which it has suffered. The inductive
labours of the scholars, who have attempted to determine the situ
ation of Fu-sang from the statements of Li-yen, have heretofore
consisted in proceeding from the known to the unknown, by at
tempting to determine the length of the li from its value in the
distance between Leao-tong and Japan, so as to obtain a propor
tionate measure which would furnish the means for the identifi
cation of the more distant regions designated by the names of
Wen-shin, Ta-han, and Fu-sang. This very reasonable method
meets two great difficulties in its practice one resulting from
the fact that the particular point in Japan to which the measure
was taken is not clearly indicated ; and the other from the fact
that the estimate of distances by sea in a voyage of this kind can
only be approximate. Thus, de Guignes and Neumann, who
agree in placing the country of Wen-shin in Jesso, have differed
regarding the identification of Ta-han, which the first thinks to
be in Kamtchatka, and the" second upon the peninsula of Alaska,
and this has resulted in their placing Fu-sang more or less to
the south. But neither of these two scholars, nor M. d Eichthal,
the Chevalier de Paravey, M. Jose Perez, or Mr. Leland, has
hesitated to acknowledge that Fu-sang must be sought upon the
American Continent. I do not hesitate to declare that it seems
to me impossible to seek elsewhere for a region of a thousand
leagues in extent, situated beyond the great ocean, to the east of
Japan, an$ the new documents which I have been permitted to
collect attest this to be its true location.
The mention regarding the extent of Fu-sang is in the frag
ment of the Shi-cheu-ki, cited above ; that of the situation of
Fu-sang to the east of Japan is found in the preface of the
" Ethnography of the Eastern Nations," by Ma Twan-lin, where
it is distinctly said, "Japan is situated directly to the east of
China, and Fu-sang is situated directly to the east of Japan "
228 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
(Kiuen, 324, fol. 1, line 6). Ma Twan-lin adds that about thirty
thousand li separate China from this country of the extreme
east ; an assertion which does not in any way contradict the
estimate of forty thousand li made by Li-yen, since the distance
here spoken of is that in a direct line, and not the distance by a
roundabout route.
This positive statement of Ma Twan-lin s would be sufficient
to destroy the singular hypothesis of Klaproth, who imagined
that the Chinese had confounded Japan with Fu-sang, if this
paradoxical theory did not crumble of itself at all points, as it is
easy to demonstrate that it does.
Klaproth does not dispute either the sincerity of the state
ments of Hoei Shin, or the veracity of the Chineses writers who
have spoken of Fu-sang, and confines himself to commenting
upon their statements from his point of view. The best way of
exposing his attempted refutation of de Guignes s memoir is to
show how he has proceeded in his interpretation of the Chinese
authors.
The Prussian scholar commences by admitting, with de
Guignes, that the country of Wen-shin must be Jesso, so that
he is obliged to accept as the length of the li, in the time of the
historian Li-yen, a measure proportionate to the number of li
which this writer concedes between Leao-tong and the island of
Jesso. Then, immediately, in order to bring the remainder of
the itinerary into accordance with his fancy, he supposes the li
to be less than half as long, and so small that it can not be ap
plied to any of the measures of distance indicated by the Chinese
geographers of any epoch. M. d Eichthal has described this
contradiction very clearly; but that which he has not said is, that,
in order to place Ta-han in the island of Karafto, or Tarakai,
the same land according to him as Lieu-Jcuei, Klaproth ignores
or pretends to be ignorant, on the one side, that the land of
Lieu-kuei is described by the Chinese books as a peninsula and
not as an island (" Long-wei-pi-shu? Kiuen, 4, fol. 7 ; " Wen-
hien-tong-kao," Kiuen, 347, fol. 4), and, on the other side, that
the countries of Lieu-kuei and Ta-han are described separately
in the two works above named, with the important distinction
that Lieu-kuei is described among the regions of the north, and
Ta-han among those of the east ; this last country being located
to the east of the Wen-shin, while Lieu-Jcuei is to their north.
D HERVEY S APPENDIX. 229
The question of the orientation troubled the scholarly author
of the " Tableaux de 1 Asie " very little, it is true ; and, as the
direction toward the east, on leaving the island of Karafto, or
Tarakai, incommoded him, he, in order to arrive at his conclu
sion, changed this direction, so precisely given by the Chinese
texts, and, without ceremony, turned it arbitrarily toward the
south. In such manner was he carried away by his imagination,
that he concluded by supposing that the Chinese navigators of
the seventh century thought that they were visiting Fii-sang
when they landed upon the southeastern coast of Japan that is
to say, in a country which had been known to them, and which
had had constant relations with China, for more than five cent
uries. If such reasoning had been published by an Orientalist
of less reputation than Klaproth, it would be almost superfluous
to expose it.
Attention should be called, in conclusion, to the fact that
Klaproth is the only critic who has opposed the identification of
Fu-sang with America ; since no attention should be paid to the
unsupported opinion of those who with closed eyes declare that
they agree w T ith him.
Such is the additional information drawn from the examina
tion of a number of Chinese authors information which I have
thought should be added to the notice of Ma Twan-lin. For a
statement of all that has been published hitherto in European
languages on the question of Fu-sang, as also for the latest in
formation concerning the ethnography of North America, and
the navigation of the Pacific, Mr. C. G. Leland s book may be
profitably consulted.
CHAPTER XIV.
AKGUMENT.
" Notices of Fu-sang and other Countries lying East of China " The origin of
American tribes The work of H. H. Bancroft Mr. Leland s book Ma
Twan-lin His " Antiquarian Researches " Hwui-shin s story Cophene
No later accounts of Fu-sang The titles of the nobility The ten-year cycle
Red pears The f u-sang tree No mention of pulque Brocade Fables
Account of the Shih Chau Ki The article of the Marquis d Hervey de Saint-
Denys Criticisms thereon P&ng-lai The distance of Japan and Fu-sang
The name Fu-sang sometimes applied to Japan Mention of the fu-sang tree
in a Chinese geography Expeditions sent to search for Fu-sang Compari
son with Swift s "Voyage to Laputa" The Kingdom of Women Mention
by Maundevile and Marco Polo of a land of Amazons The country of Wan
Shan Tattooing Its existence among the Esquimaux Quicksilver Two
kingdoms of Ta Han Lieu-kuei and the Lewchew Islands.
Notices of Fu-sang and Other Countries lying East of China
by Professor S. Wells Williams.*
THE origin of the various nations and tribes inhabiting the
American Continent is a question that has attracted the atten
tion of antiquarians ever since the discovery of the continent
four centuries ago. The general designation of "Indians," given
by Columbus to the people whom he met, shows the notion then
entertained of their Asiatic origin, not less than his ignorance of
their true position. Since that time, numerous antiquarians
have given us their ideas and researches upon this obscure sub
ject. Some have combined many scattered facts so as to uphold
their crude fancies ; while others have formed a theory, and
then hunted over the continent for facts to prove it. When
their various works are brought together, comparison only shows
how little which can lead to a definite conclusion has yet been
really ascertained. The digest of the most careful of these trav
elers, and the candid analysis of the works of antiquarians and
PROFESSOR WILLIAMS S ARGUMENT. 231
philologists, given by H. H. Bancroft in the fifth volume of his
laborious work on the " Native Races of the Pacific States " (pp.
1-136), fully upholds his concluding sentence as to the present
state of this question : " To all whose investigations are a search
for truth, darkness covers the origin of the American peoples and
their primitive history, save for a few centuries preceding the
conquest. The darkness is lighted up here and there by dim
rays of conjecture, which only become fixed lights of facts in
the eyes of antiquarians whose lively imaginations enable them
to see best in the dark, and whose researches are but a sifting
out of supports to a preconceived opinion."
Since the publication of this work, in 1875, attention has
been again directed to a hypothesis as to the origin of the na
tive races namely, that America was peopled from China by
the issue of Mr. C. G. Leland s book, entitled " Fusang, or the
Discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth
Century." Mr. Bancroft had already collected the leading data
upon this particular point (volume v, pp. 34-51), and Mr. Le-
land adduces no new facts.* He brings together in a conven
ient form what he has collected from de Guignes, Neumann, and
d Eichthal in favor of his theory ; while he analyzes and criti
cises the remarks of Klaproth, Sampson, and Bretschneider
against it.
I have thought that a translation of the sections describing
the lands lying to the east of China, found in the work of Ha
Twan-lin, would tend to place his notice of Fu-sang in its true
light, and help us to guess where that country should be looked
for. This distinguished Chinese author belonged to a literary
family, and spent his life in collecting and arranging the materials
for his great work, the Wdn Hien Tung Kao, or "Antiquarian
Researches," which was published about the year 1321, by the
Mongol emperor Jin-tsung, a nephew of Kublai Khan. Ma
Twan-lin s life was passed amid the troublous times of the con
quests of the Mongols, and his father held a high office at the
court of the emperors of the Sung dynasty at Hangchow. He
was busily engaged with these labors during the whole period of
the residence of Marco Polo in China (1275-1295), and their
deaths probably occurred about the year 1325.
* Attention has already been called to the fact that an earlier and shorter ar
gument by Mr. Leland preceded Mr. Bancroft s work by many years. E. P. V.
232 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
The "Antiquarian Researches" now contains 348 chapters
(Men), arranged, without any natural sequence, under twenty-five
different heads, as Chronology, Classics, Religion, Dynasties, etc.
The last title is called Sz* X Kao, or " Researches into the Four
Frontiers." In it are gathered together, in twenty-four chapters,
all the information that the author could collect respecting for
eign kingdoms and peoples. He himself seems never to have
traveled outside of his own land ; and during the ruthless wars
of the Mongols he was probably glad to escape all molestation
by staying quietly at bis home at Po-yang, in Kiangsi province.
The eight volumes containing these notices of other countries
must consequently be regarded only as the carefully written
notes of a retired scholar, who was unable to test their value or
accuracy by any standard, either of his own personal observation,
or of the criticisms of those among his acquaintances who had
gone abroad. The energy and skill of the great Khan, so unlike
the effete and ignorant rule of the native monarchs at Hang-
chow, must have developed much mental and physical vigor
among his subjects. An author like Ma Twan-lin would there
fore be stimulated to gather all the information he could, no
matter whence it came, to enrich his work. His design was
more like that of Hackluyt orPurchas than that of Rollin or La
Harpe ; and in carrying it out he has done a good service for
the literature of his native land.
In his survey of lands beyond the Middle Kingdom, he com
mences on the east, and goes around to the south and west,
describing each country without much reference to those near it.
Having no data for ascertaining their distances, size, or relative
importance, he makes no distinction between islands, peninsulas,
and continents ; for all such things his countrymen are even
now just beginning to learn. . . .
[The first section of Ma Twan-lin s work, translated by
Professor Williams, is that relating to Hia-i, the land of the
"Shrimp Barbarians." These are shown to be the Ainos, and
it does not seem necessary to copy the account here. Then
follows his translation of the account regarding Fu-sang, which
is given elsewhere ; upon which Professor Williams makes the
following observations :]
Ma Twan-lin makes no comment on this narrative, nor does
he tell us whence Hwui-shin got it ; he did not feel obliged to
PROFESSOR TVILLIAHS S ARGUMENT. 233
discuss its veracity, or explain its obscurities. The first impres
sion made upon one who reads it, with the idea that Fu-sang lay
somewhere on the American Continent, is that it proves rather
too much, judging by what we yet know of the nations and
tribes who once dwelt there. I do not mean that the notices
it gives of the houses, unwalled cities, curious mode of judging
prisoners, and mourning customs, could not have applied to the
natives of Mexico or Peru ; but it has not the air of the narra
tive of a man who had actually lived there. It is easy to reply
that all traces of the people mentioned have been lost, so that
our present ignorance of their early civilization proves nothing
either way. Still, this account reads more like the description
of a land having many things in common with countries well
known to the speaker and his hearers, but whose few peculiari
ties were otherwise worth recording. The shaman Hwui-shin
may have been one of the five priests who went to Fu-sang
from Ki-pin only forty years before his arrival at Kingchau, the
capital of the Tsi dynasty. Ki-pin is the Chinese name for
Cophene, a region mentioned by the Buddhist traveler Fa-hien
(chap, v) under that name, and by Strabo and Pliny as situated
between Ghazni and Candahar, along the western slopes of
the Suleiman Mountains, in the upper valleys of the Helmond
River. These priests had probably traveled far north of China
in their missionary tour, as described by de Guignes and
d Eichthal, and lived in Fu-sang until it had become familiar to
them. I think that Ma Twan-lin inserts Hwui-shin s account
next to that of Hia-i, from an idea that both kingdoms lay in
the same direction. He seems to have found no accounts of a
later date, and the long interval of seven centuries had furnished
nothing worth recording about a land so insignificant as Fu-
sang. We can hardly imagine that such would have been the
case with a country to be reached by a long sea-voyage, one
where stupendous mountains, great rivers, well-built cities or
citadels, and people with black or dark-red complexions, would
each make a deep impression upon an Asiatic. It is just as
likely that junks drifted across the Pacific Ocean in the sixth
century as in the nineteenth ; but Hwui-shin is as silent respect
ing the manner in which he returned from Fu-sang, as of the
way he reached it. If the five priests had traveled toward
Okotsk, and beyond the river Anadyr, till they reached Beh-
234: AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
ring s Straits, and then slowly found their way down to warmer
climes, this would naturally form part of the story. Silence on
all these points makes one hesitate in coming to the conclusion
that Fu-sang formed any part of America.
The internal evidences to be deduced from what is stated
are still more opposed to that conclusion. In our present state
of knowledge of the ancient American languages, so far as I can
learn, it would be a vain search to look for any words among
them suggesting the names of yueh-ki for king ; tui-lu for a
high noble ; siao tui-lu for a secondary grandee ; and no-cha-
sha for those of the lowest rank. It is not possible at this date
to be quite sure what sounds were intended by the priest, or by
the historian, to be represented by the Chinese characters used
in transliterating the three foreign words ; but those here given
are the present sounds in the court dialect, and probably near
their originals.
But the next statement, respecting the changes required every
two years in the color of the king s dress, carries with it alto
gether too much likeness to Chinese ritualism to be overlooked.
It needs a little explanation to be made clear. The sexagenary
cycle, used in Eastern Asia from remote times, is made by repeat
ing ten stems six times in connection with twelve branches re
peated five times ; the two characters united form the name of
a year. The ten years containing the ten stems begin with the
first year of the sixty. Consequently, the first and second years,
the eleventh and twelfth, the twenty-first and twenty-second,
and so on to the last decade, will contain the same two stems
kiah yueh five times over ; in these two years the king s dress
must be tsing, or azure color. In the next two, the third and
fourth in each decade, the stems ping ting require it to be chih,
red or carnation. In the next two the stems wu hi require it to
be hwang, yellow ; in the fourth binary combination, the stems
Jc&ng sin require it to be peh, white. Lastly, the two stems jin
kwei, denoting the ninth and tenth years of each decade, close
the series, and then his robes are to be AeA, black. These five
are the primitive colors of Chinese philosophy.
Nothing analogous to this custom has ever been recognized
among the Aztec, Peruvian, or Maya people. The ten stems
in these five couples indicate among the Chinese and Japanese
the operation of the five elements, wood, fire, earth, metal, water,
PROFESSOR WILLIAMS S ARGUMENT. 235
in their active and passive exhibitions ; each one destroys its
predecessor, and produces its successor, in a perpetual round of
evolutionary forces. The mention of such an observance in Fu-
sang seems to fix its location in Eastern Asia, where the sexa
genary computation of time has long been known. It was a
curious usage, which would strike a priest familiar with the Chi
nese ritual.
The same may be said of the worship of ancestral manes and
images, and of the three years mourning by the new king. The
efforts to explain the big horns of the oxen, the red pears which
will keep a year, and the vehicles drawn by horses, have each
their difficulties if applied to anything yet known of the na
tions of ancient America along the Pacific coast, but may be
applied to Northern Asia with some allowances. I think the red
pears may denote persimmons, which are dried for winter use,
and to this day form a common article for native ships stores.
The identification of the tree fu-sang, on which the notice
chiefly turns, is not yet complete. Klaproth refers it to the Hi
biscus rosa sinensis; but I agree with Dr. Bretschneider in mak
ing it to be the Broussonetia papyri/era, or paper-mulberry, a
common and useful tree in Northeastern Asia. The use asserted
to be made of the bark in manufacturing paper and dresses does
not apply to the Hibiscus nearly so well, though that plant also
produces some textile fibers, as does also another large tree not
yet entirely identified, belonging to the family Tiliaceae or lin
dens. The further statement, too, that its shoots are eatable
like those of the bamboo, is inapplicable to the agave of Mexico
as well as to the Hibiscus, the linden, or Broussonetia, none of
which are endogenous. It is one of the inaccuracies of the de
scription, and can not be reconciled with either plant. The
maguey made from the agave is better fitted for threads and
cloths than for making paper. The fruit or berry of the Brous
sonetia is reddish, indeed, but no one would liken it to a It or
pear. If the agave is intended, as Mr. Leland urges, it is very-
probable that Hwui-shin would have said something about the
intoxicating drink called pulque, obtained from the leaves, rather
than have likened them to the tung, as he has done. This last
tree is either the ^Eleococca or Pawlonia, both well known in
China and Japan ; so that an omission to speak of the pulque be
comes rather an evidence against the agave being thefu-sang tree.
236 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
The remark about the fibers being woven into brocade is also
true of the Broussonetia. A beautiful fabric is made in Japan
by weaving them with a woof of silk ; but nothing of this sort
could be made from the weak agave fibers. Moreover, the
Broussonetia has not been found in Mexico, although Neumann
thinks that it once existed there. . . . The word kin (Jg), ap
plied to the curious paper-silk brocade manufactured from the
fu-sang bark, according to Ma Twan-lin s text, is also applied to
embroidery and parti-colored textures. It is not so much the
damask-like figure that is the essential point ; but among the
Chinese the kin always has a variety of colors. This seems to
have attracted the attention of Hwui-shin, and the remarkable
iridescence of some specimens of this Japanese mulberry silk still
excites admiration. Professor Neumann says that in the year
books of Liang he found the reading to be mien ($^), " floss " ;
but the textual character kin has more authority in its favor, and
is found in the Yuen Kien Lui Han. He translates the sentence:
" From the bark they prepare a sort of linen which they use for
clothing, and a sort of ornamental stuff." The word pu, here
rendered linen, is now confined to cotton fabrics ; but the distinc
tion aimed at in the two terms used seems to have been that of
a plain fabric and a brocaded one, like the Japanese nisiki.
It may be added, lastly, that many fables have gathered
around the tree and the country of Fu-sang, which increase the
difficulty of their identification. For instance, the Shih Chau
Ki, quoted in the native lexicon Pei-wtin Yin Fu, says : " The
fu-sang grows on a land in the Pih Hai, or Azure Sea, where it
is abundant ; the leaves resemble the common mulberry (sang),
and it bears the same kind of berries (shin, ^g) ; the trunk rises
several thousand rods (chang), and is more than two thousand
rods in girth. Two trunks grow from one root, and lean upon
each other as they rise ; whence it gets the name fu-sang, i. e.,
supporting mulberry." * The use of the technical word shin for
the fruit of the fu-sang is a very strong argument for its being
the Broussonetia, and shows that its affinity to the silk mulberry
(Mbrus) had been noticed.
* This is evidently a philological myth ; as one of the meanings of the charac
ter FU is " to prop up, support," * the name FU-SANG was supposed to mean
"the supporting mulberry," and the tale given above was probably invented to
account for it. It appears, however, that there is a species of double maguey, or
PROFESSOR WILLIAMS S ARGUMENT. 237
Since the publication of Mr. Leland s book, the Marquis
d Hervey de Saint-Denys, who has succeeded Stanislas Julien
in the Chinese Professorship at Paris, has contributed a paper
in the Transactions of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-
Letters for 1876, which contains some additional notices of Fu-
sang. Among these is an extract translated from the Liang $?
Kung Ki, or " Memoirs of Four Lords of the Liang Dynasty,"
which throws some light on the times in which Hwui-shin lived,
and the circumstances attending his arrival at King-chau. The
marquis shows that it was just at the overthrow of the Tsi
dynasty that the priest came as envoy from Fu-sang, and bad to
wait three years before the Emperor Wu-ti, of the Liang dy
nasty, could receive him. The section in Ma Twan-lin he justly
regards as a copy of the official report made to his superiors by
Yu Kieh, one of these four lords, obtained from Hwui-shin, the
envoy. It is quite unlike the usage in such cases that nothing is
said in the official annals of the presents offered by him ; these,
if they had come from America, would have been different from
anything before seen, and therefore likely to be recorded. Such
a list, however, did not necessarily fall within Ma s purpose when
describing Fu-sang. The marquis notices some of the presents
offered, which are spoken of in the " Memoirs of the Four Lords,"
and also some popular notions of that day concerning Fu-sang.
He identifies the envoy with the shaman Hwui-shin, and con
cludes, with reason, that he was one of the five priests who went
in the year 458 from Ki-pin. I have no copy of the Liang Sz J
JTung Ki, and therefore quote his translation :
"At the commencement of the year 502,* an envoy from the
kingdom of Fu-sang was introduced, and, having offered different
things from his country, the emperor ordered Yu Kieh to in
terrogate him on the manners and productions of Fu-sang, the
history of the kingdom, its cities, rivers, mountains, etc., in
that the plant sometimes throws out two flowering-stalks instead of one ; as Saha-
gun refers to it in the following words : 220 " The god Xolotl took to flight and
hid himself in a field of maize, where he metamorphosed himself into a stalk of
that plant, having two lower portions with separate roots, which the labourers call
xolotl ; but having been discovered among the maize, he fled a second time and hid
himself among the magueys, where he changed himself into a double maguey, which
is called mexolotl (from metl, maguey, and xolotl )." E. P. V.
* This clause should read, "At the commencement of the years called tien-kien,"
i. e., about the year 502. E. P. V.
238 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
conformity to the usage practiced at court whenever a foreign
envoy visited it. The envoy from Fu-sang wept, and replied
with a respectful animation, says the Chinese text, such as an
old man would exhibit when he found himself in his own country
after a long absence.* The presents which he offered consisted
especially of three hundred pounds of yellow silk, produced by
worms found on the fu-sang tree, and of extraordinary strength.
The censer of the emperor, made of solid gold, weighed fifty
catties (between fifty and sixty pounds), and three f threads of
this silk held it up without breaking. Among the presents was
also a kind of semi-transparent stone, carved in the form of a
mirror, in which, when the sun s image was examined, the palace
in the sun distinctly appeared. . . .
" One day, while he was entertaining the court about foreign
countries, the magnate Yu Kieh began to speak thus : In the
extreme east is Fu-saug. A kind of silk-worm is found there,
which is seven feet long and almost seven inches around. The
color is golden. It takes a year to raise them. On the eighth
day of the fifth moon the worms spin a yellow silk, which they
stretch across the branches of the fu-sang, for they wind no co
coons. This native silk is very weak ; but, if it be boiled in the
lye made from the ashes of fit-sang wood, it will acquire such
strength that four strands well twisted together are able to hold
up thirty catties. The eggs of these silk-worms are as big as
swallows eggs. Some of them were taken to Corea ; but the
voyage injured them, and when they hatched out they were or
dinary silk-worms. The king s palace is surrounded with walls
of crystal. They begin to be clear before daylight, and become
all at once invisible when an eclipse of the moon occurs.
"The magnate Yu Kieh proceeded to say : About ten thou
sand li northwest of this region there is a Kingdom of Women ;
they have serpents for husbands. The serpents are J venomous
and live in holes, while their spouses dwell in houses and pal
aces. No books are seen in this kingdom, nor have the people
* The pamphlet, from which Professor Williams translated, might leave it to be
inferred that the phrase, " such as an old man would exhibit when he found him
self in his own country after a long absence," was contained in the Chinese text.
It is, however, merely a comment, made by M. d Hervey de Saint-Denys. E. P. V.
f The word " three " should be " six." E. P. V.
\ This clause should read, " The serpents are not venomous." E. P. V.
PROFESSOR WILLIAMS S ARGUMENT. 239
any writing. They firmly believe in the power of certain sor
ceries. The worship of the gods imposes obligations which no
one dares to violate. In the middle * of the kingdom is an island
of fire with a burning mountain, whose inhabitants eat hairy
snakes to preserve themselves from the heat ; rats live on the
mountain, from whose fur an incombustible tissue is woven,
which is cleaned by putting it into the fire instead of washing it.
North of this Kingdom of Women there is a dark valley ; and
still farther north are some mountains covered with snow whose
peaks reach to heaven. The sun never shines there, and the lu
minous dragon dwells in this valley. West of it is an intoxi
cating fountain whose waters have the taste of wine. In this
region is likewise found a sea of varnish whose waves dye plumes
and furs black ; and another sea having the color of milk. The
land surrounded by these wonders is of great extent, and exceed
ingly fertile. One sees there dogs and horses of great stature,
and even birds which produce human beings. The males born
of them do not live ; the females are carefully reared by their
fathers, who carry them on their wings ; as soon as they begin
to walk they become mistresses of themselves. They are re
markably beautiful and very hospitable, but they die before the
age of thirty. The hares of that land are as big as the horses
elsewhere, having fur a foot long. The sables are like wolves
for size, with black fur of extraordinary thickness.
" The courtiers were greatly amused with these recitals,
laughing and clapping their hands, while they assured the nar
rator that they had never heard better stories. One minister in
terrupted Yu Kieh by a bantering objection : ( If one can put
any trust in the official reports collected in relation to this King
dom of Women, it might be all simply inhabited by savages who
are governed by a woman ; there would then be no question re
specting this matter of serpents acting as husbands. How would
you then arrange this matter ?
" Yu Kieh answered pleasantly, that he had nothing more to
say on that point ; and then he went on from one strange story
to another still more strange, in which one part truth was mixed
with nine parts invention."
The whole paper from which this extract is taken does credit
to its author s researches into this matter, however much we may
* For " In the middle " read "At the south." -E. P. V.
240 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
differ from his inferences. On a previous page he adduces fur
ther proof from two early Chinese authors, who mention Fu-
sang. One of them is Kiuh Yuen, who nourished about B. c.
300, and wrote the poem Le Sao, or " Dissipation of Sorrows,"
which has since become a classic among his countrymen. In it,
the marquis says, " he traveled in thought to the four quarters of
the universe. On the north he perceived the land of long days
and long nights ; on the south, the boundless ocean met his
view ; on the west, he saw the sun set in a lake, perhaps the
Tengiri-nor or the Caspian Sea ; on the east, in spite of the vast-
ness of the Pacific, and of the idea which would naturally pre
sent itself to his mind as the sun rose from the abyss of waters,
he beheld the far-off shores receive the beams of Aurora, and in
a valley, on a land shaded by the fu-sang tree, he places the lim
its of the extreme east."
He also calls in another author to fortify the poet, namely,
Tung Fang-soh, whose work, the Shin-i King, or " Record of
Strange Wonders," was extant in the Han dynasty, but was af
terward lost. That now bearing his name has been manipulated
by subsequent authors, and Mr. Wylie regards it as a production
of the fourth or fifth century, and " the marvelous occupies so
large a portion that it has never been received as true narrative."
But the marquis does not so regard it : " The works of Tung
Fang-soh, which treat of regions most remote from China, have
undergone some slight alterations at the dictum of the Chinese
literati, who inform us that the alterations which they suspect
date back to the fourth century after Christ. Their criticism,
far from diminishing for us its authority, becomes, on the con
trary, a valuable testimony of its authenticity at that date.
This it what it says : * East of the Eastern Ocean is the country
of Fu-sang. When one lands on its shores, if he continue to
travel on by land still further east ten thousand li, he will again
come to a blue sea, vast, immense, and boundless. I think that
I hazard nothing in saying beforehand that it is impossible to
apply these indications of Tung Fang-soh to any other country
than America."
Fu-sang and Pang-lai are still used among the Chinese for
fairy land, and are referred to by the common people very much
as the Garden of the Hesperides and Atlantis were among the
ancient Greeks. In Hankow, when a shopkeeper wishes to praise
PROFESSOR WILLIAMS S ARGUMENT. 24:1
the quality of his goods, he puts on his sign that they are from one
or other of these lands. The latter is perhaps the more common
of the two, for it has become associated with the conqueror
Tsin Chi Hwangti, who sent an expedition, about B.C. 220,
easterly to find it and two other islands, called San Sien Shan,
or Three Fairy Hills, where the genii live. Pang-lai is now the
name of a district in the province of Shantung (better known
from the pref ectural city Tangchau, west of Chef u), which com
memorates this expedition after the fairies. Nothing was more
natural to people living along the Yellow River, in the days of
Kiuh Yuen and Tung Fang-soh, when Shantung was inhabited
by wild tribes, than to regard all that little known region in the
utmost east as the abode of whatever and whoever were wonder
ful. To quote such legends as corroborative history or travel,
needs the support of some authentic statement to begin with ;
and Hwui-shin would be as likely to connect his account with
something his hearers would recognize as existing in that direc
tion, as to make up a story. I do not infer that neither the Chi
nese nor Japanese of the sixth century had any knowledge of
the American Continent from other sources, for it was as easy
then for vessels to drift across the Pacific as they still do ; but
they could not drift back again, and, when once landed anywhere
between Alaska and Acapulco, the sailors were not likely to try
a second voyage to reach their homes.
There is, furthermore, an unexplained point how the name of
the treefu-sang came to be applied to the kingdom Fu-sang.
If the Broussonetia be the plant denoted, and everything con
firms this deduction, one would have expected its identity or
likeness to the chu shu, its Chinese name, to have been men
tioned. It is, however, quite as probable that the tree got its
name from the country, for the manufacture of paper from its
bark does not seem to have been known in the days of Kiuh
Yuen.
Yu Kieh s pleasant account of Fu-sang and its silk-worms
tends rather to show that in his day it was a region which every
one could people with what he chose. The use of silk among
the people on the Pacific coast was, according to H. H. Ban
croft, mostly confined to the Mayas in Central America ; it was
by no means a common product, and mostly used in combination
with cotton. This reference by Yu Kieh, although so exagger-
16
242 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
ated, tends to show that Fu-sang was regarded as on the western
side of the Pacific Ocean ; and I am inclined to place it in Sag-
halien Island.
De Guignes lays much stress on the alleged distance of Fu-
sang from Ta-han, and ingeniously reduces the 20,000 li, or 7,000
miles, to an actual estimate of the road taken by Hwui-shin (Le-
land, p. 128) to get there. In the introduction to his accounts
of all these eastern countries, in chap. 324, Ma Twan-lin places
the Flowery Land in the center of the universe, and then adds :
" East of China lies Wo-kwoh, also called Japan ; east of Wo-
kwoh, farther on, lies Fu-sang, about 30,000 li from China."
These figures are much too hap-hazard to depend on in settling
this point, and carry less weight than such internal evidence as
we can analyze. If compared with other distances applied to those
regions by this author, we soon find how valueless they all are.
No one in the sixth century had any means of measuring long
distances, or taking the bearings of places, so as to make even a
rough guess as to their relative positions, if he had tried to make
a map. For an illustration of this remark, see Dr. Bretschnei-
der s article in " Transactions of North China Branch of the Royal
Asiatic Society," No. X, 1876, where he gives an example of
Asiatic map-making in A. D. 1331, to show the divisions of the
Mongol Empire. It looks like a checker-board.
The position of Fu-sang can not therefore be yet settled from
these notices ; but we may, as the Marquis d Hervey de Saint-
Denys hopefully remarks, yet see the day when the immense
riches hidden and almost lost in Chinese books will be brought
out, and something more definite on this head be discovered.
I have only two other quotations to add. One is the name
FuAhi-koku, i. e., the kingdom of Fu-sang, an unusual designation,
known to the Japanese themselves, of their own country or a
part of it, and which would hardly have been applied to a land
on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. The other is the men
tion found in the Ying-hioan Chi Lioh, or " Geography of the
World," by SiiKi-yii, the late governor of Fuhkien, who wrote it
in 1848. In speaking of the troubles in Corea caused by the
Mongol invasion, and the ravages of the Japanese corsairs along
the Chinese coast during the Ming dynasty, he proceeds to say :
" But as the rising grandeur of our present Imperial house began
to diffuse itself afar, its quick intelligence perceived that it ought
PROFESSOR WILLIAMS S ARGUMENT. 243
first to scatter [as it were] slips from ihefu-satig tree in the Valley
of Sunrise ; and thereby those lands (Corea and Japan) were awed
into submission for many years, and our eastern frontier remained
quiet and protected ; neither of these nations presumed to en
croach on our possessions. " The Valley of Sunrise, used in the
Shu King, or " Book of Records," is regarded as a synonym of
Corea, and thefu-sang tree is here connected with that land. A
few sentences on, Governor Su quotes from another book, called
" Records of Ten Islands or Regions " : " In the sea toward the
northeastern shores lie Fu-sang, Pang-kiu, and Ying-chau ; their
entire circuit is a thousand li." He then adds : " I think that the
story about these Three Fairy Hills arose from the exaggerated
descriptions of our own writers, who used them to deceive and
mislead men ; for really they were small islands, contiguous to
Japan and belonging to it. If their ships of that period went to
them out in the ocean, why could not [our people ?] find them
if they had searched for them ? " He then relates the quixotic
expedition sent by Tsin Chi Hwangti under Si! Fuh to find
them, with several thousand men and women, none of whom
ever returned. From this reference it may be concluded that
Governor Sil regarded Fu-sang and the other two to belong to
the Kurile Islands near Yezo. He had access to many works
in his own literature, and took unwearied pains to get at the
truth of what he was writing about, by asking intelligent
foreigners who were able to tell him. Among these were Rev.
David Abeel (whose aid he acknowledges), and M. C. Morrison,
a son of Rev. Dr. Morrison, the missionary. His opinion de
serves to be received as that of an intelligent scholar, though he
knew nothing of the question started by de Guignes.
In reading the marquis s translation of Yu Kieh s story, an
English scholar can hardly fail to compare it with the " Voyage
to Laputa " ; for that land was placed not far from Fu-sang by
its clever discoverer and historian. Dean Swift, like Yu Kieh,
drew on his imagination for his facts. The numerous references
in that " Voyage " to the people of China, their institutions, pecul
iarities, costumes, and manners, must have been derived or sug
gested to him by the writings of Semedo, Martini, Mendez
Pinto, and other travelers in Asia before 1720, which were prob
ably in Sir William Temple s library. But one would almost as
soon think of quoting Swift s assertion in chapter iii of this " Voy-
244 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
age " regarding " the two lesser stars or satellites which revolve
about Mars," as proof that Professor Asaph Hall s discovery of
1876 had been already known in Queen Anne s reign, as to seri
ously undertake from these Chinese authors to prove that they
knew the American Continent by the name of Fu-sang.
[Then follows the translation of the account of the " King
dom of Women," which is given in full in the seventeenth chap
ter of this work. Professor Williams comments :]
From this account, following that of Fu-sang, we might con
clude that Ma Twan-lin regarded Hwui-shin alone as his author
ity for both of them, as he is quoted at the beginning of each
section. But the incident of A. D. 508 may have been taken
from the " History of the Liang Dynasty. " The mention of Tsin-
ngan, however, as the residence of the shipwrecked man who
found the Ntl Kwoh, shows how little dependence can be placed
on the Buddhist priest s estimate of the distance or direction of
either Fu-sang or Nti Kwoh from China. The only seaport of
that day named Tsin-ngan was the present Pu-tien Men, identical
with the prefectural city of Hing-hwa, situated between Fuhchau
and Tstien-chau in the province of Fuhkien. This man was
probably a fisherman, bound for the Pescadore Islands, who was
driven off by a storm through the Bashee Straits into the Pacific
Ocean, among the islands east of the Philippines. I think the
priest is not responsible for the sailor s story, as it is omitted in
the Yuen Kien Lui Han, and only the first part given. The
legend of the Nil Kwoh probably applies to two places. Sir
John Maundevile * places his Lond of Amazoyne beside the
Lond of Caldee where Abraham dwelt ; but his Yle of Nacume-
ra, where "alle the men and women of that Yle have Houndes
Hedes ; and thei ben clept Cynocephali," might be looked for
where the " History of the Liang Dynasty " puts them as well
as anywhere else.
In his Book of Marco Polo " (ed. 1871, vol. ii, pp. 338-340),
Colonel Yule has brought together notices of the various legends
which have appeared from time to time in Eastern Asia of this
fabled land of females, to illustrate what the Venetian has reported
in chapter xxxi about the " Two Islands called Male and Female."
In his other admirably edited work, "Cathay, and the Way
Thither" (p. 324), he alludes to the report of Marignolli, about
* " Maundevile s Voyage," ed. by nalliwcll, 1839, pp. 154, 197.
PROFESSOR WILLIAMS S ARGUMENT. 245
A. D. 1330, of a kingdom in Sumatra ruled by women. The first
part of Ma s notice, which is certainly ascribed to the shaman,
leads one to look northeasterly toward the Kurile Islands for people
with so much hair ; and suggests a comparison with the inhab
itants of Alaska called Kuchin Indians, described in Bancroft s
" Native Races " (vol. i, pp. 115, 147, sqq.). But it would not be
worth while to spend much time in looking for this fabled land,
had not the idea got abroad that its location would aid in identi
fying Fu-sang with some part of America.
[Next comes Professor Williams s translation of the account
of the Wtin SMn, or the land of " Marked Bodies," found in
the seventeenth chapter of this work, as to which he says :]
It is not certain whether marking and painting the body, or
tattooing, is intended by this term wan sMn ; but as the Chi
nese have a technical term, king, Hj, used in this extract * to de
note the process, it proves that tattooing must be here intended.
This practice is less common among the islanders in the North
Pacific than in the South, where a warmer climate enables them
to show off their pretty colors and figures. The courses and
distances from Japan here given would land us in Alaska ; but
no weight can be attached to them in this quotation from the
Liang records.
The distinction of rank, indicated by the different lines de
scribed in this extract, is like that in force among the Eskimo
tribes near Icy Cape, as described by Armstrong : " At Point
Barrow the women have on the chin a vertical line about half
an inch broad in the center, extending from the lip, with a
parallel but narrower one on either side of it, a little apart.
Some had two vertical lines protruding from either angle of the
mouth, which is a mark of their high position in the tribe "
(Bancroft, vol. i, p. 48). The practice of tattooing has been
so common at various times among the Chinese, Japanese, and
other inhabitants of Eastern Asia, that nothing can be inferred
regarding the country here intended. The singular notice of
filling the moat with quicksilver may be paralleled by Sz ma
Tsien s description of the wonderful subterranean tomb of the
great conqueror Tsin Chi Hwangti (B. c. 270) in Shensi, wherein
he tells us that "rivers, lakes, and seas were imitated by means
* I am unable to find this character in Ma Twan-lin s Chinese account of the
country of " Marked Bodies." E. P. V.
246 AN INGLOKIOUS COLUMBUS.
of quicksilver caused to flow in constant circulation by mechan
ism."
[After giving the translation of the account of the country
of Ta Han, Professor Williams says :]
In chapter ccxxxi of the Yuen Kien Lui Han, a valuable Cyclo
paedia, compiled by orders of the Emperor Kanghi, and issued in
1710, this section is quoted verbatim from the Nan Shi of Li
Yen-shau, the same source from which Ma Twan-lin got it.
Though that history contains the records of the Liang dynasty
(A. r>. 502-557), it was not written till about one century after
ward, in the Tang dynasty ; and during that interval nothing
more seems to have been learned about the lands of Fu-sang, Ta
Han, or Nil Kwoh. Nor had Ma Twan-lin found anything in his
day, six centuries afterward, to add to what the shaman Hwui-
shin reported ; while this Cyclopaedia the product of a com
mission of learned men who ransacked the literature of China to
find whatever was valuable and insert it contains just the same
story, hoary with the twelve hundred years repose it had had in
the Nan Shi. To show the carelessness of these compilers in their
work, in chapter ccxli another kingdom is described under the
name of Ta Han, but not a word is added to indicate how two
kingdoms should have had the same name. This last is equally
vague with the first in respect to its identification, and reads as
follows :
"The New Records of the Tang Dynasty say: Ta Han
borders on the north of Kuh; it is rich in sheep and horses.
The men are tall and large, and this has given the name Ta Han
(i. e., Great China) to their country. This kingdom and Juh are
both conterminous with JZieh-Jciah-sz 1 , and therefore they were
never seen as guests [in our court]. But during the reigns
Ching-kwan and Yung-hwui (A. D. 627 to 656) they presented
sable skins and horses, and were received. It may be that they
have come once since that time. "
The compilers of the Cyclopaedia abridged this extract some
what, for they do not refer to Lake Baikal, where Ta Han joins
the countries of the Kieh-kiah-sz\ and Kuh, and thus help to
identify it. The next section contains an extract of seven pages
from the " New Records of Tang " about the Kieh-kiah-sz\ or
Hakas, whom Klaproth regards as the ancestors of the Kirghis
now dwelling in Tomsk. If half of this account be true, the
PROFESSOR WILLIAMS S ARGUMENT. 247
Hakas formed a powerful kingdom in the Tang dynasty, and
their neighbors Ta Han and Kuh are to be looked for on the
river Yenisei, or more probably between the Angara and Vitim
rivers.
The effort of Professor Neumann to identify the first-named
Ta Han with Alaska, simply because he places Wan Shan
among the Aleutian Islands, and Ta Han lies 5,000 U east of it,
is based alone on reported distances that are mere guesses. Mr.
Leland also refers to de Guignes s opinion that Ta Han meant
Kamtchatka, and that Wan Shan was Yezo, and adds this com
ment : " De Guignes determined with great intelligence that
the country of the Wen-schin, 7,000 li northwest of Japan, must
be Jezo, from the exact agreement of the accounts given of that
country by Chinese historians of the early part of the sixth cent
ury (Goei-chi and Ven-hien-tum-hao, A. D. 510-515) with that
of Dutch navigators in 1643. Both describe the extraordinary
appearance of the natives, and speak of the abundance of a
peculiar mineral resembling quicksilver " (p. 129). Mr. Leland
has been misled, in regard to this agreement, by not knowing
that these supposed historians are only the names of two books,
viz., " Records of the Wei Dynasty " (A. D. 386 to 543), and
the same " Antiquarian Researches " from which I have trans
lated these sections. He also assumes that Hwui-shin and his
predecessors went by sea, adding that this was "no impossible
thing at a time when in China both astronomy and navigation
were sciences in a high sense of the word."
[Then follow the accounts of the "Land of Pygmies," of
the " Kingdom of Giants," and of the " Islands of Lewchew,"
none of which have any direct bearing upon the account re
garding Fu-sang, the "Women s Kingdom," or the countries
passed on the way thither. Professor Williams continues :]
In concluding these extracts from Ma Twan-lin s writings, I
need hardly draw attention to the vagueness which marks them,
when we look for any definite information. His long chapter
on Japan bears more marks of well-digested information than
any of those which are here given, and indicates constant inter
course between it and China. Mr. Leland quotes from several
authors whatever will elucidate and uphold his theory respecting
Fu-sang, and deserves thanks for his research in this interesting
question. He has, however, been led astray by a similarity, or
248 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
an error in spelling, to confound Kamtchatka with Lewchew.*
. . Mr. Leland has a note in which he says : " It [ie., the ac
count of the kingdom of Zsieu-Tcuei] is evidently borrowed from
the Tang-schu, but is much better arranged, and contains some
original incidents, on which account I have freely availed my
self of it." I have no means of verifying this statement, and
therefore am unable to say how far Ma quoted from the " History
of the Tang," and also to explain whether Kamtchatka was ever
called Lieu-kuei, and what the Chinese characters for this name
are, or whether Lieu-kuei is a misprint for Liu-kiu or Lew-
chew. The name of this insular kingdom has been written a
dozen ways by foreigners ; it is called Riu-kiu by the Japanese,
Doo-choo by the inhabitants, Low-kow by the Cantonese, and
Lewchew by the Ningpo people ; but it could never have been
confounded with Kamtchatka by either of them.
* It appears that Professor Williams was led to confound Liu-Hu (^ ]Ejj),
or Lewchew, with Lieu-hud (ffifc ^j| characters transcribed in Professor Will-
iams s dictionary as Liu-kwei), a term which seems, beyond question, to have
been applied to Kamtchatka. The fact that he did not learn the characters for
the term Lieu-kuei is evidently the cause of his error ; and in this case it was he,
and not Mr. Leland, who was led astray by the similarity in sound of the two
names, one of which was applied to the Lewchew Islands and the other to Kam
tchatka. E. P. V.
CHAPTER XV.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. NATURE OP THE CHINESE LAN
GUAGE.
Fu-sang wood NiS-yao-kiun-ti The Warm Spring Valley The Shin I King
The kingdom Hi-ho-koue The astronomer Hi-ho The story of a Corean
An island of women P*ung-lai An expedition to explore it The coloniza
tion of Japan Lang Yuen The Kwun-lun Mountains A statue of a native
of Fu-sang A poem to his memory The tree of stone Varying translations
The peculiarities of the Chinese language The brevity and conciseness of
the written language Its lack of clearness The meaning of groups of char
acters, or compounds Proper names No punctuation Difficulty of trans
lating correctly Preparation of M. Julien Illustrations of mistakes.
To the information regarding Fu-sang, which is contained in
the quotations given in the preceding chapters, a few additional
items may be added. Klaproth states 1666 that some Japanese
writers report that a blackish, petrified wood is found in their
country, which is highly valued, and which is called fu-sang
wood, or wood of the country of Fu-sang : that this country is
Japan, which has received this name because of its beauty, in
which it resembles the shrub fu-sang, which is, as is well known,
the species of hibiscus which we designate by the name of rosa
Sinensis.
1667 A passage of the Shan Hai King, quoted by some Japan
ese authors, reads as follows :
" In the vast space placed at the eastern extremity of the
world is the mountain Nie-yao-Jciun-ti. It is there that the tree
fu-sang grows. Its height is three hundred li. Its leaves re
semble those of mustard. Near this, to the east, is the valley
Wen-yuan-ku." The Chinese words, " 2ffi<&-yao-kiun-ti" are pro
nounced by the Japanese " I-yo-Jcun-te" and the Japanese author
adds that this is lyo, one of the four provinces of the island
250 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
of Si-kokf. The valley Wen-yuan-ku is also called ^Pang-kit,
or " Warm Springs."
We read in another Chinese work, called Shin I King : "In
the eastern part of the world there is a mulberry-tree eight hund
red feet in height ; it covers a large space of ground, and its
leaves are ten feet long and six or seven broad. Upon this tree
there live silk-worms three feet in length, of which the cocoons
furnish a pound of silk. The fruit of this tree is three feet and
five inches long."
The following passage is found in another chapter of the
Shan Hai King : " Beyond the southeastern ocean, and between
the Kan-shui, or the " Pleasant Rivers," is the kingdom of Hi-
ho-Jcoue (or, according to the Japanese pronunciation of the char
acters, Ghi-wa-kokf). There lived the virgin Hi-ho (Ghi-wa),
who espoused Ti-tsiun, and gave birth to ten suns." The same
book also says that Hi-ho ( Ghi-wa) is the name of a kingdom
among the countries of the east, which is also called "The
Place where the Sun Rises." . . .
A passage of the Shan Hai King T sang-chu, which is a com
mentary upon the Shan Hai King, says : "In the days of the
Emperor Hwang-ti, Hi-ho ( Ghi-wa) was the astronomer charged
with the observations of the sun. This prince having given him
the country of Fu-sang, he embarked with his family, settled
there, and gave this country the name of Hi-ho-koue ( Ghi-wa
kokf), or the country of Hi-ho. He had ten children ; the boys
were named Yen (in Japanese, Fiko), or the male sun ; and the
girls Ki (in Japanese, Fime), or the female sun ; the sun being
considered as the source of all fecundity." " So,"adds the Japan
ese author, " a man, who in our days would be called Ko-saJc,
would at that time have been called Ko-fiko ; and a woman
named Ouki-ne would then have been called Ouki-fime. This
country," he continues, " was also called Wa-kokf" (in Chinese,
Ho-koue). Wa (Ho), the second character of Ghi-wa, signifies
tranquillity and peace ; kokf means kingdom. Wa (in Chinese,
Ho) is, even now, one of the names of Japan.
Klaproth also reports an incident which indicates that Hwui
Shan told in Corea, as well as in China, the story of his advent
ures, and that some recollection of his narration was preserved
by the people, as the following story of a country inhabited
by women recalls Hwui Shan s account of the "Kingdom of
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. 251
Women," as well as the Chinese account of the sailors who were
shipwrecked upon an island inhabited by women who resembled
those of China. The incident is as follows : 1657
The King Ihi (of Wo-tsiu, one of the divisions of Corea)
sent emissaries to look for Koung, to capture him, so that he
might be punished. When they had reached the eastern coast of
the country, they asked an old man if there were any people beyond
the sea upon the east. He answered : " Some of the inhabitants
of this country once embarked to go a-fishing, when they were as
sailed by a storm ; and, having been violently driven before the
wind for ten days, they reached an island inhabited by people
whose language they could not understand, and who had an
ancient custom of drowning a young virgin in the sea at the
seventh month." The same old man also stated that there was
another country in the midst of the sea, inhabited by women,
without any men. He said that, simply clothed in linen gar
ments, they threw themselves into the sea, and passed it by swim
ming. Their bodies resembled those of the Chinese women, and
their garments had sleeves three fathoms long. Their country
was in the midst of the sea of Wo-tsiu.
The expedition above referred to occurred during the reign
of the Wei dynasty, i. e., some time between 386 and 534 A. D. 2518
As a place called P ung-lai is frequently mentioned in con
nection with Fu-sang, the following statements regarding it may
be of interest :
In the year 219 B. c., 2159 during 1671 the epoch of the Japanese
Dairi Ko-rei-ten-o, who reigned from 290 to 210 B. c., the Em
peror Shi-hwang, of the T sin dynasty, reigned in China. He
sent the skillful physician Siu-fu to the island of P ung-lai to
seek for the beverage of immortality. It is stated that, not hav
ing succeeded in this commission, he arrived at Japan, and died
upon the mountain Fusi. The Chinese mythologists pretend
that in the Eastern Sea there are three mountains (or islands) of
the genii, called P ung-lai, Fang-chang, and Ing-cheu. They
are inaccessible. To the first is also given the name of P ung-
tao, or the island of P ung; it is said that they are covered
with tabernacles, and with halls of gold and silver, which are
used as the habitations of the genii.
It is to these three islands that Tsin Shi Hwang Ti (the
Emperor Shi Hwang, of the Tsin dynasty) sent an expedition,
252 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
composed of some thousands of young people of both sexes, un
der the guidance of one Tao-szu, to seek there for the remedy
that confers immortality. The Chinese historians report that
the fleet which bore them was shipwrecked, and that a single
bark returned with the news of the disaster. It is seen that the
Japanese annalists report the contrary. Sin-fu was, according
to their statement, one of the physicians of the emperor of
China ; he introduced into their country arts and sciences which
they had not before known, and the Japanese have therefore
accorded divine honours to him.
It appears that the Chinese tradition of the three fabulous
islands, situated in the Eastern Sea, had its origin in the vague
ideas which they then had of Japan, which is really composed of
three large islands, which could only be reached with difficulty
by navigators as inexperienced as the Chinese must have been at
that time. Other Chinese authors state that the island, or the
mountain, of P ung-lai is found near an island situated to the
east of CJiang-Jcoue, a district of T ai-cheu, of the province of
Che-Many.
Mr. Mayers adds 1189 that it is conjectured that this legend has
some reference to attempts at colonizing the Japanese islands ;
and M. de Rosny 2157 states that this expedition is mentioned by
a number of Japanese historians.
Klaproth mentions the fact that 1682 the Japanese proverbially
apply the name P ung-lai shan to all places where treasure is
kept.
In Professor "VVilliams s Dictionary, 254T the term ^ $jj, LANG
YUEN, is defined " Fairy-land." The characters mean a vacant or
unoccupied pasture-field, or park ; and as it is a fact that there
is much confusion between the Chinese accounts of "Fairy
land " and of Fu-sang, this may possibly be a reference to the
vast plains of America, which, some centuries ago, were almost
uninhabited.
Mr. Medhurst 1867 states that ^p Jj| (pronounced Fu-sang in
the Mandarin dialect, and Hoo-song in the Hok-keen dialect) is
a kind of supernatural mulberry-tree, that grows on the east of
the JTwun-lun hill, toward the sunrising ; hence the common
expression that the sun rises at Fu-sang.
It is reported 2325 that the name Kwun-lun is applied to a
range of mountains, rendered famous in Chinese history and
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. 253
legend, separating Thibet from Chinese Turkestan and the Des
ert of Gobi. It starts from the Pushtikur Knot, in latitude 36,
N., and runs along easterly nearly parallel between that and the
35th degree. At the 92d degree of longitude, E., in the middle
of its course, it divides into two ranges, one declining to the
southeast the Bajinkara, or Snowy Mountains and unites
with the Yung Ling, or Cloudy Mountains. The other branch
bends northerly, and, under the various names of Kilien Shan,
In Shan, and Ala Shan, passes through Kansuh and Shinsi to
join the Inner Hing-ngan range. The JTwun-lun range is the
Olympus of China, and the supposed source of the Fung-sJiwin.
Professor Williams states that the term Kwun means "a
peak beyond comparison," and adds that the Kwun-lun range is,
like the Caucasus among the Arabs, the fairy-land of Chinese
writers, one of whom says its peaks are so high that when sun
light is on one side the moonlight is on the other. 2545 The En
cyclopaedia Britannica 1316 says that the name is derived from
the Chinese geographers, and is probably a corruption of some
Turkish or Thibetan word ; it appears to be unknown locally.
The name having been adopted, chiefly on the initiative of Hum-
boldt, before any correct geographical knowledge had been ob
tained of the region to which it was applied, it has been used
with inconvenient want of precision, and this has encouraged
erroneous conceptions. Little precise information is available on
the subject. It is worthy of notice that the name Kwun-lun is
also applied to an island in the China Sea (Pulo Condor Island),
probably in imitation of the Anamitic name Conon, or Koh-
noong. 2546
As the characters g, $f, KWUN-LUN, are composed of the
radical for mountains, |lj, combined with the phonetics B ^,
Kwux-LUtf, which, taken by themselves, mean 258 " the canopy of
the sky," it seems possible that the name originally meant
" mountains reaching to the sky," and that it may have been ap
plied to more than one high range, somewhat as the general
term " Alps " is applied in English.
As in some cases Chinese characters terminating in nasals are
intended to transcribe foreign words in which no nasal is found
as, for instance, Kiang-lang is written for the Sanskrit Kdla, and
Thoung-loung-mo for the Sanskrit drouma 1619 it does not seem
impossible that, in case sufficient reason is found for believing
254 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
the country of Fu-sang to be identical with Mexico, the name
HTwun-lun, as applied to the mountain-range east of which Fu-
sang is situated, may be used as the Chinese transcription of the
Mexican word Quauhtla, meaning a mountain, or a range of
mountains. 1918
As an illustration of the knowledge of the country of Fu-
sang still preserved among the people of China, the following
translation of an account given by Mr. Chung Nam Shan, of
San Francisco, in September, 1883, may be found of interest :
" Some fifty li east of Canton there is a temple named the
temple of Po-lo, outside of the door of which there stands a statue
of a man who came from the country of Fu-sang. Here he
lived for some years, and here he finally died ; and after his death
he was deified and his statue placed at the door of the temple.
He is represented as standing looking earnestly toward the east,
with his right hand shading his eyes. At some later date a visitor
to the temple wrote this stanza about him :
Where the sun rises, in the land of Fu-sang, there is my home ;
Seeking glory and riches, I came to the Kingdom of the Central Flower ;
Everywhere the cocks crow and the dogs bark, the same in one place as
in another,
Everywhere the almond -trees blossom the same. "
The last two lines are intended to be consolatory to a man
that is homesick ; the assurance being that one place is substan
tially the same as another, and the conclusion being that it is
therefore foolish to grieve for any particular place.
The Chinese believe that in " Fairy-land " (between which
mythical land and the country of Fu-sang there is, as has been
mentioned, more or less confusion in their traditions), or in the
Kwun-lun mountains, 2557 there is a tree of stone, 2642 called K I I-KA^,
" the agate gem " ; 2539 PIH-SHIT, " the green-jade-stone tree," 2657 or
LANG-KAN-SHTi, 2536 " the coral-tree " ; which myth it will here
after be shown may have originated from a pun, or accidental
resemblance between two words of the Mexican language.
Before entering upon the discussion of the account given by
Hwui Shan, it seems necessary to give his story in full, in the
original Chinese, as preserved for us by Ma Twan-lin, and place
opposite to it the different translations that have been made
by the Chinese scholars who have given the subject attention.
NATURE OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE. 255
This course is necessary, as the disagreements as to the true ren
dering of various phrases and characters are numerous and im
portant ; and Hwui Shan s report will often be found to be
true if a certain reading, for which there is good authority, is
adopted, while, if the versions of other translators are accepted,
no confirmation of the statement can be found.
It is evident that, in cases in which some five or six translat
ors differ radically as to the meaning of a certain clause, all but
one are certainly mistaken as to its true meaning, and it may
even be the case that no one of the translators has correctly ren
dered it. The present author, therefore, while admitting that he
has no other knowledge of Chinese than such as he has been able
to obtain from the study of a few Chinese-English dictionaries
and grammars, during the time that he has been interested in the
question as to the true location of the country of Fu-sang, will
venture to give his own translation of the account, differing in
some points from the version given by any of the celebrated
scholars who have preceded him. In all cases, however, the
authorities will be quoted in full upon which he relies as justify
ing the changes in the translation ; and it is believed that these
authorities will be found sufficiently plain and decided, as to the
points in question, to enable all to see the reasons for the render
ing that is given. As, moreover, he has had the assistance of a
number of native Chinese scholars, as well as of others who
have made a study of the Chinese language, some one or more
of whom he has consulted as to each doubtful point, he believes
that his translation will be accepted as giving at least as accurate
a rendering of the true meaning of the original as is found in any
of the earlier versions.
The principle has been adopted that, in all cases in which the
Chinese text may be understood in two or more ways, one of
which is true while the others are not, Hwui Shan is entitled to
that translation which brings his story into conformity with
the truth. While there is certainly great danger, in attempting
a translation from the Chinese under this principle, that the
translator may fail to give the true meaning of the original text,
it nevertheless seems plain that if the account be true, such a
course will best bring out its truth ; while, if it be false, no in
genuity can twist it into a true description.
The possibility of interpreting a sentence in several different
256 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
ways arises from the peculiarities of the Chinese language.
While it is feasible to so convey a thought in Chinese that there
can be no misconception as to the true meaning, or as to the re
lations which the different words of the sentence bear to one
another, and while this is usually done in the colloquial idioms,
yet in the written language it is made an object to convey the
conception with the least possible number of words or characters,
and clearness is therefore frequently sacrificed in favour of brev
ity.
"Before all things," says Martin, 1825 "a Chinese loves con
ciseness. While we construct our sentences so as to guard
against the possibility of mistake, he is satisfied with giving the
reader a hint of his meaning. Our style is a ferry-boat, that
carries the reader over without danger or effort on his part ; his
is only a succession of stepping-stones, which test the agility of
the passenger in leaping from one to another. ... In return
for a few hints, the reader himself supplies all the links that are
necessary for the continuity of thought."
It is said of Confucius, for instance, 980 that he studies the
utmost brevity and terseness, and frequently the most profound
Chinese scholars, without the aid of commentaries, are unable to
comprehend the meaning of his sentences. Even at this day,
among the Chinese, a writer can scarcely lay claim to classical
taste unless he is able to couch his thoughts in language so
brief and obscure as to require the aid of a commentator to
make them intelligible to the common reader.
Dr. Bretschneider states 782 that, in translating from the Chi
nese, the principal question is the understanding of groups of
words in their connection, or phrases, not of single words ; for
very often the single characters in a phrase lose completely their
original meaning. In the dictionaries, for example, you find fu 9
to assist, and ma, horse. Entfu ma is not an " assistant horse,"
but is used in Chinese historical writings always to designate the
son-in-law of the emperor. Chinese literature is very rich in such
combinations and phrases formed by two or more characters ;
and the original meaning of the characters, in most of the cases,
does not serve to explain the phrases. It is in vain, then, that
you look for them in the dictionaries ; the greater part, although
often unknown to our European Sinologues, have come down by
tradition to the Chinese of the present day, and they are so
NATURE OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE. 257
familiarized with those terms that they consider it superfluous
to incorporate them in the dictionaries. A Chinese dictionary
in a European language, with a good collection of phrases, is
still a desideratum. At least all existing dictionaries are of no
value to the reader as regards the Chinese historical style, and,
if he consults only Morrison s or other dictionaries, he runs the
risk of committing the greatest mistakes.
In Chinese historical writings, or narratives of journeys, one
meets with a great many proper names. The Chinese, in render
ing names of countries or men, are obliged to represent every
syllable of the name by a similar sounding hieroglyph (it is
known that all Chinese words are monosyllabic). As every
hieroglyph has a meaning, it is sometimes difficult for a Euro
pean scholar, translating without a native teacher, to distinguish
whether the characters represent only sounds, or whether they
must be translated. European translators have often committed
errors of this kind.
Another difficulty, to the European reader of Chinese books,
arises from the complete ignorance of the Chinese of our system
of punctuation. They have some characters which denote the
end of a period, but they seldom make use of them ; and gen
erally one finds no break in a whole chapter ; so that the reader
must decide for himself where a point is to be supplied. An
erroneous punctuation sometimes changes the sense of the whole
period, or even the whole article.
Dr. Bretschneider adds that 781 every Sinologue knows how
apt the ambiguous Chinese style is to give rise to misunderstand
ings, and that often the Chinese themselves are unable to solve
the difficulties ; and he states 783 that he is of opinion, and thinks
every conscientious Sinologue will agree with him, that it is im
possible to make correct translations from Chinese in Europe,
without the assistance of a good native scholar, except, of course,
those Sinologues who have studied the language in China, and
who have studied it for a long time.
Professor Max Miiller says that, 1962 while the mere transla
tion of a Chinese work into French seems a very ordinary per
formance, M. Stanislas Julien, who had long been acknowl
edged as the first Chinese scholar in Europe, had to spend
twenty years of incessant labour in order to prepare himself for
the task of translating the " Travels of Hiouen-thsang."
17
258 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
As an illustration of the danger of misunderstanding a Chi
nese text, the following translation of a Chinese ode, by Pro
fessor Neumann, is quoted from the " Chinese Repository " : 979
41 Cease fighting now for a while,
Let us call back the flowing waves.
"Who opposed the enemy in time ?
A single wife could overpower him ;
Streaming with blood, she grasped the mad offspring of guilt;
She held fast the man, and threw him into the meandering stream.
The Spirit of the Water, wandering up and down on the waves,
Was astonished at the virtue of Ying.
My song is at an end.
Waves meet each other continually ;
I see the water green as mountain Peih,
But the brilliant fire returns no more.
How long did we mourn and cry ! "
" I am compelled," says Professor Neumann, " to give a free
translation of this verse, and confess myself not quite certain of
the signification of the poetical figures used by our author."
We will subjoin a less free translation :
" The spirit of war has now ceased and vanished away;
Let us go back in thought, returning like the winding stream.
Who was there that could then resist the foe,
When but a single female was found to insult his power?
With her blood she spat on the guilty wretch,
Then, despising life, she sank in the curling waves.
Her pure ice-like spirit now wanders over the stream,
Her courageous soul with hesitancy lingers behind.
" My song ended, I still loitered on the spot, and, casting a
look on all around, I saw the hills retaining their blueness, and
the sea its azure hue ; but the beacon smoke and the shadowing
masts return no more. Long I stayed disburdening myself of
sighs."
An instance of a still more radical misunderstanding of the
meaning of a Chinese sentence is given 978 in the " Chinese Re
pository," vol. iii, p. 72.
The quotations given above sufficiently show the difficulty
sometimes experienced in comprehending the exact meaning of
NATURE OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE. 259
a Chinese author, and hence it should not be considered as any
reflection upon the scholarship and superior knowledge of the
eminent gentlemen who have given translations of the Chinese
account of Fu-sang, if the present author, relying partly upon
the dictionaries and grammars of the language, and partly upon
the views of native scholars, ventures in some cases to differ
from his predecessors.
Although knowing far less in regard to the Chinese language
than any of the celebrated scholars who have discussed Hwui
Shan s story, it is possible that the greater length of time, and
the more patient and careful study, which he has devoted to this
particular account, may have counterbalanced this disadvantage,
and may have enabled him to discover the true meaning of cer
tain phrases which have heretofore been misunderstood.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG.
The Chinese authorities Variations in the texts The Chinese text A literal
translation Parallel translations of eight authors The date of Hwui ShSn s
arrival in China The location of Fu-sang The f u-sang trees The deriva
tion of the name of the country The leaves of the fu-sang tree Its first
sprouts Red pears Thread and cloth Dwellings Literary characters
Paper Lack of arms The two places of confinement The difference be
tween them The pardon of criminals Marriages of the prisoners Slave-
children The punishment of a criminal of high rank The great assembly
Suffocation in ashes Punishment of his family Titles of the king and
nobles Musicians The king s garments The changing of their colour
A ten-year cycle Long cattle-horns Their great size Horse-carts, cattle-
carts, and deer-carts Domesticated deer Koumiss The red pears preserved
throughout the year To-p u-i Aoes The lack of iron Abundance of cop
per Gold and silver not valued Barter in their markets Courtship The
cabin of the suitor The sweeping and watering of the path The ceremonies
of marriage Mourning customs The worship of images of the dead The
succession to the throne A visit from a party of Buddhist missionaries
Their labours and success.
THE substance of the following account is found in the
Liang-shu or " Records of the Liang Dynasty," contained
in the Nan-shi, or " History of the South," written by Li Yen-
shau,* who lived at the commencement of the seventh century.
The Nan-shi forms a portion of the Great Annals of China,
the Nien-rli-sJii^ or " Twenty-two Historians."
Ma Twan-lin copied the account in his " Antiquarian Re
searches " ; but as Mr. Leland states 1714 that he gives the report
"much more correctly," it is evident that he made such changes
as he thought the truth to require. A number of points, as to
which the different accounts vary, are noted by some of the trans-
* See Klaproth s account, given in chapter iii, and that of Professor Williams,
in chapter xiv.
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SASTG. 261
lators, but it is not likely that attention has been called to all the
variations. As the present author has been unable to obtain a
copy of any other than Ma Twan-lin s account, that alone is
given ; but in a few important cases, in which Mr. Leland and
the Marquis d Hervey de Saint-Denys have pointed out the
difference between the text of Ma Twan-lin and that of the
Liang-ahUy the character found in the latter is given in a note
in the column headed " Definition." It would be interesting to
compare the different Chinese versions of Hwui Shan s story,
and such a comparison would undoubtedly do much to remove
difficulties and assist in bringing the truth to light ; when it
would probably be found that most of Ma Twan-lin s " correc
tions," like those of some of our modern Shakespearean com
mentators, resulted only from a failure to understand the
original text, and that it is necessary to reject them, in order
to arrive at the true meaning of the author.
The left-hand pages that follow contain the characters of Ma
Twan-lin s text, with their sounds, and Professor Williams s defini
tions of their meaning, with a column showing the page of his
dictionary upon which they are found. In the last column is
given that English word which comes the nearest to expressing
the meaning of the Chinese character; and, by reading these
words in their order down the column, a literal translation of
the story will be discovered, which will, in most places, be found
intelligible such English words as are necessary to show the
connection with one another of the characters, and the ideas
which they express, having been inserted in small type.
Upon the opposite pages eight different translations will be
found, being those of de Guignes, Klaproth, Neumann, de Ros-
ny, Julien, d Hervey de Saint-Denys, Williams, and the present
author ; these being given in the order above-named, and an
English version of the first six being presented instead of the
original French or German of their authofs. In making these
translations it has been my intention to follow the foreign text as
closely and literally as is consistent with intelligibility and with
justice to the translators. It will be seen that, in a number of
cases in which my version of the Chinese text differs from that
of the majority, I am nevertheless supported by some one or
more of the scholars who have previously studied the subject.
262
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
1
2
T/C
144
724
FU
SANG
To assist, support.
The mulberry tree.
FU-
SANG.
3
#
144
FU
Same as 1.
FU-
4
ixi v
724
SANG
Same as 2.
SANG
5
HI
. 491
KWOH
A state, country, region.
COUNTRY
6
^
38
CHE
This, that ; indicates the sub
ject of the proposition.
REGARDING :
in the
,
reign of the
7
ffjK
966
TS I
The name of a dynasty.
TS I
J 1
dynasty,
in the years called
8
/Tc
1149
YUNG
Perpetual, eternal, final.
EVERLASTING
9
7C
1134
YUEN
The first, the commencement.
FOUNDATION,
in the
10
7C
1134
YUEN
Same as 9.
FIRST
11
<
634
NIEN
A year.
YEAR,
12
3
342
K l
He, she, it, that, there.
THAT
13
H
491
KWOH
Same as 6.
COUNTRY
14
^
1113
YIU
To have, to be, existence.
HAD
15
J*
730
SHA
Sand, gravel. ( Transcription
a SHA
j of the San-
16
ri
576
MA.X
A gate, a door. ( skritSramana.
MAN
named
17
H
265
HWUI
Intelligent, wise, mild.
HWUI
18
$p*
736
SHAN
Deep, profound, learned.
SHAN
19
*
498
LAI
To come, to reach.
who
CAME
20
M
60
CHI
To arrive, to, at.
TO
21
if
403
KING
A thorny bush. { Name of a
I Chinese
KING-
22
JH
48
CHEU
An islet, a dis- j political
trict, a region. [ district.
CHE U
and
23
ift
788
SHWOH
To speak, narrate.
TOLD
.
the following
24
"zr
1142
YUN
To speak, say, circulate.
STORY :
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 263
The following is the account which has been preserved for us. It was
given by a priest who went to China in the year 499 A. D. in the reign of
the Toy dynasty.
In the first of the years young yuan of the reign of Fe-ti, of the dynasty
of 77m, a Chamen (or Buddhist priest) called Hoei chin, arrived from the
country of Fu-sang at King-tchcou. He related what follows :
During the reign of the Tsi dynasty, in the first year of the years bear
ing the designation " Eternal Origin " (i. e., in the year 499 of our era),
there came a Buddhist priest from this kingdom, who was called by his
cloister-name of Hoei-schin, i. e., "Universal Sympathy," to King-tscheu
an old name for the present district of Hu-Kuang and several adjoining
districts who said :
(Not translated.)
The kingdom of Fu-sang (was made known to the Chinese) in the first
year of the period Yong-Youen of the dynasty of the Thsi (499). In this
kingdom there was a Cha-men, named Hoei-chin, who came into the dis
trict of King-tcheou. He related that which follows :
In regard to the kingdom of Fu-sang, the first year, yung-youen, of the
dynasty of Tsi, there was a Cha-men, or Buddhist priest of this kingdom,
called Hod-chin, who arrived at the city of King-tcheou, and who reported
that which follows :
In the first year of the reign Yung-yuen of the emperor Tung Hw&n-
hau, of the Tsi dynasty (A. D. 499), a Shaman priest named Hwui-shin ar
rived at King-chau from the kingdom of Fusang. He related as follows :
In the first year of the reign of the Ts i dynasty, known by the desig
nation YUNG-YUEN, or "Everlasting Foundation" (i. e., in the year
499 A. D.), a Shaman, or Buddhist priest, named Hwui SHAN, came to
KI.NG-CHEU from that country, and narrated the following account regard
ing the country of FU-SANG (or FU-SANG-KWOH).
264:
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
25
$
144
FU
Same as 1.
FU-
26
^
724
SANG
Same as 2.
SANG
27
28
*
941
839
TSAI
TA
To be in or at, to dwell.
Great, chief, prominent.
IS SITUATED
from the
GREAT
29
m
164
IIAN
A Chinese, relating to China ;
name of a river ; the milky
way.
HAN
30
31
m
491
930
KWOH
TUNG
Same as 5.
The spring of the year, east,
eastward.
COUNTRY
to the
EAST
32
-
721
BH
Two ; the second ; to duplicate.
TWICE
83
M
1040
WAN
Ten thousand ; many ; an in
definite number.
TEN THOUSAND
or
34
m
1121
YC
The rest, the remnants, super
abundant.
MORE
35
36
m
518
879
LI
TI
A Chinese mile, which has
been of various lengths,
from 1,158 to 1,894 feet.
The earth, a place, land.
LI
(Chinese miles).
That
PLACE
37
38
*
941
105
TSAI
CHUNG
Same as 27.
The middle, center.
IS SITUATED
at the
MIDDLE
39
MI
491
KWOH
Same as 5.
COUNTRY
40
Z,
53
CHI
Sign of the genitive case.
S
41
M
930
TUNG
Same as 31.
EAST.
42
:k
342
K l
Same as 12.
THAT
43
44
920
909
T U
TO
The earth, a region, place.
Numerous, many, often.
REGION
has
MANY
45
i&
144
FU
Same as 1.
FU-
46
ik
724
SANG
Same as 2.
SANG
47
48
l
607
434
MUH
KU
Wood, a tree.
The cause, because, for, for-
merly r old.
TREES,
and it is
BECAUSE
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG.
265
The kingdom of Fusany is situated twenty thousand li to the east of
the country of Tahan. It is also east of China. It produces a great
number of trees called fusang,
Fusang is twenty thousand li to the east of the country of Tahan, and
equally to the east of China. In this country there grow many trees
called fusang,
Fusang is about twenty thousand Chinese miles distant from Ta-han
in an easterly direction. The land lies easterly from the Middle King-
dom. Many fusang trees grow here,
The country of Fou-so is situated at the east of the country of Tai-kan.
According to the authority of the work entitled Toung-tien, Fou-so is dis
tant from the country of Tai-kan in an easterly direction about 20,000 li.
It is placed to the east of the " Middle Kingdom " (China). Many trees,
called Fou-so-mok (Hibiscus rosa sinensis), are found there. (In Japanese,
" SONO TSOUTSI NI FOU-SO-MOK ONOSi," " In hanc terram FOU-SO [sic vocati]
arbores multi sunt "),
This kingdom is situated about twenty thousand li to the east of the
kingdom of Ta-han. This country is to the east of the Middle Kingdom.
It produces a great number of fusang trees,
Fu-sang is situated more than twenty thousand li to the east of the
kingdom of Ta-han, and is equally to the east of China. It contains
many fu-sang trees,
Fu-sang lies east of the kingdom of Ta-han more than twenty thou
sand li; it is also east of the Middle Kingdom. It produces many fu
sang trees,
FU-SANG is situated twice ten thousand LI (Chinese miles) or more to
the east of the Great HAN country. That land is also situated at the east
of the Middle Kingdom (China). That region has many FU-SANG trees,
and it is from
266
AX INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
49
I/I
rx^
278
I
By^ans^oMo Because;to
OF THESE
SslVwi fbS tS
trees that they
50
ywj
1047
WEI
To do, to mate. P inion -
GIVE
the country its
51
^
600
MING
A name, a title, famous.
NAME.
52
^
144
FU
Same as 1.
The FU-
53
ik
724
SANG
" " 2
SANG
x l^
s
54
5?t
1081
YEII
The leaves of plants.
LEAVES
55
"(El
837
SZ
Like, appearing, resembling.
RESEMBLE
56
IPI
934
T UNG
The name of a tree. (As this
character differs from the
9
one given in the Liang -87m,
the true reading is uncertain.)
and the
57
^j
91
ciru
To begin, the first.
FIRST
58
^fe
742
SHlNG
To produce, bear, grow, come
SPROUTS
forth.
are
59
#R
297
JU
As, like, to equal.
LIKE
60
^
813
SIUN
The tender shoots of bamboo.
( BAMBOO
\ SHOOTS.
The
61
[^1
491
KWOH
Same as 5.
COUNTRY
" *
s
62
A
286
JAN
A human being.
PEOPLE
63
^
766
SHIH
To eat or drink, take food.
EAT
64
2>
53
CHI
Same as 40. A pronoun in
THEM
the accusative.
and the (or a)
65
fli
769
SHIH
Fruit of plants ; real, solid.
FRUIT
-^^
which is
66
$n
297
JU
Same as 59.
LIKE
^
a
67
^H
515
LI
A pear.
PEAR,
68
m
719
RH
And, if, still, on the contrary.
BUT
69
^fc
72
CH IH
A reddish carnation ; light-red
REDDISH.
S*
colour.
They
70
M
986
TSIH
To spin thread.
SPIN THREAD
from
71
S
342
K l
Same as 12.
THEIR
72
j
679
Skin, leather, a surface, bark.
BARK,
THE DESCRIPTION OF FtJ-SANG. 267
from which has come the name borne by the country. The leaves of the
fusang are similar to those of the tree which the Chinese call tony. When
they first appear, they resemble the shoots of the reeds called bamboos,
and the people of the country eat them. The fruit has the form of a
pear, and inclines toward red in colour ; from its bark they make cloth,
of which the leaves resemble those of the thming (Bignonia Tomentosa),
and the first shoots those of the bamboo. The people of the country eat
them. The bark of this tree is prepared in the same way as that of hemp,
whose leaves resemble the Dryandra Cordifolia, but the sprouts, on the
contrary, those of the bamboo, and these are eaten by the inhabitants of the
land. The fruit in its form resembles a pear, but is red. A species of
linen cloth is prepared from the bark,
Their leaves are similar to those of the t6 tree ; when they are young
they are like bamboo sprouts, and the natives eat them. Their fruits are
like pears, and of a red colour. The fibers of the bark are drawn out
and it is from this fact that it derives its name. In its leaves, the fu
sang tree resembles the thong tree (Paullownia imperialis). When they
commence to grow they are like the (edible) shoots of the bamboo. The
inhabitants eat them. The fruits of this tree resemble pears, but they
are red. They spin (the fibers of) the bark,
and it is from this fact that its name is derived. The leaves of the fu-
sang tree are similar to those of the long tree (according to Leland, the
Dryanda cordata or El&ococca verucosa). When the fu-sang commences
to grow, it resembles the young sprouts of the bamboo, and the inhabit
ants of the country eat it. Its fruit has the form of a pear, and is of a
red colour. From its bark they make a cloth,
from which it derives its name. The leaves of the fu-sang resemble those
of the tung tree. It sprouts forth like the bamboo, and the people eat
the shoots. Its fruit resembles the pear, but is red ; the bark is spun
these trees that the country derives its name. The leaves of the FU-SANO
resemble ? and the first sprouts are like those of the bamboo. The
people of the country eat them and the (or a) fruit, which is like a pear
(in form), but of a reddish colour. They spin thread from their bark,
268
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Characfr
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
73
ft
1047
WEI
Same as 50.
from which they
MAKE
74
ffi
713
PU
Cotton, linen, or hempen
fabrics.
CLOTH,
75
76
I
278
1047
I
WEI
Same as 49.
" " 50.
OF WHICH
they
MAKE
77
^
270
I
Clothes, garments.
CLOTHING,
78
sfc
1093
YIH
And, also.
AND
79
80
n
278
1047
I
WEI
Same as 49.
" " 50.
OF WHICH
they
MAKE
81
*
399
KIN
A kind of thin brocade.
The Liang-shu has here
the character MIEN, jg,
which signifies fine silk,
soft.
FINER MATERIAL.
They
82
f
1005
TSOH
To act, to do, to make.
MAKE
with
83
84
85
J?R
sfn
int
7m
651
1064
1059
PAN
WUII
wu
A board, a plank for
building adobe walls.
A house, a cabin.
None, not, destitute of.
PLANKS OF THE
KIND USED FOR
BUILDING ADOBE
WALLS, their
HOUSES.
They are
DESTITUTE OF
86
$&
77
CITING
A citadel, a walled city.
CITADELS
and
87
IP
492
KWOH
The second wall of a large
city.
WALLED CITIES.
They
88
W
1113
YIU
Same as 14.
HAVE
89
1041
WlN
Lines, marks, literature,
literary.
LITERARY
90
^
1032
TSZ
A character in writing;
writing.
CHARACTERS.
They
91
J#
278
I
Same as 49.
USE
the
92
t&
144
FU
i
FU-
93
III
724
SANG
((
SANG
94
95
I
679
1047
P l
WEI
" " 72.
" " 50.
BARK
to
MAKE
96
lii
56
I
CHI
Paper, stationery, a docu
ment.
PAPER.
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 269
and other stuffs with which the people clothe themselves, and the boards
which are made from it are employed in the construction of their houses.
No walled cities are found there. The people have a species of writing,
and cloth and clothing are made of it. Flowered stuffs are also manu
factured from it. Wooden planks are used for the construction of their
houses, for in this country there are no cities, and no walled habitations.
The inhabitants have a species of writing, and make paper from the bark
of ihefusany.
and is used for clothing, and a species of flowered tissue is also prepared
from it. The houses are made of wooden beams. Fortified places and
walled places are unknown. Written characters are used in this land,
and paper is made from the bark of the fu-sang.
to make cloth, from which clothing is made.
The planks of the tree are employed to build their houses. In this
country there are no cities. The natives have a method of writing, and
they make clothing (sic) from the bark of the fou-so tree.
and from them make cloth to make their garments.
They also make from them a species of brocade (<). (The inhabitants)
construct houses of planks. They have no walled cities. They have a
writing, and make paper from the (fibers of the) bark of the fu-sang.
suitable for making clothing, and also thinner fabrics, which have the
appearance of silk. The houses are constructed of planks. Neither for
tified cities nor walled enclosures are found in Fusang ; but the people
have a method of writing, and make paper from the bark of i\\Q fu-sang.
into cloth for dresses ; and woven into brocade. The houses are made of
planks. There are no walled cities with gates. The [people] use charac
ters and writing, making paper from the bark of the fu-*ang.
from which they make cloth, of which they make clothing. They also
manufacture a finer fabric from it. In constructing their houses they use
planks, such as are generally used when building adobe walls. They have
no citadels or walled cities. They have literary characters, and make
paper from the bark of the FU-SANG.
270
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
They
97
m
1059
WU
Same as 85.
ARE DESTI
TUTE OF
98
&
698
PING
A soldier, troops, a weapon,
military.
MILITARY
WEAPONS
and
99
R3
355
KIAH
Armour, a soldier, military.
ARMOUR,
*
and they do
100
2p
717
PUH
No, not.
NOT
101
Bfe
461
KUNG
To attack, to fight with, to
WAGE
rouse.
102
Mfe
45
CHEN
To join battle, a battle, war,
WAR
military.
in
103
3C
342
K l
Same as 12.
THAT
104
H
491
KWOH
" " 5.
KINGDOM.
^
According to their
105
^2r
123
FAH
A law, a rule, a religion.
RULES
(of law or religion)
f*
they
106
rf
1113
YIU
Same as 14.
HAVE
t 2
a
107
IW
614
NAN
The south, to go south, sum
SOUTHERN
mer.
and a
108
^l(j
709
POH
The north, to separate, op
NORTHERN
pose.
jf-=>T
( PLACE OF
109
Wi
1139
YUH
A prison, a jail.
I CONFINE-
f MENT.
110
^fer
296
JOII
As, if, perhaps, like.
IF
.
they
111
W
1113
YIU
Same as 14.
HAVE
112
^
128
FAN
To offend, violate ; a criminal.
3
CRIMINAL
.
who has
113
fl
407
KING
Light, not heavy, slight.
SLIGHTLY
114
f
1016
TSUI
Trespass, crime, sin; pun
SINNED,
ishment.
115
*
38
CHE
Same as 6.
HE
116
A
299
JUH
To enter, go into.
ENTERS
a
the
117
M
614
NAN
Same as 107.
SOUTHERN
L18
Wt
1139
YUH
" " 109.
PRISON,
RH
but if his
L19
fp
1016
TSUI
" " 114.
CRIME
120
s
108
CHUNG
Heavy, weighty, important.
WEIGHS
TEE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 271
and they love peace. Two prisons, one placed in the south and the other
in the north, are designed to confine their criminals, with this difference,
that the most guilty
They have no weapons or armies, and do not make war. According to
the laws of the kingdom, there are a southern prison and a northern
prison. Those who have committed crimes that are not very serious are
sent to the southern prison, but great criminals
The people have no weapons, and carry on no wars. According to the
regulations of the kingdom, there exist, however, a southern and a north
ern prison. The petty transgressors are shut up in the southern, and the
greater
They have no offensive weapons or defensive armour, and do not wage wars
between themselves.
They have neither armour nor lances, and do not wage war. According to
the laws of the kingdom, there are two prisons, that of the south and that
of the north. Those who have committed a misdemeanour of small mag
nitude are confined in the southern prison ; and those who have committed
They have no soldiers, and no thought of making war. According to the
laws of their kingdom, there exist a northern prison and a southern pris
on. Those who have committed crimes of little gravity are sent to the
southern prison, while the great criminals
There are no mailed soldiers, for they do not carry on war. The law of
the land prescribes a southern and a northern prison. Criminals convicted
of light crimes are .put into the former, and those guilty of grievous of
fences
They have no military weapons or armour, and they do not wage war in
that kingdom.
According to their rules (of government or of religion) they have a
southern and a northern place of confinement. An offender who has
transgressed but slightly enters the southern place of confinement, but
if he has sinned heavily
272
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character.
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
121
%
38
CHE
Same as 6.
HE
122
A
299
JUH
" " 116.
ENTERS
the
123
^f(j
709
POH
" " 108.
NORTHERN
124
*5fc
1139
YUH
" " 109.
PRISON.
wH/V
If he may
125
^
1113
YIU
" " 14.
HAVE
126
S&
748
SHE
To remit punishment, par
PARDON,
don, forgive.
127
IW
956
TSEH
A rule, law, precept; be
THEN
? "T
cause, then.
he is
128
*
135
FANG
To let go, liberate ; indulge ;
SENT AWAY
to send away.
to
(or possibly from
r7
the)
129
PfJ
614
NAN
Same as 107.
SOUTHERN
130
st
1139
YUH
" " 109.
PRISON,
but if there is
131
^
717
PUH
" " 100.
NO
132
*
748
SHE
" " 126.
PARDON
These three
for
133
38
CHE
" 6. words are not
HIM,
found in the
134
956
TSEH
text of Ma
" 127. J Twan-lin. They
THEN
are inserted
he is
135
135
FANG
u 190 here on the
- authority of Mr.
SENT AWAY
136
Ifc
709
POH
Kwong fci Chiu.
" " 108.
to the
NORTHERN
137
Wi
1139
YUH
" " 109.
PRISON.
The
138
fa
941
TSAI
" " 27.
DWELLERS
. in the
139
tt
709
POH
" " 108.
NORTHERN
140
m
1139
YUH
" " 109.
PRISON,
141
^
38
CHE
" " 6.
THOSE
142
m
614
NAN
The male of the human spe
MEN
cies, a man, a son.
and
143
^C
641
NtJ
Women, a lady, a wife,
WOMEN,
young.
when they (have)
144
ffi
790
SIANG
Mutually, together, to assist,
TOGETHER
to examine, look at.
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 2 73
are placed in the northern prison, and are afterward transferred into that
of the south, if they obtain their pardon ; otherwise they are condemned
to remain all their lives in the first.
They are permitted to
are shut up in the northern one. Those who may receive their pardon
are sent to the first ; those, on the contrary, to whom it can not be ac
corded, are confined in the northern prison. The men and the women
who are shut up in the latter are permitted to
in the northern prison, so that those who may be pardoned are placed in
the southern jail, while, upon the contrary, those as to whom this is not
the case are confined in the northern prison. The men and women con
fined here for life are allowed to
(Not translated.)
n the northern prison. If the culprit obtains pardon, he is put in the
southern prison, and if he does not obtain pardon, he is put in the
lorthern prison. In the northern prison, which receives criminals of the
wo sexes, if a man and woman
re confined in the northern prison, in such a manner that the southern
irison receives those who may obtain pardon, while those who can not be
>ardoned are placed in the northern prison, from which they can never be
eleased. Among the prisoners of the two sexes of the northern prison
nto the latter. Criminals, when pardoned, are let out of the southern
)rison ; but those in the northern prison are not pardoned. Prisoners in
he latter
e enters the northern place of confinement. If there is pardon for
im, then he is sent away to (or, possibly, from) the southern place of con-
nement, but if he can not be pardoned, then he is sent away to the
northern one. Those men and women dwelling in the northern place of
xrafinement, when they
18
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character.
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
145
BE
672
P EI
A mate, a companion, as a
MATE
F-9U
wife; to pair, to mate,
(d)
equal.
and
146
/h
742
SHlNG
Same as 68.
BEAR
- * *
(or have borne)
147
-51
614
NAN
" " 142.
MALE
x^y
children ; at
148
A
647
PAH
Eight.
EIGHT
149
H&
827
SUI
A year of one s age, age,
YEARS
years, yearly.
of age they
150
/TT7|
1047
WEI
Same as 50.
MAKE
yin|
them
151
&
640
NU
A slave.
SLAVES,
S2^^
but if they
152
/fr
742
SHANG
Same as 58.
BEAR
- * *
t.
(or have borne)
153
:&
641
Nfl
" " 143.
FEMALE
~*s^
children, at
154
x w
413
KIU
Nine, many, deep.
NINE
155
H
827
SUI
Same as 149.
YEARS
>Sf
of age they
156
yiuj
1047
WEI
" " 50.
MAKE
them
157
#$
675
PI
A maid-servant ; an unmar
ried female slave.
j FEMALE
{ SLAVES.
The
158
159
H
128
1016
FAN
TSUI
Same as 11 2. ( To transgress,
-| to commit a
" " 114. ( crime ; guilty.
t GUILTY
one
160
53
CHI
" " 40.
S
161
^
735
SHlN
The trunk, the body.
BODY
162
31
60
CHI
Same as 20.
UNTIL
(or at)
163
^B
836
SZ
Death, to die.
DEATH
164
^
717
PUH
Same as 100.
does
NOT
165
ffl
98
CH UH
To go forth, to go out.
GO FORTH.
When a
166
M
484
KWEI
Honourable, noble, good.
NOBLE
167
A
286
JAN
Same as 62.
MAN
168
^f
1113
YIU
" " 14.
HAS
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 275
marry, but their children are made slaves. When criminals are found
occupying one of the principal ranks in the nation
marry each other. The male children born from these unions are sold as
slaves at the age of eight years ; the girls at the age of nine years- The
criminals who are confined there never come forth alive.
When a man of high rank
marry. The boys born of these marriages become slaves when eight
years old, but the girls not until they have passed their ninth year.
When a man of high rank
(Not translated.)
have commerce with each other, and, if a boy is born, he is enslaved at
the age of eight years ; if a girl is born, she is enslaved at the age of nine
years. The men who have committed a crime remain in prison until their
death. When a nobleman
marriages are permitted. The children which are born of these unions
become slaves, the boys at the age of eight years, and the girls at the age
of nine years. When a person of elevated rank
marry. Their boys become bondmen when eight years old, and the girls
bondwomen when nine years old. Convicted criminals are not allowed to
leave their prison while alive. When a nobleman (or an official) has
mate (or have mated) and bear (or have borne) children ; the boys are
made slaves at the age of eight years, and the girls at the age of nine
years. The criminal (or the criminal s body) is not allowed to go out up
to (or at) the tune of his death. When a nobleman has
276
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
169
fg
1016
TSUI
Same as 114.
TRANSGRESSED,
^
the
170
|^j
491
KWOH
" " 5.
COUNTRY
171
A
286
JlN
" " 62.
PEOPLE,
in a
172
~fc
839
TA
" " 28.
GREAT
173
Of
264
HWUI
To collect, assemble ; an as
ASSEMBLY,
sembly, meeting.
174
^
1002
TSO
To sit, squat, kneel ; to sit
SIT
in judgment on.
in judgment
on the
175
1016
TSUI
Same as 114.
TRANSGRESSING
176
A
286
JlN
" " 62.
MAN,
177
~fjk
1118
TO
A preposition, in, at, on,
IN
^
with, by, to be in, to oc
ED
cupy a position.
178
Eft
323
K ANG
A ditch, excavation, pit;
a tumulus.
( EXCAVATED
| TUMULUS.
179
it
924
TUI
To front, opposite, to re
IN FRONT OF
spond, a sign of the da
tive.
180
z
53
CHI
Same as 40.
HIM
they
181
^.
1090
YEN
A feast, a banquet, merri
FEAST
ment.
and
182
life
1102
YIN
To drink, to receive, con
DRINK,
cealed.
and
183
^
129
FAN
To separate, divide, share,
SEPARATE
distribute.
from him
184
ik
447
KtfEH
Parting or dying words, a
TAKING LEAVE
farewell, to take leave.
of him
185
^
296
JOH
Same as 110.
AS
if from a
186
su
836
SZ
" " 163.
DYING
187
E J
684
PIEH
To separate, divide, to
man
SEPARATING
*
part, to leave, a parting,
moreover.
188
m
1082
YEN
A final affirmative particle.
TRULY.
189
\&
278
I
Same as 49.
WITH
190
M
260
HWUI
Ashes, embers, lime, dust.
ASHES
they
191
|2E
292
JAO
To wind around, to be en
SURROUND
tangled in, to go about,
to environ.
192
^
53
CHI
Same as 40.
HIM
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 277
the other chiefs assemble around them ; they place them in a ditch, and
hold a great feast in their presence. They are then judged. Those who
have merited death are buried alive in ashes,
commits a crime, the people assemble in great numbers. They sit down
face to face with the criminal, who is placed in a ditch, and regale them
selves with a banquet, and take leave of him as of a dying man. Then
he is surrounded by ashes.
commits a crime, a great assembly of the people of the kingdom is called,
and a banquet is held in the presence of the criminal, which takes place
in an excavation. There they bestrew him with ashes, and take leave of
him as of a dying person.
(Not translated.)
commits a crime, the inhabitants gather together in a great assembly.
The culprit is placed in a subterraneous place, and food and drink are
placed before him ; then they take leave of him as when one takes leave
of one that is dead. He is surrounded with ashes.
commits a crime, the people of the kingdom assemble in great numbers,
place the criminal in an excavation, celebrate a banquet in his presence,
and take leave of him as of a dying man. Then he is surrounded with
ashes.
been convicted of crime, the great assembly of the nation meets and
places the criminal in a hollow (or pit) ; they set a feast, with wjjne, be
fore him, and then take leave of him. If the sentence is a capital one,
at the time they separate they surround (the body) with ashes.
committed a crime, the people of the country hold a great assemblage and
sit in judgment on the culprit, in an excavated tumulus. They feast and
drink before him, and bid him farewell when parting from him, as if
taking leave of a dying man. Then they surround him with ashes
278
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
193
:K
342
K l
Same as 12.
THERE.
"^^
If of
194
1095
YIH
One, the first, the same.
ONE
195
108
CHUNG
Same as 120. To repeat, to
WEIGHT,
add, a time, again, a classi
fier of thickness or layers.
196
m
956
TSEH
Same as 127.
THEN
197
1095
YIH
" " 194.
ONE
198
&
735
SHAN
" " 161.
BODY
-^j
(or person) was
199
g?
702
P ING
A screen-wall, a de- "
HIDDEN
#r
fence, to hide, to
expel, to reject ; to To
spoil, as robbers. keep
t
back.
200
*M,
926
T UI
To retreat, draw back,
AWAY.
abate, yield.
If of
201
A
721
RH
Same as 32.
DOUBLE
202
M
108
CHUNG
" " 120.
WEIGHT,
203
Mil
956
TSEH
" " 127.
THEN
204
if*
735
SHAN
" " 161.
the
BODIES
"^
were
205
z*
394
KIH
To effect, to reach to, to im
plicate, also, concerning.
IMPLICATED
of the
206
~*
1030
TSZ
A child, a son, a boy, an heir.
CHILDREN
9-r
and
207
J^j*
829
SUN
A grandson, a grandchild,
GRANDCHIL
suckers.
DREN.
t
If of
208
^*
723
SAN
Three, thrice, several.
TRIPLE
209
H|
108
CHUNG
Same as 120.
WEIGHT,
210
%
38
CHE
" " 6.
of
THOSE
211
Mil
956
TSEH
" " 127.
THEN
212
1%.
394
KIH
" " 205.
were
IMPLICATED
213
-k
987
TS IH
Seven.
SEVEN
214
ttfc
763
SHI
An age, a generation; the
GENERATIONS.
world; times, seasons.
The
215
^5
600
MING
Same as 51.
TITLE
216
SI
491
KWOII
" " 6.
of the
COUNTRY
s
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 279
and their posterity is punished according to the magnitude of the crime.
For an offense of little gravity, the criminal alone is punished, but for
a great crime, the culprit, his sons, and grandsons, are punished ; finally,
for the greatest offenses, his descendants to the seventh generation are
included in the punishment.
If the transgressor is of low rank, he alone is punished ; if of higher
rank, the punishment falls upon his children and grandchildren also, and,
if of the highest rank, the punishment reaches to the seventh generation.
(Not translated.)
If a man has committed a grave crime, he alone is cut off from society.
If he has committed two grave crimes, the same punishment is visited
also upon his children and his nephews ; if he has committed three, this
punishment is extended to the seventh generation.
If the crime is only one of the first degree, the criminal alone is pun
ished ; if the crime is of the second degree, his children and grandchild
ren are punished with him ; and, finally, if the crime is of the third degree,
the descendants of the criminal to the seventh generation are included in
his chastisement.
For crimes of the first grade, the sentence involves only the person of
the culprit ; for the second, it reaches the children and grandchildren ;
while the third extends to the seventh generation.
there. For a single crime (or a crime of the first magnitude), only one
person (the culprit) was hidden (or sent) away. For two crimes (or a
crime of the second magnitude), the children and grandchildren were
included in the punishment. For three crimes (or a crime of the third
magnitude), seven generations were included in the punishment.
280
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
217
I
1043
WANG
A king, a ruler, royal, to be
KING
a king.
is
218
s^v
1047
WEI
Same as 50.
MADE
the
219
j
1096
YIH
One ; bent ; often used as a
CHIEF
pedantic form of YIH,
meaning, one, the first.
of the
220
15
345
K l
Full, abundant, very, large,
MULTITUDES.
/1*1
numerous, multitudes, a
crowd of people.
The
221
n
484
KWEI
Same as 166.
NOBLE
222
A
286
JAN
" " 62.
MEN
of the
223
~ff
879
TI
A series, an order. Tlaced
}
5ri
before figures, it forms the
ordinal numbers.
J- FIRST
224
,
1095
YIH
Same as 194.
j
rank,
225
*
38
CHE
" " 6.
THESE
are
226
^
1047
WEI
" " 50.
MADE
227
it
924
TUI
" " 179.
TUI-
228
j
554
LU
A vessel for containing rice,
LU;
a fire-pan, a grog-shop,
black.
of the
229
a?
879
TI
Same as 223.
\
^*
[ SECOND
230
721
RH
" " 32.
I
231
^s*
38
CHE
" " 6.
rank,
THESE
232
is;
yij
1047
WEI
" " 50.
are
MADE
233
795
SIAO
Small, little, inferior.
LITTLE
234
i-
924
TUI
Same as 179.
TUI-
235
H
554
LU
" " 228.
LU;
of the
236
2p
879
TI
" " 223.
)
237
*
723
SAN
" " 208.
[ THIRD
) rank,
238
^
38
CHE
" " 6.
THESE
239
^
1047
WEI
" " 50.
are
MADE
240
$&
611
NAH
To enter, to receive, to insert,
NAH-
MM V
within.
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 281
The king bears the title of noble Y-chi, the nobles of the nation after
him are the great and petty Touy-lou, and the
The name of the king of the country is Y-khi (or YU-khi). The nobles
of the first class are called Toui-lou ; those of the second, little Toui-lou ;
and those of the third
The name of the king is pronounced "Ichi "; the nobles of the first
class are called "Tuilu"; the second class, "Little Tui-lu"; and those of
the third class
They give to their king the name of Kiki-zw, that is to say, " the most
honourable man,"
The king is called Lid. The nobles of the first class are the Toui-lou ;
those of the second class, the little Toui-lou ; those of the third class, the
The king is called Y-Jci. The nobility of the first class are called toui-
lou ; those of the second class, little toui-lou ; and those cf the third class
The king of this country is termed yueh-Jci ; the highest rank of nobles
is called tui-lu ; the next, little tui-lu ; and the lowest,
The title of the king of the country is " The chief of the multitudes."
The noblemen of the first rank are called " Tui-lu ", those of the second
rank, " Little Tui-lu "; and those of the third rank,
282
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
241
PIH
921
TUH
To speak to one another, to
TUH
talk.
242
^K
730
SHA
Same as 15.
SHA.
-^
The
243
jl^j
491
KWOH
" " 5.
COUNTRY
244
EE
1043
WANG
" " 217.
KING,
1 -*
> *
when he
245
tr
207
HING
To step, to go to walk, to act,
WALKS
to do.
abroad,
246
"W
1113
YIU
Same as 14.
HAS
247
M
434
KU
A drum, to drum, to excite.
DRUMS
_-
and
248
/i
409
KIOH
A horn, a corner, to gore.
HORNS
249
3iir
867
TAO
To lead, to conduct.
LEADING
j "
and
250
^St
1024
TS UNG
A clan, a family, posterity, to
FOLLOWING.
-
follow, followers.
251
K
342
K l
Same as 12.
HIS
252
^
270
I
" " 77.
CLOTHES
253
fe
727
SEH
Air, manner, form, colour,
COLOUR,
hue, complexion, mode,
sort, glory, beauty.
254
IM
826
SUI
To accord, to follow, to com
ACCORDING TO
ply with, according to.
the
255
^
634
NIEN
Same as 11.
YEARS
256
^c
307
KAI
To change, to alter, to amend,
CHANGES,
to correct.
257
11
281
YIH
The mutations or alterations
IS CHANGED.
?7J
in nature, as of the sun or
moon; to change.
The
258
f
355
KIAH
Same as 99. The first year of
FIRST
the cycle.
and
259
z,
1096
YIH
Same as 219. The second year
SECOND
of the cycle.
260
^P
634
NIEN
Same as 11.
YEARS,
261
995
TS ING
The green of plants or the
blue of the sky.
they are
BLUE
(or green);
262
R
699
PING
The third of the ten stems.
the
THIRD
263
T
903
TING
The fourth of the ten stems.
and
FOURTH
264
4p
634
NIEN
Same as 11.
YEARS,
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 283
Na-to-cha. The prince is preceded by drums and horns when he goes
abroad. He changes the colour of his garments every year.
Natu-cha. When the king goes forth, he is accompanied by drums and
horns. He changes the colour of his garments at different epochs. In
the years of the cycle Ida and i, they are blue ; in the years ping and
ting,
"Na-to-scha" When the prince goes out he is accompanied by drums and
horns. The colour of his clothes is different in different years. In the
two first of the ten-year cycle they are blue ; in the next two,
When the latter walks abroad he is accompanied by drums and trumpets.
At different periods of the year he changes the colour of his garments. In
the cyclic years kia and i, they are blue ; in the years ping and ting, they
Na-to-cha. When the king goes forth, he is accompanied with drums and
horns. The colour of his garments is changed according to the years. In
the years marked with the cyclic signs Kia and I they are green ; in the
years marked with the cyclic signs Ping and Ting they are
na-to-cha. When the king goes abroad he is accompanied with drums and
trumpets, which precede and follow him. He changes the colour of his
garments according to the order of the years. In the years (of the cycle
called) kia and y his garments are of a blue or green colour. In the years
ping and ting they are of a
no-cha-sha. When the king goes abroad he is preceded and followed by
drummers and trumpeters. The color of his robes varies with the years
in the cycle containing the ten stems. It is azure in the first two years ;
in the second two years it is
NAH-TO-SHA. The king of the country, when he walks abroad, is pre
ceded and followed with drums and horns. The colour of his garments is
changed according to the mutations of the years. The first and second
years (of a ten-year cycle) they are blue (or green) ; the third and fourth
years they are
284:
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
265
^
^
72
CH IH
Same as 69.
RED;
the
266
H/
1063
WU
The fifth of the ten stems.
FIFTH
i^i
and
267
a
337
KI
The sixth of the ten stems.
SIXTH
268
^
634
NIEN
Same as 11.
YEARS
269
iff
252
HWANG
The colour of earth, yellow.
YELLOW;
^
the
270
J^t
321
KING
The seventh of the ten stems.
SEVENTH
271
3r
806
SIN
The eighth of the ten stems.
EIGHTH
272
&
634
NIEN
Same as 11.
YEARS
273
fl
706
POH
White, clear, bright, pure.
WHITE ;
the
274
^f+
287
JlN
The ninth of the ten stems.
NINTH
and
275
%&
483
KWEI
The last of the ten stems.
TENTH
276
634
NIEN
Same as 11.
YEARS
277
M
218
HOH
Black, dark.
BLACK.
ilv
They
278
pf
1113
YIU
Same as 14.
HAVE
279
2fc.
638
NIU
An ox, a cow, a bull, cattle,
CATTLE-
some kinds of deer.
280
^t
y^j
409
KIOH
Same as 248.
HORNS ;
the
281
Jg
27
CH ANG
Long, in time or distance,
LONG
constantly, direct, straight,
old, to grow, too heavy.
ones are
282
J^t
278
I
Same as 49.
USED
MJ
of the
283
ft
409
KIOH
" " 248.
HORNS
284
941
TSAI
A year, to contain, to fill in,
TO CONTAIN
to bear.
285
$J
1065
WUH
A thing, matter, substance,
THINGS.
an article, goods.
They
286
^
60
CHI
Same as 20.
REACH
the
287
}ffi
771
SHING
To bear, to sustain, to raise,
BEST
to conquer, to excel, supe
rior, best, excellent, to add.
of them, to
288
d
721
RH
Same as 32.
TWICE
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 285
The cattle of the country bear a considerable weight upon their horns.
red ; in the years ou and ki, yellow ; in the years Iceng and sin, white ;
finally, in those which have the characters jin and kouei, they are black.
The cattle have long horns, upon which burdens are loaded which weigh
as much sometimes as
red ; in the two following years, white ; and in the two last, black. The
oxen have such large horns that they contain as much as ten sheepskins ;
the people use them to keep all kinds of goods.
red, etc.
red ; in the years marked with the signs Meou and Sse, they are yellow ;
in the years marked with the cyclic signs Keng and Sin, they are white ;
in the years marked with the signs Jin and Kouei, they are black. They
have cattle whose horns are very long, and who bear upon their horns a
weight as great as
of a red colour ; they are of a yellow colour in the years ou and ki; of a
white colour in the years keng and sin; and of a black colour in the years
jin and kouei. Ox-horns are found in Fusang so large that their capacity
is sometimes as great as two
red ; it is yellow in the third ; white in the fourth ; and black in the last
two years. There are oxen with long horns, so long that they will hold
things the biggest as much as
red ; the fifth and sixth years, yellow ; the seventh and eighth years,
white ; and the ninth and tenth years, black. They have cattle-horns, of
which the long ones are used to contain (some of their) possessions, the
best of them reaching (a capacity of) twice
286
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character.
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
289
+
768
SHIH
Ten.
TEN
1
times as much
290
m
233
HUH
(From a peck measure and a horn.)
The Chinese bushel, holding ten
pecks, or a picul, according to
as an ordinary
HORN-MEAS
URE.
some; but the common table
makes it measure five pecks, or
half a picul. At Shanghai the
They
291
*
1113
YIU
(Same as 14)
huh for rice holds only 2-05 pints,
and that for peas, 1-86 pint. The
Buddhists use it for a full picul
of 133X Ibs., av., but the Hindu
drona, which the huh represents,
HAVE
weighs only 7 Ibs. 11 oz., av.
292
Wt
571
MA
A horse, warlike, quick as a
HORSE-
tttg
horse.
293
M
39
CE E
A wheeled carriage, a cart.
CARTS,
294
^r
638
NIU
Same as 279.
CATTLE-
295
39
CH E
" " 293.
CARTS,
and
296
m
562
LUH
A deer, especially the males ;
stags which have horns.
DEER-
297
Iff
39
CH E
Same as 293.
CARTS.
t^
The
298
El
491
KWOH
" " 5.
COUNTRY
299
A
286
JAN
" " 62.
PEOPLE
300
5f
1072
YANG
To nourish, rear, "bring up,
RAISE
tame ; to raise, educate.
301
JS
662
LUH
Same as 296.
DEER
302
y,p
297
JO-
" " 59.
AS
5"
in the
303
Pff
105
CHUNG
" " 38.
MIDDLE
304
SI
491
KWOH
" " 5.
KINGDOM
***
,
they
305
iif
98
CH UH
To rear, to feed, to raise, to
RAISE
M-l
domesticate.
806
^
638
NIU
Same as 279.
CATTLE.
307
J#
278
I
" " 49.
FROM
308
^t
298
Jtr
Milk, milky, the breasts, the
MILK
nipple ; to suck, to nurse.
they
309
^
1047
wi
Same as 50.
MAKE
310
553
LOH
Cream, dried milk, racky [kou
KOUMISS.
miss] from mare s milk.
They
311
w
1113
YIU
Same as 14.
HAVE
312
^
72
CH IH
" " 69.
the
RED
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 287
They are harnessed to wagons. Horses and deer are also employed for
this purpose. The inhabitants feed hinds, as in China, and from them
they obtain butter. A species of red
twenty ho (of 120 Chinese pounds). In this country they make use of
carts harnessed to cattle, horses, and deer. They rear deer there as they
raise cattle in China, and make cheese from the milk of the females.
A species of red
Horses, oxen, and deer are also harnessed to wagons. Deer are raised
here as cattle are in the " Middle Kingdom," and from the milk of the
hinds butter is made. The red
The natives raise deer, as cattle are raised, and make creamy dishes
from the milk of the animals.
twenty ho (the ho is a measure of ten bushels).
They have carts drawn by horses, cattle, and deer. The inhabitants
raise deer as cattle are raised in China. They make cheeses from milk.
There is a species of red
hundred bushels. They are used to contain all sorts of things. Carriages
also may be seen, to which horses, cattle, and deer are harnessed. The
inhabitants raise deer as cattle are raised in China ; the milk of the hinds
makes part of their food. They gather the red
five pecks. Vehicles are drawn by oxen, horses, and deer ; for the people
of that land rear deer just as the Chinese rear cattle, and make cream of
their milk. They have red
ten times as much as the capacity of a common horn. They have horse-
carts, cattle-carts, and deer-carts. The people of the country raise deer
as cattle are raised in the Middle Kingdom (China). From milk they
make koumiss. They have the red
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character.
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
313
3&
515
LI
Same as 67.
PEARS
314
&
404
KING
The warp ; to pass through ;
THROUGH-
laws ; religious manuals.
out the
315
4p
634
NIEN
Same as 11.
YEAR
316
/Y*
717
PUH
" " 100.
UN
317
^H
244
HWAI
Going or gone to ruin, to
SPOILED,
xK
spoil, to injure, to perish,
spoiled, useless.
and
318
^>
909
TO
Same as 44. Many ; numer
TO
^g
ous.
319
715
P U
The cat-tail rush, the cala
P U-
mus, or sweet-flag.
320
$fc
870
T AO
A peach, a nectarine, a flower-
T AO-
bud.
es.
321
3
342
K l
Same as 12.
ITS
322
Wl
879
TI
" " 36.
GROUND
jfm*
is
323
Tfft
1059
WU
" " 85.
DESTITUTE OF
324
$16
893
T lEH
Iron, made of iron, firm.
IRON,
^f*^
but it
325
rJ
1113
YIU
Same as 14.
HAS
326
m
934
T UNG
Copper, brazen, coppery.
COPPER.
~ .
They do
327
<r*
717
PUH
Same as 100.
NOT
328
ft*
484
KWEI
" " 166.
VALUE
329
^
398
KIN
Gold, gilded, yellow, precious.
GOLD
or
330
sill
1101
YIN
Silver, money, wealth.
SILVER.
.
Their
331
rp
762
SHI
A market, crowded, vulgar,
MARKETS
to trade, salable.
are
332
M
1059
WU
Same as 85.
DESTITUTE OF
333
ffl
1007
TSU
Rent or tax in kind from
TAXES
fields ; rental ; income ;
taxes.
and
334
ft
433
KU
To estimate, reckon, guess,
FIXED PRICES.
think, set a price on ; value,
worth, price.
When
335
s
342
Kl
Same as 12.
THEY
336
$&
268
HWUN
A bridegroom, a husband, to
MARRY,
marry a wife.
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 289
pear is found there, which is kept for a year without spoiling ; also the
iris, and peaches, and copper in great abundance. They have no iron,
and gold and silver are not valued. He who wishes to marry
pear is found there which is preserved throughout the year. There are
also many vines. Iron is lacking, but copper is found. Gold and silver
are not esteemed. Commerce is free, and they do not haggle at all.
The practices regarding marriages are as follows :
pears of the fusang trees keep good throughout the whole year. In addi
tion, there are many apples and reeds, mats being made from the last.
There is no iron in this country, but copper is found. Gold and silver are
not valued, and do not serve as the medium of exchange in the markets.
Marriages are concluded in the following manner :
In this country there is no iron, but there is copper. Gold and silver
are not valued. In the markets no duties are levied.
pear which can be preserved for a year without spoiling. There are many
grapes. No mines of iron exist, but copper is very abundant. The in
habitants do not esteem either gold or silver. The public markets are
not subject to any duty. The laws relating to marriage are as follows :
pears which are preserved for an entire year, and they also have many
grapes. Their land does not contain any iron, but they have copper, ob
tained from their mines. Gold and silver among them have but little
value. The markets are free, and that which is sold does not have a
fixed price. In regard to marriage,
pears which will keep a year without spoiling ; water-rushes and peaches
are common. Iron is not found in the ground, though copper is ; they do
not prize gold or silver, and trade is conducted without rent, duty, or
fixed prices.
In matters of marriage
pears kept unspoiled throughout the year, and they also have TOMATOES.
The ground is destitute of iron, but they have copper. Gold and silver
are not valued. In their markets there are no taxes or fixed prices. When
they marry,
19
290
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
337
fc
123
FAH
Same as 105. ) A rule, a pat-
it is the
RULE
[ tern to go
338
Hi]
956
TSEH
" " 127. ) by.
THEN
for the intending
339
its
790
SI
A son-in-law.
SON-IN-LAW
340
ti
1044
WANG
To go, formerly, past, the fu
TO GO
ture.
and the
341
I^C
641
Ntf
Same as 143.
WOMAN
s
342
lc
351
KIA
A household, a family, a
DWELLING
-
dwelling.
s
343
P^
576
MAN
Same as 16.
DOOR
344
&
1037
WAI
Outside, beyond, foreign, to
exclude.
OUTSIDE
345
>fjs
1005
TSOH
Same as 82.
TO MAKE
346
1064
WUH
" " 84.
HOUSE
(or cabin).
347
*
21
CH AN
Morning, dawn.
MORNING
and
848
804
SIH
Evening, dusk, the last day
EVENING
<
of a month or year.
he
849
iH
731
SIIA
To sprinkle, to scatter, deep
SPRINKLES
water.
and
350
jjj
726
SAO
To sweep, to brush, to clean
SWEEPS
up, a broom.
(the ground)
851
$f
404
KING
Same as 314.
THROUG fl
out a
852
t^
638
NIEN
" " 11.
YEAR,
853
flff
719
RH
" " 68.
AND
*
if the
354
~k
641
Nt
" " 143.
WOMAN
^^
is
355
^
717
PUH
" " 100.
NOT
356
is
1131
YUEH
Contented, delightful, to
PLEASED
agree to, willing.
with him,
357
in
984
TSIH
Eating, to go, now, soon, then,
THEN
forthwith.
she
358
ffg
443
K U
To turn animals out of a field,
SENDS AWAY
"*
to drive on, to lash, to or
der people into their prop
er places.
359
S
53
CHI
Same as 40.
HIM;
360
*
790
SIANG
" " 144.
but if they are
MUTUALLY
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 2 91
builds a house or cabin near that of the maid whom he desires to wed,
and takes care to sprinkle a certain quantity of water upon the ground
every day during the year ; he finally marries the maid, if she wishes and
consents ; otherwise, he goes to seek his fortune elsewhere.
He who desires to wed a girl, establishes his cabin before the door of
the latter ; he sprinkles and sweeps the earth every morning and every
night. When he has practiced this formality for a year, if the maid will
not give her consent, he desists ; but if she is
the man builds himself a hut before the door of the house in which the
one lives whom he desires ; morning and evening he sprinkles and clears
the ground. When a year has passed, if the maiden does not consent, he
leaves her ; but if she
(Not translated.)
The future son-in-law goes into the family of the girl and constructs a
house, outside of her door ; morning and night he waters and sweeps
;he place. If, at the end of a year, the girl feels no love for him, she
sends him away ; but, if they are smitten with love for each other,
he customs of the country are as follows : the suitor constructs a dwell-
ng for himself before the door of the house in which dwells the young
woman whom he seeks. Morning and evening he sprinkles and sweeps
he earth in this place. At the end of a year, if the young woman is not
leased, she sends him away ; and, in the contrary case,
i is the law that the (intending) son-in-law must erect a hut before the
oor of the girl s house, and must sprinkle and sweep the place morn-
ng and evening for a whole year. If she then does not like him, she
ids him depart ; but if she is
t is the custom for the son-in-law to go and erect a house (or cabin) out-
ide of the door of the dwelling of the young woman (whom he desires to
marry). Morning and evening he sprinkles and sweeps (the ground) for
year, and, if the young woman is not pleased with him, she then sends
im away ; but if they are mutually
292
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
361
It
1131
YUEH
Same as 356.
PLEASED,
362
JTj
612
NAI
But, it may be, doubtless,
THEN
moreover, if, then, there
they
ff^
upon.
363
J&
71
CH ING
To finish, to complete, to ac
COMPLETE
complish.
the
364
$H
"
268
HWUN
Same as 336.
MARRIAGE.
The
365
2n
268
HWUN
" " 336.
MARRIAGE
366
fl
520
LI
An act, particularly an act of
CEREMONIES
worship, ceremony, rites,
for the
manners.
367
"A*
839
TA
Same as 28. "I T
MOST
* >
In gen-
368
U
878
TI
To oppose, to sus- I ^emost
PART
to obtdn/ 6 1011 J P art
are
369
JSil
1125
YOr
By, with, to, as, as if.
AS
^
in the
370
pff
105
CHUNG
Same as 38.
MIDDLE
371
RH
491
KWOH
" " 5.
KINGDOM
~"T
the
372
[j
933
T UNG
Together, all, identical, same,
SAME.
the same as.
Fora
373
SH
991
TS IN
To love, to approach, near,
FATHER,
^
intimate, a relative, a wife,
MOTHER,
kindred. The six TS IN
WIFE, OR
are parents, brothers, wife,
SON,
. t
and sons.
they
374
5x
725
SANG
To mourn, to lament for one s
MOURN
parents.
375
"C
987
TS IH
Same as 213.
SEVEN
376
293
JEII
A day, the sun, daily.
DAYS,
377
>5
717
PUH
Same as 100.
NOT
378
^
766
SHIH
" " 63.
EATING.
379
M&
1007
TSU
A grandfather, an an- "|
Fora
GRAND
cestor, the first, the 1
origin, to begin. A
V grand-
380
3c
147
FU
A rule, a father, an father.
FATHER
ancestor, a senior,
paternal. J
or grand-
381
fif
605
MU
A mother, a dam, the source
MOTHER
-^
of.
they
382
131
725
SANG
Same as 374.
MOURN
383
3L
1060
wu
A perfect number, five, the
FIVE
whole, all.
384
293
JEH
Same as 376.
DAYS
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 293
The marriage ceremonies, for the most part, are similar to those which
are practiced in China. At the death of relatives, they fast a greater or
less number of days, according to the degree of relationship.
pleased with him, he marries her. The ceremonies of marriage are
nearly the same as in China. At the death of father or mother, they fast
seven days. At that of a grandfather or grandmother, they refrain from
eating for five days,
consents, the marriage is completed. The marriage customs, on the
whole, resemble those of the " Middle Kingdom." When the parents die,
it is the custom to fast for seven days ; on the death of a grandfather,
on either the father s or mother s side, five days ;
The rules for the observance of the marriage ceremony are in general
the same as those of the Middle Kingdom (China).
they are married. The ceremonies of marriage are in general the same as
those in China. If a father or mother dies, one fasts for seven days ; if
it is a grandfather or grandmother, for five days ;
the marriage is immediately celebrated with ceremonies which have much
resemblance to those of China. At the death of father or mother, it is
the custom to fast for seven days. The fast is for five days at the death
of a grandfather or grandmother,
pleased with him, they are married. The bridal ceremonies are for the
most part like those of China. A fast of seven days is observed for par
ents at their death ; five for grand-parents ;
pleased, then the marriage is completed, the marriage ceremonies being
for the most part like those of the " Middle Kingdom " (China).
For a father, mother, wife, or son, they mourn for seven days without
eating. For a grandfather or grandmother they mourn for five days
294
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character.
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
385
#
717
PUH
Same as 100.
NOT
386
^
766
SHIH
" " 63.
EATING ;
J^G
for an
387
51
213
HIUNG
An elder brother, a senior.
ELDER
s u
BROTHER,
388
ji
879
TI
A younger brother, junior,
YOUNGER
cousins.
BROTHER,
389
ffi
707
POH
A father s elder brother.
FATHER S ELD
1 H
ER BROTHER,
390
.jfcj/
779
SHUH
A father s younger brother.
FATHER S
4?V
YOUNGER
BROTHER,
891
fcfc
432
KU
A polite term for females.
or his SISTER,
t ji-
or for an
392
"iff}
1031
TSZ
An elder sister, a school-mis
ELDER
tress.
SISTER
or
393
hk
586
MEI
A younger sister, a sister, a
YOUNGER
girl.
SISTER,
394
~
723
SAN
Same as 208.
THREE
395
293
JEH
" " 376.
DAYS,
396
^
717
PUH
" " 100.
NOT
397
^
766
SHIH
" " 63.
EATING.
398
m
750
SHEH
To institute, establish, set up.
They
ESTABLISH
and
399
^K
1002
TSO
Same as 174.
SET UP
qprf.
the
400
m
737
SHAN
A god, a spirit, divine, super
SPIRIT
natural.
s
401
Hfc
793
SIANG
Like, a figure, image, like
IMAGE,
ness, a statue, an idol, to
resemble.
and
402
32
CHAO
The dawn, morning, early.
MORNING
and
403
804
SIH
Same as 348.
EVENING
404
^?
648
PAI
To honour, reverence, kneel
REVERENCE
to, salute.
it, and
405
896
TIEN
To enshrine as a god, to offer
OFFER LIBA
libations.
TIONS
. >-
to it. They do
406
T*
717
PUH
Same as 100.
NOT,
in their
407
rjj J
59
CHI
To regulate, a rule, practice,
MOURNING
mourning usages.
USAGES,
.
wear
408
JiR
1017
TS UI
A strip of sackcloth ancient
MOURNING-
ly worn on the breast as a
GARMENTS
badge of mourning.
or
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 295
and during their prayers they expose the image of the deceased person.
They wear no mourning
and only for three days at the death of brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts,
and other relatives. The images of spirits are placed upon a species of
pedestal, and prayers are addressed to them morning and evening.
for the death of an elder or younger brother or sister, or an uncle or aunt,
three days. They sit then, from morning until evening, before the image
of the spirit, absorbed in prayer ; yet they have no mourning
(Xot translated.)
if it is an uncle, or an aunt, or a sister, for three days. The image of
the deceased person is placed upon a pedestal. It is saluted morning and
night, and offerings made to it. There is no law in regard to mourning
and for three days at the death of brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts,
Avithout distinction between the elder and younger, or between the rela
tives on the father s side and those on the mother s side. The image of a
spirit is set up, before which prostrations are made morning and night,
and to which oblations are made. Moreover, mourning
and three days for brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts. Images to repre
sent their spirits are set up, before which they worship and pour out liba
tions morning and evening ; but they wear no mourning or
without eating ; for an elder brother, younger brother, father s elder
brother, or father s younger brother, or for the corresponding female rela
tives, or for an elder sister or younger sister, three days without eating.
They set up an image of the spirit (of the deceased person) and reverence
it, and offer libations to it morning and evening. In their mourning
usages they do not wear mourning garments or \f Q"?
296
AX INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character.
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
409
*g
890
TIEH
Badges of coarse white hemp
MOURNING-
en cloth worn by mourners
BADGES.
at funerals.
An
410
if
838
SZ
To succeed to, lawfully ; the
INHERITING
IHJ y
expectant heir, children,
heirs ; to employ ; here
after ; the following.
411
3E
1043
WANG
Same as 217.
KING
is
412
AL
538
LIH
To stand erect, established, to
SEATED ON
set up, to succeed to or seat
THE THRONE
one s self on the throne.
for
413
~>
723
SAN
Same as 208.
THREE
414
&
634
NIEN
" " 11.
YEARS
415
>F
717
PUH
" " 100.
WITHOUT
416
II
991
TS IN
" " 373.
APPROACHING
the
417
HU
491
KWOH
" " 5.
COUNTRY
418
%
764
SHI
An affair, a matter, business,
. AFFAIRS.
duties.
419
~M"
342
K l
Same as 12.
THEY
~y/>
were
420
r&
822
SUE
Inelegant, uneducated, com
IGNORANT
mon, vulgar.
421
l8
414
KIU
Old, venerable, formerly, an
FORMERLY,
ciently.
and
422
fiE
1059
WU
Same as 85.
DESTITUTE
/>i
OF
423
TO
153
FUH
Buddha.
BUDDHA
I/ r*
a
424
Sr
123
FAH
Same as 105.
RULES;
4-2
but in the
425
,/^v
831
SUNG
To dwell ; a feudal state ; the
SUNG
Sung dynasty.
dynasty,
in the period called
426
~fc
839
TA
Same as 28.
" GREAT
427
IJj
599
MING
Bright, clear, the dawn, splen
BRIGHTNESS,"
dour.
in the
428
- J.
721
RH
Same as 32.
SECOND
429
^
634
NIEN
" " 11.
YEAR,
430
lit
340
KI
A coarse carpet or felt rug,
KI-
made of camel s hair.
431
51
695
PIN
A stranger, a visitor, to en
PIN
tertain.
432
H
491
KWOH
Same as 5.
COUNTRY
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 297
garments, and the prince who succeeds to his father takes no care regard
ing the government for three years after his elevation. In former times
the people had no knowledge of the religion of Fo, but, in the year 458
A. D., in the Sum dynasty, from Samarcand
The king does not occupy himself with the affairs of government dur
ing the three years which follow his accession to the throne. Formerly
the religion of Buddha did not exist in this country, but in the fourth of
the years Ta-ming, of the reign of Hiao-wou-ti of the dynasty of Soung
(458 A. D.), from the country of Ki-pin (Cophene),
garments. The king who succeeds his deceased father does not occupy
himself with the affairs of the kingdom for the next three years. Of old,
the method of living of these people was not according to the laws of
Buddha. It happened, however, that in the second year of the years
bearing the designation "Great Light," of the Song dynasty (458 A. D.),
from the kingdom of Kipin,
In the second year of the period called " ta-ming " (or great light), the
year 458 of our era, under the reign of the emperor Hiao Wu-ti of the
Sung dynasty, from the country of Ki-pin,
garments. The heir to the throne remains three years without occupying
himself with the affairs of the kingdom. Formerly they did not know
the doctrine of Buddha. In the second year of the period Ta-ming, of
the dynasty of the Song (458), from the kingdom of Ki-pin (i. e., Cophene,
now the country of Caboul),
garments are not worn. During the first three years of his accession, the
king does not occupy himself with affairs of state. Formerly the religion
of Fo was unknown in Fusang. It was only in the Song dynasty, in the
second of the years ta-ming (458), that from the kingdom of Ki-pin
fillets. The successor of the king does not attend personally to govern
ment affairs for the first three years. In olden times they knew nothing
of the Buddhist religion, but during the reign Ta-ming, of the Emperor
Hiao Wu-ti of the Sung dynasty (A. D. 458), from Ki-pin
mourning-badges. A king who inherits the throne does not occupy him
self with the affairs of the government for the first three years after his ac
cession. Formerly they were ignorant, and knew nothing of the Buddhist
religion ; but during the reign of the Sung dynasty, in the second year of
the period called TA-MIXG (or " Great Brightness," i. e., in the year 458
A. D.), from the country of Ki-nx (i. e., Cophene, now Cabul),
298
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character.
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
r**l
had
433
jj
27
CH ANG
To taste, to try, to essay, to prove.
When preceding another verb,
FORMERLY
it denotes past time, usually.
formerly, ever.
434
rJ
1113
YIU
Same as 14.
HAD
435
It
674
PI
To compare, to corre- "|
spond, to equal, to bring
PI-
into harmony, to select, A
f-j
each, every. men-
436
Jn\
416
K lU
A natural hillock, a high dicant
K lU,
*
place, a hill with a hoi- priest.
. ;
lowed or level top for
(mendicant priests),
worshipers, a tumulus.
437
3
1060
WU
Same as 383.
FIVE
438
A
286
JlN
" " 62.
MEN,
who
439
%$
1112
YIU
To float, drift, swim, travel, rove
about, to take pleasure in, satis-
VOYAGING
fled, pleased.
440
ft
207
HING
Same as 245.
WENT
to
441
K
342
K l
" " 12.
THAT
442
s
491
KWOH
" " 5.
COUNTRY,
\Z 1
and
443
$
549
LIU
The flowing of water, to pass, to
circulate, to diffuse, to make
known, to shed, fluid, to select,
MADE
KNOWN
444
"S
932
T UNG
to beg, a class, roving, vagrant.
To permeate, go through, see
THROUGH
^^
clearly, to bring about, to suc
ceed, current, through, general,
it
complete.
445
/fife
153
FUH
Same as 423.
BUDDHA
|X f*
a
446
iy-fc
123
FAH
" " 105.
RULES,
^i
and his
447
>B"T^
404
KING
" " 314.
RELIGIOUS
BOOKS, and
448
1^
793
SIANG
" " 401.
IMAGES,
^30
and
449
f2*
372
KIAO
To instruct, to teach, command,
TAUGHT
precept, doctrine, a religious
sect, a party, a class.
the
450
A
546
LING
A law, a rule, an order, to
COMMAND
command, an officer.
to
451
m
98
CH UH
To become a priest.
Same as 165. (Hepburn, p. 424.)
Forsaking home,
FORSAKE
surname, and the
the
world to enter a
452
^Sc.
351
KIA
" " 345. Buddhist monas
FAMILY,
tery.
and its
453
155
FUNG
The wind, a breeze, speech, man
ner, deportment, style, fashion,
MANNERS
reformation, instruction, temper,
habit.
454
16*
822
SUH
Same as 420.
RUDENESS
455
^
828
BUI
To accord with, then, thereon,
FINALLY
-tlu
finally.
was
456
2
307
KAI
Same as 256.
REFORMED.
THE DESCRIPTION OF FU-SANG. 299
five priests went preaching their doctrine in this country, and then the
manners of the people were changed.
five pi-khievu, or priests, came to Fu~sang, and there spread abroad the
law of Buddha. They carried with them their books and sacred images,
and the ritual, and established monastic customs, and so changed the
manners of the inhabitants.
five begging monks came to this land, and there spread abroad the re
ligion of Buddha, with his sacred writings and images. They instructed
the people regarding the rules of monastic life, and so changed the cus
toms of the people.
five bhikshu (mendicant priests) in their travels reached FOU-SO, and com
menced to propagate Buddhism there.
five bhikcJwus (religious mendicants) traveled into this country, and there
spread abroad the law, the books, and the images of Buddha. Their doc
trine induced men to leave their families (in order to embrace a religious
life). The manners of the inhabitants were then changed (i. e., the peo
ple immediately adopted the usages and the principles of Buddhism).
five Buddhist priests repaired by sea to this country. They there dis
tributed the books of the law and the holy images ; they taught the pre
cepts of monastic life, and changed the manners of the inhabitants.
five beggar priests went there. They traveled over the kingdom, every
where making known the laws, canons, and images of that faith. Priests
of regular ordination were set apart among the natives, and the customs
of the country became reformed.
formerly, five men who were PI-K IU (i. e., bhikshus, mendicant Bud
dhist monks) went by a voyage to that country, and made Buddha s rules
and his religious books and images known among them, taught the com
mand to forsake the family (for the purpose of entering a monastery), and
finally reformed the rudeness of its customs.
300 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Hwui Shan also gave a description of a country called " the
Kingdom of Women," situated about one thousand li east of
Fu-sang. This story has always been rejected as a manifest
absurdity, and its presumed falsity has been one of the most
powerful arguments for casting discredit upon his whole account.
For this reason, those who have accepted his statements regard
ing the country of Fu-sang have said as little as possible about
his tale in regard to "the Kingdom of Women," and have dis
missed it with the statement that it was merely a description,
given by him from hearsay, of a country that he had not visited,
and that its absurdities should not be permitted to raise doubts
as to the truth of his report regarding the country of Fu-sang,
in which he had resided.
His description, which will be found, when rightly translated
and understood, to be substantially true, and to furnish strong
proof of the reliability of his statements, will be given in the
following chapter ; and as the only clew to the location of Fu-
sang is that it lies easterly from both China and the Great Han
Country, and as all that is known as to the situation of this last-
named country is that it lies northeasterly from Wen Shan, the
land of "Marked Bodies," the Chinese account of these two
countries will also be given.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN, THE LAND OP " MARKED BODIES," AND
THE GKEAT HAN COUNTRY.
The accounts of all these countries derived from the same source The Chinese
text The location of the Kingdom of Women Its inhabitants Their long
locks Their migrations Birth of their young Nursing the young The age
at which they walk Their timidity Their devotion to their mates The
salt-plant Its peculiarities A shipwreck The women A tribe whose lan
guage could not be understood Men with puppies heads Their food,
clothing, and dwellings The land of " Marked Bodies " Its location
Tattooing with three lines The character of the people Lack of fortifi
cations The king s residence Water-silver No money used The Country
of Great Han Its location Lack of weapons Its people.
THE following account of the Kingdom of Women is ex
pressly stated to have been given by Hwui Shan ; but it does not
appear to have been noticed that the reports in regard to the
Great Han Country, and the land of "Marked Bodies," must
also, in all probability, have been derived from the same source.
These countries were made known to the Chinese during the
reign of the Liang dynasty. Now, it is known that Hwui Shan
reached China just before the establishment of this dynasty, but
that his account was not given to the emperor, and did not
become generally known, until some time during its first years.
Hence there can have been no earlier report, regarding Great
Han, than that which he could have given ; and as in his account
of Fu-sang he refers to Great Han, and in the description of
this country the land of " Marked Bodies " is mentioned, it is
almost impossible that he should not have been questioned as to
these strange countries also. The accounts are short such as
would be incidentally given in a single report, in which the main
interest centered upon another land ; and there is nothing to
show that the Chinese ever heard anything more about them.
302
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character.
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
457
#
641
Ntr
Same as 143.
WOMAN
8
458
HI
491
KWOH
" " 5.
COUNTRY.
459
it
641
NtJ
Same as 143.
WOMAN
s
460
EH
491
KWOH
" " 5.
COUNTRY,
461
^P
265
HWUI
" " 17.
HWUI
462
$i
736
SHAN
" " 18.
SHlN
463
^
1142
YUN
" " 24.
SAYS,
464
IE
941
TSAI
" " 27.
IS SITUATED
from
465
^
144
FU
1.
FU-
466
Jj|
724
SANG
" " 2
SANG
467
1C
930
TUNG
" " 81.
EAST
^J^
one
468
"T
980
TS IEN
A thousand, many, an indefi
THOUSAND
nite number.
469
Ji
518
LI
Same as 35.
LI.
470
342
K l
" " 12.
ITS
471
A
286
JAN
" " 62.
PEOPLE
s
472
^
1146
YUNG
To receive, the air, "
manner, conduct,
the face, looks, or
The aspect
of one s man
MANNER
of
attitude.
ner (Med-
473
f
582
MAO
The outward mien,
gait, style, man
ner, form, appear
hurst, p. 757).
The appear
ance, air, de
APPEARANCE
ance, the face,
meanour.
is
like, similar to. ,
474
ifl
936
TWAN
Sprouting, the head,
the origin, straight,
STRAIGHT
direct, correct, up
Correct, in
right, modest,
tegrity, up
475
IE
75
CHING
grave, decent.
Correct, proper,
straight, right,
right, either
physically
or morally.
ERECT.
erect, exact, really,
the first.
Their
^^
( (Mcdhurst. 586.)
476
EL
727
SEH
Same as 253. < The countenance,
( colour, beauty.
COLOUR
is a
477
738
SHlN
Social delights, very, extreme
VERY
ly.
478
lii*
377
KIEH
Clear, limpid, pure, neat,
PURE
tidy.
479
1=3
706
POH
Same as 273.
WHITE.
480
^
735
SHAN
" " 161.
Their
BODIES
THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN. 393
THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN.
The inhabitants of this kingdom are white,
THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN.
The bonze Hoei-chin has spoken in the following terms of a kingdom
of women situated a thousand li from Fu-sang toward the east. The
women of this kingdom have very regular features and very white faces ;
but
NtT KWOH, OR KINGDOM OF WOMEN.
Concerning the Kingdom of Women, the shaman Hwui-shin relates : It
is a thousand li to the east of Fu-sang. The bearing and manners of the
people are very sedate and formal ; their color is exceedingly clear and
white : their bodies
THE COUNTRY OF WOMEN.
Hwui ShSn says that the Country of Women is situated a thousand li
east of Fu-sang. Its people s manner of appearance is straight erect
(or, is very correct), and their colour is (or their countenances are) a very
pure white.
Their bodies
304
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
481
n
884
T l
The body, the whole person, the
substance, a solid, the essentials,
influential, to embody.
THE WHOLE
BODY
482
rJ
1113
YIU
Same as 14.
HAS
483
^
580
MAO
The covering of animals or
HAIR.
birds, as hair, fur, feathers,
or down.
The
484
Ji
121
FAH
The hair of the head, numer
HAIR OF THE
ous, grass, vegetation.
HEAD i s
485
*Sk
27
CH ANG
Same as 281.
LONG,
486
IS
1051
WEI
To sustain, bear, allege, send off,
the
END
confide to, a wrong, grievance,
the end, the last, really.
reaching to the
487
iiil
879
TI
Same as 36.
GROUND.
488
3*
60
CHI
" " 20.
AT
*
the
489
*.
721
RH
" " 32.
SECOND
or
490
\
723
SAN
" " 208.
THIRD
491
^i
1129
YUEH
The moon, a lunar month,
MONTH,
. ..
monthly.
492
ia
407
KING
Originally formed of words above a
man, repeated, to indicate the
BICKERING,
bickering of the people ; strong,
violent, bickering, testy, to be
they
quarrelsome, great, abundant.
493
A
299
JUH
To enter, to go into, to pro
ENTER
gress, according to, an en
trance.
the
494
*
781
SHUI
Water, a fluid, clear, a stream, a
trip from one place to another,
WATER.
an inundation, trivial, common.
Tbcv
gentle, low land, to wet, to soak.
495
M J
956
TSEII
Same as 127.
THEN
496
*s
287
JlN
Pregnant (used
only of women). *
BECOME
PREGNANT
497
fiB
736
SHAN
Pregnant, quick ^p e ^j; n
WITH YOUNG
/wt
with child.
In
498
. 1 .
562
LUH
Six.
SIX
499
^
987
TS IH
Same as 213.
SEVEN
500
H
1129
YUEH
" " 491.
MONTHS
-**-
they
501
jS
14
CH AN
To produce, to breed, to bear,
BEAR
a birth, the natives, an es
tate, an occupation.
their
502
-^p.
1030
TSZ
Same as 206.
YOUNG.
^
The
503
ft*
641
NCr
" " 143. )
FEMALE
[ Females.
504
286
JAN
" " 62. )
PEOPLE
s
THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN. 395
They have hairy bodies and long locks that fall down to the ground. At
the second or third month the women come to bathe in a river, and they
become pregnant. They bear their young at the sixth or seventh month.
have hairy bodies and long locks which fall down to the ground. At the
second or third month they enter the water, and they then become preg
nant. They bear their young at the sixth or seventh month.
These women
are hairy, and the hair of the head trails on the ground. In the spring
they emulously rush into the water and become pregnant ; the children
are born in the autumn. These female-men
are hairy, and they have long locks, the ends of which reach to the
ground.
At the second or third month, bickering, they enter the water (come
down to the low lands or to the streams ? or, perhaps, " enter upon a mi
gration," the character SHUI meaning not only " water," but also " a trip
from one place to another "). They then become pregnant. They bear
their young at the sixth or seventh month (probably of gestation ; but
possibly of the year). The female-people
20
306
AN INGLOEIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
505
jjtij
214
HIUNG
The thorax, the breast, the
CHESTS
bosom, the feelings, the
heart, clamour.
506
IB
981
TS IEN
To advance, progress, in front
IN FRONT
lU J
of, before, in advance, for
merly, when, a light black
colour.
507
:fe
1059
WU
Same as 85.
ARE DESTI
7JR
TUTE OF
508
ft
298
Jtr
" " 308.
BREASTS,
but the
509
JH
191
HIAO
The nape, the part which
NAPE OF THE
^^
rests on the pillow; a
sort or class, great, A
funds. 1 A
(or back of the head)
510
^
175
HEU
After, in time ; too late ; [ y J
behind, in place; then, man
BEHIND
next, an heir, to remain,
the second.
511
4fe
742
SHlNG
Same as 58.
BEARS
512
^
580
MAO
" " 483.
HAIR-
513
317
KAN
Eoot, origin, beginning, a base ; a
classifier of things long and stiff,
and even of ropes ; an organ.
ROOTS;
and the
514
a
706
POH
Same as 273.
WHITE
615
%
580
MAO
" " 483.
HAIR
516
pjj
105
CHUNG
" " 38.
MIDST
517
-W
1113
YIU
" " 14.
HAS
518
>J4-
67
CHIH
Juice, gravy, liquor, 1
JUICE
pleasing to the taste 1 ^j^
or is pleasing to the
519
^t
298
Jtf
Same as 308.
taste). They
NURSE
their
520
"~f~*
1030
TSZ
" " 206.
YOUNG
w
for
521
W
707
POH
A hundred, many, all.
ONE HUNDRED
522
g
293
JEH
Same as 376.
DAYS,
523
I f
.At*
HE
616
NlNG
The moose; power, ability,
and they then
CAN
rjbJ
skill, capable, skillful, may,
can.
524
^rf
207
HING
Same as 245.
WALK.
When
525
.
723
SAN
" " 208.
THREE
Mil
or
526
l/y
836
SZ
Four, all, around, everywhere.
POUR
527
^p
634
NIEN
Same as 11.
YEARS
Fill
old
528
m
956
TSEH
" " 127.
THEN
THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN. 307
Instead of breasts they have white locks at the back of the head, from
which there issues a liquor that serves to nourish their children. It is
said that one hundred days after their birth the children are able to run
about, and when three or four years of age appear
have no breasts upon their chests, but only hair of a white colour at the
back of the neck, which contains milk. One hundred days after their
birth the children commence to walk, and at the age of three or four
years they have attained
have no paps on their bosoms, but hair-roots grow on the back of their
necks ; a juice is found in the white ones. The children are suckled a
hundred days, when they can walk ; by the fourth year they are
are destitute of breasts in front of their chests, but behind, at the nape of
the neck (or back of the head), they have hair-roots (short hair, or a
bunch of hair, or a hairy organ), and in the midst of the white hair it is
pleasing to the taste (or there is juice). They nurse their young for
one hundred days, and they can then walk. When three or four years
old they become
308
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
629
fcg
77
CH ING
Same as 363. f Adult (Medhurst,
FULLY
7xV
p. 60). To become
630
A
286
JlN
a man.
" " 62. 1 (Hepburn, p. 346.)
A grown-up per
GROWN,
son, Mi-grown.
531
*
279
I
A final particle, denoting that the
TRULY.
~^\
sense has been fully expressed,
or that the intention is very
strong.
532
JiL
385
KIEN
To see, to know, to observe, an
SEEING
opinion, to appear.
{(Hepburn, p. 115.)
a
633
A
286
JlN
A man, a person,
male or female,
HUMAN BEING,
people, mankind.
they are
534
jpg|
403
KING
A shy horse, to terrify, afraid,
AFRAID,
alarmed.
and
535
m
tf=^
676
PI
To flee from, to escape, avoid, to
retire, to hide away.
FLEE
636
DM
689
P lEN
At or by the side, deflected, exces
sive, aside, partial. Before verbs,
TO ONE SIDE.
must, will.
They
637
n
1054
WEI
To dread, venerate, respect, awe,
devotion for, dread, timidity.
VENERATE
538
"xf"*
25
CHANG
A line of ten feet, to ]
their
639
*
142
FU
measure, an elder. A
To help, assist, a hus- [ , A .
band, a man, a J USDana -
scholar.
HUSBANDS
(or mates). They
540
^*
766
SHIH
Same as 63.
EAT
^^
the
541
8%
198
HIEN
Saltish, preserved, salted,
SALT-
bitter.
542
gy
956
TS AO
Plants with herbaceous stems,
PLANT;
herbs, vegetation, plants in
general.
its
643
^
1Q81
YEH
Same as 54.
LEAVES
644
M
837
SZ
" " 55.
RESEMBLE
-L/
those of the
545
3jj)
796
SIE
Deflected, inclined, depraved,
SIE-
corrupting.
646
8?
170
HAO
Tall herbs ; the Artemisia pe
HAO
dicularis ; Vitex, or Amar-
anthus; Tansy.
(a species of ab
sinthe),
547
rffj
719
RH
Same as 68.
BUT
648
M
348
K l
Fume, vapour, steam, breath,
its
ODOUR
air, spirit, temper, to smell.
is more
549
^*
188
HIANG
Fragrant, odoriferous, sweet.
FRAGRANT
550
!*
1053
WEI
Taste, flavour, smell, relish.
and its
TASTE
551
198
CHANG
Same as 541.
SALTISH.
THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN. 399
appear fully grown. The women take flight at sight of a stranger, and
they are very respectful toward their husbands. These people feed upon
a plant which has the taste and odour of salt, and which for this reason
bears the name of the " salt-plant." The leaves are similar to those of
the plant which the Chinese call sie-hao, which is a species of absinthe.
their full growth. The women take to flight rapidly at sight of a stranger.
They have much respect for their husbands. A fragrant herb, of which
the leaves resemble those of the plant sie-hao (a species of absinthe), and
of which the taste is saltish, is eaten in this country.
fully grown. Whenever they see a man, they flee and hide from him in
terror, for they are afraid of having husbands. They eat pickled greens,
whose leaves are like wild celery ; the odor is agreeable and the taste
saltish
fully grown. This Is true ! When they see a human being, they are
afraid, and flee to one side. They venerate (or are devoted to) their hus
bands (or mates).
They eat the " salt-plant." Its leaves resemble (those of the plant called
by the Chinese) the SIE-HAO (a species of absinthe or wormwood), but
its odour is more fragrant and its taste is saltish.
310
INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character.
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
^
In the reign of the
652
jjfe
525
LIANG
A bridge, a beam, self-reli
LIANG
^
ant, the principal, the Li
dynasty, under the
653
3*
1061
WU
ang dynasty.
Military, martial, warlike.
emperor
wu-
554
*3j*
880
TI
To judge, a god, a sovereign,
TI
"
Heaven, supreme.
In the years des
ignated by the name
655
~jfc
897
T lEN
Heaven, the sky, a day, sea
TIEN
^
son, celestial,* God.
656
B^
387
KIEN
To examine carefully, an of
KIEN
fice, to look down upon as
(Celestial Protec
a god, to oversee.
tion), in the
657
_f ..
562
LUH
Same as 498.
SIX-
^^
th
558
fi
634
NIEN
" " 11.
YEAR,
559
%
1113
YIU
" " 14.
THERE WERE
560
li*
990
TSIN
To increase, to grow, to at
TSIN-
*""*
tach, to adopt.
661
^r
620
NGAN
Peace, rest, tranquillity,
NGAN
562
A
286
JlN
peaceful, calm, quiet.
Same as 62.
(the name of a place)
MEN
563
iffi
917
TU
To ford, to cross a stream or
CROSSING
f X-*^
sea, to go through, to pass,
the
t>L_*
a ferry-boat.
564
w
160
HAI
The sea, an arm of the ocean,
SEA.
a large river, marine, vast,
great, oceanic.
565
1^
1047
WEI
Same as 50.
BECAUSE OF
1 ^*T
the
666
H
155
FUNG
" " 453.
WIND
667
ffi
817
su
To fell timber, a place, if, as
CAUSING
to, who, what, a cause, a
them to be
final expletive.
568
HI
683
P lAO
A whirlwind, swayed, whirled,
BLOWNABOUT,
/Jy-*A
blown about or rocked by
thev
the wind.
mejr
569
M
60
CHI
Same as 20.
REACHED
670
1095
YIH
" " 194.
A CERTAIN
i
(or the same)
671
ifi
866
TAO
An island out at sea ; a hill
ISLAND
on which birds can alight
(or possibly " sea-
572
&
862
TANG
in crossing seas.
To ascend, to advance, to at
coast "). They
WENT
^*
tain, as soon as, specially,
at the time.
673
p
622
NGAN
A shore, bank, or beach ; the edge
or bank of a stream, end of a
ASHORE
journey.
where there
574
"W
1113
YIU
Same as 14.
WERE
575
A
286
JAN
" " 62.
PEOPLE
s
THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN. 3H
In the year 507 A. D., in the reign of the Learn dynasty, a Chinese ves
sel which was sailing the ocean was driven by a tempest to an unknown
island
During the reign of the emperor Ou-ti, of the Leang dynasty, in the
sixth of the years called tien-kien (507), some Chinese sailors of Tsin-ngan
(now Fou-tcheou-fou [Fo-kien]), who were navigating the sea, were carried
far out of their course by furious winds. They landed upon an island
In the year A. D. 508, in the reign of Wu-ti, of the Liang dynasty, a
man from Tsin-ngan was crossing the sea, when he was caught in a, storm
and driven to a certain island. On going ashore, he found it to be in
habited.
In the reign of the LIANG dynasty, under the emperor WU-TI, in the
sixth year of the period designated by the name TIEN-KIEN, or " Celestial
Protection" (i. e., in 507 A.D.), some men of TSIN-NGAN, who were cross
ing the sea, were driven by the winds to a certain island (or the same
sea-coast). They went ashore and found the inhabitants
312
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
576
JjL
437
Kfl
To dwell, dwellings, residence,
DWELLINGS.
the settled parts.
The
577
I5C
641
NCr
Same as 143.
WOMEN
578
m
956
TSEH
" " 127.
THEN
579
XftJ
297
Jtf
" " 59.
RESEMBLED
^
the
580
III
105
CHUNG
" " 38.
MIDDLE
581
|^|
491
KWOH
" " 5.
KINGDOM
582
A
286
JiN
" " 62.
PEOPLE,
583
ffi
719
RH
" " 68.
BUT
their
584
=3
1083
YEN
A word, sentence,
LANGUAGE
remark, speech,
s
ZST-
talk, reports. Conver-
585
7-:T)L
pq
1126
Ytf
To talk with, to con- sation,
WORDS
verse, to tell, discus-
words, conversa- sion.
tion, discourse,
language.
586
^
717
PUH
Same as 100.
NOT
587
W
425
K O
To be willing, to permit, able
COULD
to do, can, may.
be
588
|P^
193
HIAO
Light, clear, the dawn, intel
UNDERSTOOD.
ligent, easy to perceive, to
make to understand, to
The
comprehend.
589
M
614
NAN
Same as 142.
MALES
590
iw
956
TSEH
" " 127.
THEN
591
A
286
JiN
" " 62.
had
MEN
8
592
jf
735
SHlN
u " 161.
BODIES
593
m
719
RH
" " 68.
BUT
694
m
329
KEU
A dog, petty, contemptible, a
PUPPIES
puppy, a brat.
595
St
876
T EU
The head, the front, the top,
HEADS.
,._
the first, the beginning.
596
35
342
K l
Same as 12.
THEIR
697
SB
771
SHING
A sound, a voice or tone, a
VOICES
note in music, a cry, a wail,
language.
598
$tf
297
JU
Same as 59.
RESEMBLED
those of
599
xC
452
K ftEN
A dog, especially a large
DOGS
one.
THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN. 313
The women resembled those of China, but the men had a figure and a
voice like those of dogs. The Chinese could not understand their lan-
p
guage.
H
Q
of which the women resembled those of China, but of which the men had
dogs heads, and barked like dogs. It was impossible to understand their
language.
The women were like those of China, but their speech was unintelligible.
The men had human bodies, but their heads were those of dogs, and their
voices resembled the barking of dogs.
dwellings. The women resembled those of the Middle Kingdom tChina),
but the words of their language could not be understood. The males
had human bodies, but puppies heads, and their voices resembled those
of dogs
314
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
600
*
140
FEU
The bark of a dog, to bark, to
yelp, to howl, as canine
animals do.
BARKING
(or howling).
601
S
342
K l
Same as 12.
THEIR
602
^
766
SHIH
" " 63.
EATING
603
^
1113
YIU
" " 14.
POSSESSED
604
/h
795
SIAO
" " 233.
SIAO-
605
S
874
TEU
A wooden trencher, a dish,
pulse, legumes, to measure
out, a peck.
TEU
(little beans),
606
3C
342
K l
Same as 12.
THEIR
607
^c
270
I
" " 77.
CLOTHING
608
#n
297
Jff
" " 59.
RESEMBLED
609
610
611
612
713
96
920
1047
PU
CHUH
T U
WEI
" " 74.
To beat down hard, as a
threshing-floor, to ram down
the earth, to make chunam
pavements or adobe walls.
Same as 43.
" " 50.
CLOTH
(of linen or cotton).
BEATING
DOWN
EARTH
they
MADE
613
Hi
969
TS IANG
A wall, built of mud, stone,
or brick.
ADOBE WALLS.
614
s
342
K l
Same as 12.
THEIR
615
2
206
KING
Form, figure, shape, contour,
the body, manner, style, to
appear.
SHAPE
was
616
ffl
245
HWAN
To revolve, to encircle, to en
viron, to go around, a circle,
a ball, round.
ROUND,
and
617
S
342
K l
Same as 12.
THEIR
618
^
225
HU
An inner door, a door having
only one leaf, a hole, an
opening.
DOORS
619
#B
297
Jtf
Same as 59.
RESEMBLED
620
w
875
TEU
A hole, a burrow, a drain,
loss, waste, damage, to dig a
hole.
BURROWS.
THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN.
These people fed upon small beans, and had clothing made of a species
of linen cloth ; and the walls of their houses were constructed of earth,
built up in a circular form.
These islanders fed upon small legumes, and had garments of a species
of cloth, and constructed houses of a round shape from beaten earth, with
a single opening as an entrance.
Their food was small pulse; their garments were like cotton. The
walls of their houses were of adobie, round in shape, and the entrance
like that to a den.
barking (or howling). Among their food was SIAO-TEU (" little beans " or
kernels possibly an attempt to both transcribe and translate the Mexican
word CENTLI 1898 or ciNTLi, 1900 meaning maize). Their clothing resembled
linen (or perhaps cotton) cloth. Beating down the earth, they made adobe
walls of a round shape, the doors of which resembled burrows.
316
AN INGLOKIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
621
622
I
1041
735
WAN
SHAN
Same as 89.
" " 161.
MARKED
BODIES.
623
3t
1041
WAN
Same as 89.
The
MARKED
624
jfp
735
SHlN
" " 161.
BODIES
country, in the
625
yjp\
525
LIANG
" " 552.
LIANG
^
dynasty 8
626
S$
759
SHI
Time, a season, an hour, a
TIME,
j
period, a Chinese hour, a
quarter of a year, while.
627
g|j
1041
WAN
To hear, to learn by report,
WAS RE
hearing, fame, news, to
PORTED
state to, small, a noise.
628
jg
1082
YEN
Same as 188.
TRULY
^
to be
629
>
941
TSAI
" " 27.
SITUATED
*=t^.
from the
630
H?
1057
WO
The Japanese, yielding, trim
JAPANESE
ming.
631
in
491
KWOH
Same as 5.
COUNTRY
632
m
930
TUNG
" " 31.
EAST-
633
^ti
709
POH
" " 108.
NORTH
634
-t
987
TS IH
" " 213.
SEVEN
635
^p
980
TS IEN
" " 468.
THOUSAND
636
ii
1121
Ytf
" " 34.
MORE
637
M
518
LI
" " 35.
LI.
Its
638
A
286
JAN
" " 62.
PEOPLE
fiJHfi
s
639
fl
884
T l
" " 481.
WHOLE
BODIES
640
hf
1113
YIU
" " 14.
HAVE
641
3c
1041
WAN
" " 89.
MARKS
642
Ittt
297
jty
" " 59.
LIKE
643
IP
756
SHEU
A wild animal, a beast, a
WILD BEASTS.
hairy brute, a gamekeeper,
brutal, violent.
644
3S
342
K l
Same as 12.
THEIR
THE LAND OF "MARKED BODIES." 317
Ven-chin is found seven thousand li from Japan, toward the north
east.
This country was made known about 510 or 520 A. D., its inhabitants
having a figure similar to that of animals.
The land of the Wen-schin is distant from Japan in a northeasterly
direction about seven thousand Chinese miles. The bodies of these people
exhibit all kinds of figures, such as those of animals and the like.
The kingdom of Ouen-chin was made known (to the Chinese) under the
dynasty of the Liang (502-587) ; it is situated seven thousand li to the
northeast of Japan. The men have lines (oucn) upon the body (chin) like
(certain) animals.
During the Leang dynasty, the following story was current regarding
Ouen-chin :
They live more than seven thousand li to the northeast of Japan. They
have their bodies tattooed, and marked like those of certain animals.
WAN SHAN, OR PICTURED BODIES.
During the Liang dynasty (A. D. 502-556), it was reported that about
seven thousand li to the northeast of Japan there was a country whose
inhabitants had marks on their bodies, such as are on animals.
MARKED BODIES.
During the reign of the Liang dynasty (502 to 556 A. D.), it was reported
that the country of " Marked Bodies " was situated seven thousand li and
more to the northeast of the country of Japan. Its people have marks
upon their bodies like (those upon ?) wild beasts.
318
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
645
H
628
NGOH
The forehead ; the front, or
FRONT
what is before ; a fixed or
regular number or quan
tity ; what ought to be or
(or forehead)
is settled by law ; incessant.
646
Jt
741
SHANG
To go up, to exalt, upward,
UPON
top, above, facing, high,
ancient, before, superior,
they
honourable.
647
5
1113
YIU
Same as 14.
HAVE
648
_
723
SAN
" " 208.
THREE
649
-<$r
1041
WAN
" " 89.
MARKS.
650
^C
1041
WIN
" " 89.
If the
MARKS
g
are
651
~fc
839
TA
" " 28.
LARGE
-.
and
652
H
70
CHIH
To look ahead, straight, di
STRAIGHT,
rect, true, exactly, a per
pendicular stroke, to
653
%
38
CHE
straighten, to go direct.
Same as 6.
THESE
654
]3"
484
KWEI
" " 166.
NOBLE ;
655
jjr
1041
WAN
" " 89.
but if the
MARKS
are
656
/J>
795
SIAO
" " 233.
SMALL
657
ffl
458
K UH
Crooked, bent, a bend, false,
CROOKED,
tortuous.
658
^
38
CHE
Same as 6.
THESE
659
Hi
979
TSIEN
Light in estimation, mean,
IGNOBLE.
low, ignoble, worthless, to
The
660
920
T U
disesteem, to deprecate.
Same as 43.
LAND
661
^
822
SUH
" " 420.
COMMON
3rL
PEOPLE
662
Ifc
244
HWAN
Joy expressed by the 1 H . h _
are MERRY,
663
554
LOH
voice, jolly, merry, glad, i %
pleased, to rejoice. 1 }L?f "
Pleasure, quiet, to rejoice f "e^ 1 "
in, to take delight in,
and
REJOICE IN
j>
dissipation, music. J merr y-
664
W
1065
WITH
Same as 285.
ARTICLES
665
B
157
FUNG
A large goblet, full cup, abun
ABUNDANCE
dant, plenteous, fertile, pro
666
ffi?
719
RH
lific, plenty, copious.
Same as 68.
ALTHOUGH
667
HS
979
TSIEN
" " 659.
POOR IN
668
tf
207
HING
" " 245.
QUALITY.
TRAVELING
THE LAND OF "MARKED BODIES." 319
They traced different lines upon their faces, the form of which served
to distinguish the chief men of the nation from the common people.
It was, for the rest, a fertile country, where all that is necessary to sus
tain life might be found in abundance.
They have three lines upon the forehead ; the large and straight indi
cate the nobles, the small and crooked the common people of the nation.
Those who have three straight lines upon the forehead are esteemed (or
considered as noble). If the lines are small and crooked, they are scorned.
The inhabitants live joyously. The various products are abundant and
cheap.
The travelers who go through this country
Upon the forehead they have three marks or lines. Those which have
the marks large and straight are chiefs ; those who have only small crooked
marks are of low condition. Their nature is merry. The productions of
their country are abundant and cheap. The traveler
They had three marks on their foreheads. Those whose marks were
large and straight belonged to the honorable class, while the lower sort of
people had small and crooked marks. It is a custom among this people
to collect a great variety of things of a very poor sort to amuse them
selves. Those who travel
In front (or upon their foreheads) they have three marks. If the
marks are large and straight, they indicate that those who have them are
of the higher classes ; but if they are small and crooked, then their pos
sessors are of the lower classes. The people of the land are of a merry
nature, and they rejoice when they have an abundance, even of articles
that are of little value. Traveling
320
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character.
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
669
%T
429
K OH
A guest, a visitor, an ac
VISITORS
quaintance, a customer, a
stranger, an alien, transi
do
tory, foreign.
670
^9
717
PUH
Same as 100.
NOT
671
9
964
TSI
To take in both hands and
PREPARE FOR
/f^t
offer to, to give, to send a
THEIR JOUR
present, to prepare things
NEY
for a journey, to supply.
672
7[*m
524
LIANG
Rations, soldiers pay, food,
FOOD,
f .
provisions, taxes in kind.
and they
673
^tj
1113
YIU
Same as 14.
HAVE
their
674
S
1064
WUH
" " 84.
DWELLING
675
^r
1126
YU
The part of the house covered
SHELTER.
by the eaves, to cover, to
shelter, wide, vast, terri
They are
tory.
676
$ft
1059
WU
Same as 85.
DESTITUTE OF
677
%
77
CH ING
" " 86.
FORTIFICA
TIONS
and
678
^B
492
KWOH
" " 87.
WALLED
31
CITIES.
The
679
njWi
491
KWOII
" " 5.
COUNTRY
1*^1
s
680
jj
1043
WANG
" " 217.
KING
s
681
rJT
817
su
" " 567.
RESIDENCE
682
Ig
437
KU
" " 576
BUILDING
^4r
is
683
PH
767
SHIH
To adorn, to paint, to orna
ADORNED
ment, to gloss over, to pre
tend, to excuse, a facing,
an ornament.
684
\&
278
I
Same as 49.
BY MEANS OF
685
&
398
KIN
" " 329.
GOLD
/in
and
686
ffeR
1101
YIN
" " 330.
SILVER
687
S^
15
CHlN
Whatever is noble, precious,
and
PRECIOUS
or beautiful, rare, excel
lent, to prize.
and
688
JUg
524
LI
Elegant, fair, beautiful, flow
BEAUTIFUL
ery, bright, a pair, to de
pend on, to tie, a beam, a
(objects)
vOirfe.
boat.
689
)p!
292
JAO
Same as 191.
ABOUT
fc
the
690
J5
1064
WUH
" " 84.
DWELCING.
THE LAND OF MARKED BODIES." 321
Their towns or villages were unwalled. The dwelling of the king was
ornamented with precious things.
(Not translated.)
have no need to furnish themselves with provisions. They have houses.
The cities are not walled. The palace of the king is ornamented with
gold and silver. The exterior is all covered (literally, " surrounded ")
with precious substances of a great beauty. The inhabitants
easily finds food [M. d Hervey de Saint-Denys, on page 60 of his " Eth
nography," translates this passage : " The traveler has no nee.d to carry
food with him the country furnishing it to him in abundance "]. The
Ouen-chin have houses, but no walled cities. The habitation of their
king is ornamented with gold, silver, and jewels. Surrounding (this habi
tation)
or peddle do not carry any provision with them.
They have houses of various kinds, but no walled towns. The palace
of the king is adorned with gold, silver, and jewels in a sumptuous man
ner. The buildings are surrounded
visitors do not prepare food for their journeys, and they have the shelter
of their (the inhabitants ) dwellings. They have no fortifications or
walled cities. The residence of the king of the country is adorned with
gold and silver, and precious and beautiful objects about the dwelling.
21
322
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
691
<&
1047
WEI
Same as 50.
They
MAKE
*
a
692
jtfi/f
983
TS IEN
The moat or fosse around a
DITCH
^1
town, a ditch to lead water
of a
in, irrigation, to dig out.
693
Jill
478
KWANG
Broad, extensive, wide, spa
BREADTH
cious, large, ample, stout,
to enlarge.
of
694
,
1095
YIH
Same as 194.
ONE
695
ot
25
CHANG
" " 538.
ROD
**
(of teu Chinese
u^
feet), which is
696
~^~
769
SHIH
" " 65. Real, solid,
FILLED
hard, full, compact, to fill,
to cram.
697
$
278
I
Same as 49.
BY MEANS OF
698
w^
781
SHUI
" " 494. )
WATER-
> Quicksilver.
699
Vt
1101
YIN
" " 330. )
SILVER.
When it
700
m
1124
Ytf
Rain, a shower, to rain.
RAINS,
701
M J
956
TSEH
Same as 127.
THEN
the rain
702
#m
549
HIANG
" " 443.
FLOWS
703
#*
1118
Ytf
" " 177. As, to, to be
UPON
come.
the
704
ic
781
SHUI
Same as 494. )
> Quicksilver.
WATER-
705
^:
1101
YIN
" " 330. )
SILVER
706
;
53
CHI
" " 40. "To pass from
S
one state to another."
707
_t
741
SHANG
Same as 646.
SURFACE.
In their
708
uT
762
SHI
" " 331.
MARKETS
(or bartering) they
709
HFJ
1149
YUNG
To use, to employ, to cause,
USE
useful, by, with, thereby.
710
3^
15
CHAN
Same as 687. "|
PRECIOUS
-^
Jewels,
711
5?
663
PAO
Precious, valuable, [ valu-
GEMS.
Jf^
a gem, a coin, ables.
value, noble. J
THE LAND OF "MARKED BODIES."
A ditch might be seen there which appeared to be filled with quick
silver, and this matter, esteemed in commerce, became liquid and flowing
when it had imbibed water from the rain.
M. de Guignes adds, from another source : " They exposed their con
demned criminals to wild beasts, and they deemed those innocent from
whom the animals took flight."
(Not translated.)
dig a ditch one chang (ten Chinese feet) long, and fill it with quicksilver.
When it rains, the water runs upon the quicksilver. In the markets (in
the place of money) they use the most esteemed fruits. [NOTE. M.
Julien has evidently mistaken the character PAO, " a gem " (see No.
711), for the very similar character SHIH, "fruit" (see No. 696), and
hence has erroneously translated the last word " fruits " instead of
" gems." E. P. V.]
there is a ditch of ten cubits width, which is filled with quicksilver.
When it rains, the water flows upon the quicksilver. The transactions
in their markets are made by means of precious objects.
M. d Hervey de Saint-Denys adds, in his " Ethnography," page 60, the
following, derived from the " NAN-SSE," i. e. : He who has committed a
petty crime is scourged. He who rs accused of a crime deserving death is
thrown to wild beasts to be devoured. If the accusation is calumnious,
the beasts keep at a distance from him, it is said (instead of devouring
him) ; then, after a night (of trial), he is set at liberty.
with a moat, over ten feet broad. When it is filled with quicksilver, and
the rain is allowed to flow off from the quicksilver, the water is then re
garded in the markets as a precious rarity.
They make a ditch of a breadth of one rod (of ten Chinese feet, or
nearly twelve English feet), which is filled with " water-silver " (i. e., ice).
When it rains, then the rain flows upon the surface of the water-silver.
In their traffic they use precious gems (or valuables, as the standard of
value, instead of gold or silver).
324
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
Character.
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
712
^
839
TA
Same as 28.
GREAT
713
H
164
HAN
This character is composed of
"water" and "hardship." The
HAN.
Milky Way. The large branch
of the Yang-tsz River. A Chi
nese; relating to China. The
Han dynasty, which was named
from the Duke of llan.
714
*
839
TA.
Same as 28.
GREAT
715
$g
164
HAN
" " 713.
HAN,
TV
during the
716
jjffi
525
LIANG
" " 552.
LIANG
^
dynasty s
717
H^F
759
SHI
" " 626.
TIME,
was
718
Sj
1041
WAN
< i< 6 27.
REPORTED TO
~**
BE
719
i?!|
1082
YEN
" " 188.
TRULY
720
?E
M-*
941
TQA.I
u 27.
SITUATED
from
721
~y^
1041
WAN
" " 89.
MARKED
722
%
735
SHlN
" " 161.
BODIES
723
HI
491
KWOH
" " 5.
KINGDOM
724
3t
930
TUNG
" " 81.
EAST
725
5
1060
WU
" " 383.
FIVE
726
=p
980
TS IEN
" " 468.
THOUSAND
y~w
and
727
1121
YtJ
" " 34.
MORE
728
a
518
LI
" " 35.
LI.
Its people are
729
^
1059
WU
" " 85.
DESTITUTE OF
730
^
698
PING
" " 98.
MILITARY
731
:fe
489
KWO
A kind of lance, a javelin, a
WEAPQNS,
spear, weapons, war.
and do
732
* / j*
717
PUH
Same as 100.
NOT
733
JAT*
461
KUNG
" " 101.
WAGiE
734
^
45
CHEN
" " 102.
WAR.
735
A
155
FUNG
" " 453.
Their
MANNJERS
THE GREAT HAN COUNTRY. 325
At a distance of five thousand li from Ven-chin, toward the east, Ta-
han was found. The inhabitants of this country had no military weapons ;
their customs
In the times of the Leang dynasty, in the first half of the sixth century
of our era, the Chinese heard of a land which lay five thousand of their
miles easterly from the country of the "Pictured People," and named it
" Ta-han" or " Great China." The people of Ta-han carried no weapons,
and knew nothing of war and strife. In their customs and usages, the
people of Ta-han, on the whole,
The kingdom of Ta-han was made known (to the Chinese) under the
dynasty of the Leang (502-558) ; it is situated about five thousand li to
the east of the kingdom of Oueu-chin. The inhabitants have no arms,
and do not wa";e war. Their manners and their
In the time of the Leang dynasty, it was said of the kingdom of Ta-
han : This kingdom is situated to the east of the country of the Ouen-chin
more than five thousand li. Its people have no arms, and do not wage
war. Their manners
TA HAN, OR GREAT CHINA.
It was reported, during the Liang dynasty, that this kingdom lay more
than five thousand li east of Wan Sha"n. The inhabitants have no sol
diers or weapons, and never carry on war. Their manners and
GREAT HAN.
During the reign of the LIANG dynasty, Great HAN was reported to be
situated five thousand LI or more to the east of the " Marked Bodies "
country. Its people have no military weapons, and do not wage war.
326
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
No.
736
Character.
Page.
Sound.
DEFINITION.
Translation.
^
822
SUH
Same as 420.
RUDENESS
is
737
n
700
PING
Two together, both, with, and,
even with, to compare.
COMPARED
738
n
1125
YO
Same as 369.
WITH
that of the
739
3C
1041
WAN
" " 89.
MARKED
740
%
735
SHAN
" " 161.
BODIES
741
m
491
KWOH
" " 5.
COUNTRY
the
742
m
933
TUNG
" " 372.
SAME,
743
m
719
RH
" " 68.
BUT
their
744
w
1083
YEN
" " 584.
LANGUAGE
8
745
PH
1126
Ytf
" " 585.
WORDS
are
746
m
281
I
To divide, different, foreign,
to oppose, a difference.
DIFFERENT.
THE LAND OF "MARKED BODIES."
In all the foregoing translations the character SHIH (No. 696,
page 322) has been rendered " filled." Its fundamental meaning
seems to be " fruit," from which the secondary signification of
" solid, hard, compact, full, crammed," was derived. When used
as a verb, it seems to me to mean "to solidify, to harden, to pack
together, to cram " ; and, while it is applicable to the process of
filling a confined space with solid substances or articles closely
packed together, I doubt whether it can be used with pro
priety to express the filling of a receptacle with a liquid. It
therefore appears to me that the word, when used as a verb,
should be translated " to harden, to solidify, to make compact,"
rather than " to fill," and that the description of the country
should be read (punctuating after characters Nos. 689, 695, 699,
and 707):
" The residence of the king- of the country is adorned with
gold and silver, and precious and beautiful objects about it.
The dwellings consist of excavations of a breadth of one rod.
These (dwellings) are made solid, hard, compact, or impervious
THE GREAT HAN COUNTRY. 327
DE
GUIGNE8.
were essentially the same as those
had a different language.
of the people of Ven-chin, but they
NEU
MANN.
resembled the "Pictured People."
quite different languages.
The two nations, however, spoke
JULIEN.
customs are the same as those of the kingdom of Ouen-chin, but the Ian-
guage is different.
D lIEKVET.
are the same as those of the Ouen-chin, but their language is different.
WILL
IAMS.
customs are the same as those of the Wan Shan, but their speech
differs.
VINING.
The rudeness of their customs is
country of " Marked Bodies," but
ferent.
the same as that of the people of the
the words of their language are dif-
by the use of water-silver [i. e., ice]. When it rains, then the
rain flows off from the surface of the water-silver."
I should understand that Hwui Shan meant to say that the
walls and roof of the dwellings were made solid and impervious
to either air or water by means of ice. The houses of this re
gion of the world are described by modern travelers as consist
ing of an excavation, with low, earthen side-walls, and a roof of
earth thrown over beams and branches used for its support.
If, now, water was poured over these walls and the roof, it
would soon freeze, and render them compact and impervious to
rain, so that "when it rained, then the rain would flow off over
the surface of the ice."
This translation suggested itself to me at so late a date that
I have not had time to consult competent Chinese scholars as to
the possibility of so rendering the passage. I have, therefore,
followed former translators in the version which is discussed in
Chapter XIX. I believe, however, that the Chinese text is sus
ceptible of the rendition given above, and that such a ver
sion removes all difficulties in the account, and brings HwuL
Shan s description into strict conformity with the truth.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE LENGTH OF THE LI. THE NAME "GREAT HAN."
The direction from Japan in which Fu-sang lay Variations in standards of meas
ure The Chinese li about one third of a mile in length The greater length
of the Japanese li Possibility of still another standard in Corea Communi
cation between Corea and Japan and between Corea and China Chinese knowl
edge of the route to Japan derived from Corean sources Fu-sang farther from
" Great Han " than Japan is Distances stated with at least approximate accu
racyThe country of " Marked Bodies " identified as the Aleutian Islands Al
lowances for changes and misunderstandings Caesar s account of the inhabit
ants of Britain Maundevile s repetition of the story " Great Han " identified
as Alaska Land found in the regions indicated by Hwui Shan Meaning
of the character " Han " Nature of the Chinese characters The manner in
which they are compounded of two parts Some characters in which the
meaning is affected by that of both parts Application of the character " Han "
to a swirling stream and to the Milky Way Hence its possible meaning of
" dashing water " Meaning of the name " Alaska " The breakers of the
Aleutian Islands The population A philological myth The hypotheses
upon one of which Hwui Shan s story must be explained The explanation
should be consistent.
HAVING thus given the Chinese accounts of the land of Fu-
sang, and of the countries found upon the route from China to
that region, together with the arguments of former writers as to
their location, let us now examine the question for ourselves.
Fortunately, there is no doubt as to the first of the countries
that is named as lying upon the route. Long before the days of
Hwui Shan, the Chinese were acquainted with this kingdom of
Japan, and, when it was mentioned by him, there was no neces
sity for describing its location.
At a distance of over seven thousand li to the northeast of
Japan, it was stated that the country of " Marked Bodies " was
to be found. More than five thousand li to the east of this the
land of "Great Han" was situated, and over twenty thousand
THE LENGTH OF THE LI. 329
li easterly from this last-named country lay the land of Fu-sang.
As it is expressly stated, however, that Fu-sang lay to the east of
China, and as the greater part of the route from Japan to Great
Han was in a northeasterly direction, it is evident that Fu-sang
must have lain farther south than Great Han, and that its true
bearing from this last country was southeasterly rather than
east.
With these explicit statements as to the direction of the
route, there would be no difficulty in laying it down upon a chart,
provided that we knew the exact length of the li.
It is the case, however, that nearly all standards of measure
were more or less indefinite when they were first established, and
that, even after having been fixed with some degree of precis
ion, they have been subject to change in the course of cent
uries. The chief difficulty is found in the earlier stages of civili
zation, however. Crawfurd, for instance, in speaking of the
Javanese, says that, 1138 in countries where there are no roads,
where the principal conveyance is by water, and where the paths
are circuitous and little frequented, it is not reasonable to sup
pose that any determinate measure of considerable distances
should exist. Such contrivances, although familiar to Europeans,
are the result of much improvement and civilization. The In
dian islanders, in traveling, speak of a day s journey, which, with
tolerable uniformity, may be reckoned at twenty British miles.
In another place he states that, 1131 from their very nature,
the measures of grain among the Javanese are indefinite, and
hardly insure greater accuracy than we imply ourselves when
we speak of sheaves of corn. In the same district they are tol
erably regular in the quantity of grain and straw they contain ;
but such is the wide difference between the different districts or
provinces that the same nominal measure is often twice nay,
three times as large in one as in another.
This difficulty usually ceases to exist, however, by the time
that the state of civilization is reached which the Chinese had
attained in the fifth century. Long before that time their stand
ards of measure had apparently become so well established that
they have remained to the present time, with but few other
changes than those recently made by the Europeans.
Bretschneider says : " Having often had the opportunity of
comparing distances given by the Chinese with our measures, I
330 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
came to the conclusion that we make no considerable error in tak
ing three Chinese li of our days as. equal to one English mile; and
it can be proved, from ancient itineraries of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, that the length of the Chinese li has not
changed since that time."
The " Chinese Repository " 1016 says that there is great difficulty
in estimating the Chinese li, or mile. It appears, by the " His
tory of the Ming Dynasty," that the measures have varied
under the different dynasties. The Chinese have never been
able to measure distances by astronomical observations. It may
be doubted whether they have ever taken the trouble to measure
roads. On those which are prepared for the emperor, and at great
expense, the number of li is written up all along the road ; but it
is a fact that those li are not all of equal length. The traveler,
when inquiring the distance from one place to another, is told so
many li, and it is often added, " They are great or small." It is
admitted that in the north the li are longer than in the south. It
would appear that popular tradition has determined their number.
A geography, printed by order of government, states that from
Canton to Pekin the distance is 8,185 li. As the positions of Can
ton and Pekin are known, it seems that they might serve to esti
mate the Chinese lij but there is no doubt that the windings of
the road are included in those 8,185 li. Now, the routes in China,
both by land and water, wind without end ; so that there seems
no way of estimating the li with precision. However, it is
generally believed that there are two hundred li to a degree of
latitude.
In another place it states that 971 the li, or mile, is an uncer
tain measure. Its common measure is 31 6^ fathoms, or 1,897
English feet, and it is the usual term in which length is estimat
ed. The Chinese reckon 192J li for a degree of latitude and
longitude (for a degree of a great circle say, 65 miles this is
1,918 feet) ; but the Jesuits divided the degree into 250 li, each
li being 1,826 English feet, or the tenth part of a French league,
which is the established measure at present. A li, according to
this measurement, is a little more than one third of an English
mile.
A long article on the true length of this standard of meas
ure 1036 is also given, in which the same general conclusion is
reached that the li is about one third of an English mile.
THE LENGTH OF THE LI. 331
Remusat, in a note upon " The Pilgrimage of Fa Hian," 15WT
makes the statement that the length of the sheu, or cubit, is
variously estimated : sometimes at two chih (0-610 metres) ;
sometimes at one chih and two tsun (0*4575 metres). Four sheu
make one hung (bow), and three hundred hung make one li.
According to this calculation the li would be either 549 or 732
metres.
Prinsep says that S095 a li is not quite one third of a mile ; for
two hundred li equal a degree of latitude, or some sixty-nine
statute miles.
Professor Williams states that 2509 a discrepancy exists regard
ing its precise length, owing to the various measures of the
chih. It is usually reckoned at 1,825*55 feet, English, which
gives 2*89 li to an English mile. This is based on the esti
mate of 200 li to a degree ; but there were only 180 li to a de
gree before Europeans came, which increases its length to 2, 028 39
feet, or 2 6 li to a mile, which is nearer the common estimate ;
and Summers 2415 says that the li, or Chinese mile = 316^ fath
oms = 1,897-J- English feet : 192 li = I degree of latitude or
longitude, according to the Chinese ; but the Jesuits make 250
li = 1 degree, each li being = 1,826 feet, or ^ of a French league.
It will not be necessary to quote other authorities upon the
subject ; but, at the risk of being tedious, it seemed best to give
the foregoing, for the purpose of showing that, after all that has
been said as to the uncertainty as to the true length of the li t
there is really but little disagreement as to what that length
was before the coming of the Jesuits, and that if it be estimated
at one third of an English mile the result will be very close to
the truth.
The Chinese li is sometimes stated to be equal to three hun
dred and sixty (double) paces, and a comparison of this number
with the one thousand (double) paces which was the original basis
for the length of our mile, gives substantially the same result.
Attention should be called, however, to the fact that, just as
there is a great difference between the lengths of the English
mile, the German mile, and the nautical or geographical mile, so
there is a great difference between the standards of distance
used in Japan and China, respectively, and there is some reason
for thinking that still another standard may have been used in
Corea.
332 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
The Japanese and Coreans, who do not use the letter "/,"
substitute " r " for it, and pronounce the word " ri" instead of
" li" The same character is used by them when writing the
word, however, that is used by the Chinese for the " li. n
Klaproth 1651 says that the ri of Corea, which is the same as
that of the Mantchoos in China, contains only three and a half
Japanese matsis, and, as the Japanese ri contains thirty-six
matsis, ten Corean ri* are hardly equal to one Japanese ri.
This last standard is equal to about three English miles ; and
if Klaproth is correct in his statement that the Corean ri or li is
the same as the Chinese, its length is about one third of a mile.
Oppert, in one place, 1999 says, however, that thirty Corean li equal
three English miles ; and if his statement can be relied upon, this
reduces the Corean li to about one tenth of a mile.
About a century after the visit of Hwui Shan, Li Yen-shau,
who copied the official records of the story of the Buddhist priest,
also gave an account of the country of Japan, in which (or in
the copies which the Chinese now have) the distance from the
port of Lo-lang, in western Corea, to Japan, is stated to be
twelve thousand li. As the actual distance to the capital of
Japan is not more than fifteen hundred miles, it follows either
that there is a serious error in his account, or else that the li used
as a standard must be only about one tenth of a mile in length.
This statement of Li Yen-shau s has been the cause of nearly
all the misunderstanding as to the true position of the coun
tries described by Hwui Shan. No other instance seems to occur
in the Chinese records in which the length of the li varies mate
rially from one third of a mile ; yet from this single instance, of
a standard apparently only one tenth of a mile in length, used
by a writer who lived long after the days of Hwui Shan, his
whole story has been discredited, and an effort has been made to
show that the distance which he described as twenty thousand li
was in reality only the trifling distance between the island of
Saghalien and Japan.
It will be shown in one of the following chapters that the
chief early intercourse of the Japanese was with the people of
Corea. These in turn were frequently visited by the Chinese.
Klaproth 1656 says that there was constant communication between
the two countries, and that Corea paid tribute to China through
out the fifth and sixth centuries. Their histories also show that
THE LENGTH OF THE LI. 333
when the Chinese visited Japan it was by way of Corea. It
is therefore evident that the Chinese relied upon the Coreans for
information as to the route to Japan, and for assistance in reach
ing that country, and nothing can be more probable than that
Li Yen-shau, when gathering information as to Japan, obtained
much of it, either directly or indirectly, from Corean sources.
Whether it is a fact that the Corean li is, or ever has been, only
one tenth of a mile in length, and that the Chinese borrowed the
description of the route given by the Coreans, without making the
correction for the difference in the length of the li used in the
two countries, or whether, as is indicated by a discovery of M. de
Rosny, mentioned in a note given in Chapter XXXIV, a seri
ous error was made by the Chinese in copying from their early
records, by which they doubled the distance, must be left to the
decision of competent scholars ; but that the true explanation of
the great distance that is named will be found either in one
cause or the other, there seems little room to doubt.
Whatever the cause of the error in the description of the
route to Japan may have been, Hwui Shan, when describing the
length of his journey, to the representative of the Chinese em
peror, could not have meant by the word li anything else than
the distance then called a li by the Chinese that is to say, about
one third of an English mile. He certainly can not be blamed
for his failure to foresee that a century after his death his story
would be confused with another account, in which there would
be either a serious error or else in which another standard of
distance would be used.
Those who have placed Fu-sang in Japan have either ignored
so many difficulties, or disposed of them so satisfactorily to them
selves, that the trifling discrepancy that, according to their views,
the distance from Japan to Great Han was twelve thousand li
(of a length never used elsewhere in Chinese accounts), while
the distance from Great Han to Japan (Fu-sang) was twenty
thousand li, seems unworthy of notice.
In addition to the difficulty which a number of former in
vestigators have found in determining, approximately, the
length of the li, the second objection is raised that Hwui
Shan, or the mythical Chinese voyagers who have been sup
posed to have visited the country of Marked Bodies and Great
Han, could not have had any means of determining with, accu-
334: AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
racy the distances which they traveled or the direction of their
voyage.
Admitting that the distances and the direction may not be
accurately given, it certainly does not follow that they are not
a reasonable approximation to the truth. Surely there was no
greater difficulty in those days than there is now in making a
rough estimate, with reasonable accuracy, as to the distance
traveled and the general direction of the course. Of all the
men who sail the seas, it is doubtful whether there is one who,
if he had pursued a southerly course of a thousand or twelve
hundred miles, could be so egregiously mistaken as to believe
that he had sailed seven thousand miles easterly ; and if it be as
sumed that Hwui Shan attempted to describe his journey in
good faith, it certainly ought not to be taken for granted that
he was liable to make so gross a blunder.
Klaproth says 1659 that the navigators who visit the Japanese
Islands estimate even the distances which they have themselves
traveled only approximately. It is evident, however, that they
do estimate them approximately, and would not be likely to be
guilty of such stupidity as calling south, east, and thinking one
mile to be seven.
The " Chinese Repository," 101T when referring to distances
reckoned in " days journeys," says that " the day s journey is
usually considered one hundred tt, a little more or less " ; and it
is not improbable that the Buddhist traveler, when journeying
along the shore or paddling from island to island, estimated each
day s journey as about this distance. However this may have
been, there can be no question that a man possessed of courage,
persistency, and hardihood sufficient to carry him through a
journey of forty-one years, in countries previously unknown,
can hardly have lacked the amount of knowledge necessary
to enable him to distinguish between east and south, or be
tween one mile and half a dozen. When he says that the
country of Marked Bodies lies twenty-three hundred miles
northeasterly from Japan, we may grant that this is a mere
estimate. Possibly the distance was only two thousand miles,
or it may have been twenty-five hundred ; the course, also, may
have varied a few degrees from northeast ; but if we are to as
sume that he may have meant a country less than five hundred
miles from Japan, and lying directly north, we assume that he
THE LENGTH OF THE LI. 335
was either grossly ignorant or thoroughly dishonest, and in either
case it would be useless to examine his story further.
Let us for the present, however, proceed upon the assump
tion that he may have been honest and intelligent, as he must
have been brave and resolute, and see whether his story is or is
not true.
If we sail from Japan, in a northeasterly direction, for a
distance of some two thousand miles, where do we find our
selves ? Not in the island of Jesso, but among the Aleutian
Islands. Do these islands or their people correspond with Hwui
Shan s account ? If they do, we have a strong proof that his
story is true. If they do not, it is useless to look elsewhere for
the country described by him, and his story may be dismissed
as false.
Allowance must be made, however, for the changes that
have taken place in the fourteen centuries that have elapsed
since the time of his travels. It could not be expected that all
the customs mentioned by him should have come down to the
present day, or that those which still exist should be found
identical in all respects with the form which they had so long
ago. It is also to be presumed that those which have survived
will be found, in many cases, scattered among tribes now living
at some distance from the region inhabited by their ancestors
fourteen hundred years ago.
Caesar s account of the people of Gaul and Britain antedates
by only some four centuries Hwui Shan s story of the lands
visited by him ; but if we had no other means of proving that
Caesar actually visited western Europe and England than a com
parison of his account with existing customs, his credit would
suffer as has our Buddhist priest s.
When speaking of the people of Britain, he says " that they
do not consider it right to eat the hare, the domestic fowl, or the
goose, and adds that 917 " most of the inhabitants of the interior
do not sow grain, but live upon milk and flesh, and clothe them
selves in skins. All the men of this country dye themselves with
woad, which gives them a bluish colour, and makes their appear
ance in battle more terrible. Their hair is long, and all parts
of their body are shaved except the head and upper lip. Ten
or twelve have their wives in common, usually brothers with
their brothers, or parents with their children ; but the offspring
336 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
are considered the children of him by whom the maiden was
first espoused."
It is a curious illustration of the persistency with which his
torical tales survive, and of the fact that even the most incredible
are frequently founded upon some warped or perverted truth,
and hence are deserving of study in order that the truth which
they contain may be separated from the error, that Sir John
Maundevile, returning to England some twelve centuries later,
with his mind filled with marvels not only those which he had
himself seen in the Orient, but also all that he had been able
to gather from others regarding the countries still farther east
should have brought back to Britain the story which had
started from it so long before. The tale had survived, but the
location of the land had been forgotten, and hence it was sup
posed to be situated in the distant East.
leas ( ( B e y 0n( i e that Yle, is another Yle, where is gret mul-
tytude of folk ; and thei wole not for nothing eten Flesche of
Hares, ne of Hennes, ne of Gees ; and yit thei bryngen forthe y
now, for to seen hem and to beholden hem only. But thei eten
Flesche of alle other Bestes, and drynken Mylk. In that Centre
thei taken hire Doughtres and hire Sustres to here Wyfes, and
hire other Kynneswomen. And gif there ben 10 or 12 men or
mo dwellynge in an Hows, the Wif of everyche of hem schalle
ben comoun to hem alle, that duellen in that Hows."
Returning again to the account of the Buddhist traveler, it
will be seen that he says that, about sixteen hundred miles east
of the land of "Marked Bodies," there lay a country called
GREAT HA^. At about that distance east of the center of the
Aleutian Islands, Alaska is found ; and if his story is true, Great
Han was located in or near Alaska.
It should first be noticed that here are two instances in which
land exists in the Pacific Ocean, just where he says it is to
be found. A glance at a map will show how unlikely it is that
he would be right as to the existence of land in a certain direc
tion, and at a certain distance, if his story were but a figment of
the imagination. With all the islands in the Pacific Ocean to
choose from, those who attempt to locate Fu-sang. elsewhere
than in America, can do so only by ignoring both the distance
and the direction. If any other U than the true one is used,
and if the bearings mentioned by Hwui Shan are preserved, the
THE NAME "GREAT HAN." 337
end of the route will fall into the fathomless depths of the Pa
cific.
The name of the easternmost of the two countries is given as
fa TA (Great), g|, HAN. The last character being made up of
two parts, meaning respectively " water " and " hardship."
Instead of being composed, 2390 as is frequently supposed, of a
vast number of arbitrary and complicated symbols, the charac
ters of the Chinese language are compounded of very simple
elements, which carry along with them into their derivatives
something of their own meaning, while each generally preserves
its figure unchanged. These elementary characters supply the
place of an alphabet ; but it is an alphabet of ideas, not of
sounds.
The earliest Chinese characters were evidently pictorial ; but
pictures could not be made which would clearly express all ideas.
Among the means resorted to, for obtaining characters to express
conceptions that could not be indicated by a simple sketch, was
that of combining two familiar pictures to give rise to a new
idea, sometimes of an abstraction, sometimes the name of a
real thing. 2392 For instance, a man with a large eye represents
" seeing " ; two men, " to follow " ; three men, " many " ; 1568
two men on the ground, " sitting."
All other means failing, the present great mass of characters
was formed by a principle from which the class is called "pho
netic"; because in the characters classed under it, while one
part (called the " radical ") preserves its meaning, the other part
(called the " phonetic " or " primitive ") is used to give its own
sound to the whole figure. This part does sometimes, however,
8393 convey also its symbolic meaning as well as its sound.
As a specimen of the influence which the primitive frequently
exerts upon the meaning of the compound, the following is
given : 1027
jg, TI, means low or mean ; when compounded with the radi
cal " man," it means a low man, a base fellow, a vagabond ; when
with " heart," it means a sordid mind, meanness ; when with
"hand," it .means underhanded, crafty; when with a "tree,"
the roots ; when with a "stone," the foundation ; when with a
" horn," to put the horn down, to gore ; when with an " eye," to
look down, humble, condescending ; when with a "boat," per
haps the bottom of the boat or rudder ; when with " words,"
22
338 AN INGLOEIOUS COLUMBUS.
low words, vulgarisms, slander ; and when with " grain," ripe
grain that bends down.
G. T. Lay, in an article in the " Chinese Repository," insists
upon the importance of recognizing the influence of the " pho
netic" upon the meaning of the character, in the following
words : 104S
" The Chinese primitives or vocal portions may not be ex
changed (for others of the same sound) without producing the
greatest change in the sense. Every student of a few months
standing knows that you can not substitute one primitive for an
other without producing a different sense ; with this fact before
him, will any man have the hardihood to tell me that the primi
tive in composition serves only for the purposes of sound ? We
acknowledge that Chinese sometimes exchange these primitives
in their books, and more frequently in their petitions, letters, and
private documents, and thus occasion doubt and difficulties which
might have been avoided. The number of substitutions is al
ways in the direct ratio of the composer s ignorance of the written
language. Many a time has the foreigner mortified the pride of
the native by showing him that he had written the wrong primi
tive, and perhaps not less frequently has the native repaid the
little affront by pointing out a similar mistake which the foreign
er had made. This is an every-day proof that the Chinese rec
ognize the principle that the primitive has a meaning as well as
a sound."
There are at least five or six hundred common Chinese char
acters in which it is universally admitted that the meaning of
the so called "phonetic" is preserved in the compound char
acter.
Let us see whether this character HAN should not be in
cluded in this class. Professor Williams defines the word as
follows : " The Milky Way ; the large branch of the Yang-tsz
River ; a Chinese ; relating to China ; the Han dynasty, which
was named from the duke of Han."
Its most common use at present is in the meaning " Chinese."
The " Land of Han " is China, 1363 and hence the term " Great Han "
has been considered to mean either " Great China," or a land
inhabited by " Great Chinese." It is evident, however, that
the term " Han " was first applied to the Chinese as subjects
of the Han dynasty, 1363 which took its name from its founder,
THE NAME "GREAT HAN." 339
the duke of Han. He in turn derived his title, like many
English noblemen, from the small district over which he first
ruled, and this district took its name from the river Han, upon
the bank of which it was situated.
If we now inquire how the character in question first came
to be applied to the river Han, and if we bear in mind that the
character is composed of two parts, meaning "water" and "hard
ship," it is readily seen that it may have been adopted as the
name of the river to express the idea that its leading character
istic was that its " water " could be navigated only with " diffi
culty," if at all. The Chinese " Historical Classic," the SHU
KING, as translated by Mr. James Legge, mentions " the Han
with its eddying movements," 1708 and Professor Williams refers
to 2533 the swirling waters of the river Han, thus showing that
the two parts of the character correctly describe the stream.
The character Han also means the Milky Way. 2628 And here
again the idea of foaming, dashing water is apparent ; the Milky
Way resembling a foaming stream among the stars.
When Hwui Shan reached the Aleutian Islands, or Alaska,
what name did he find the country to bear ? what was the mean
ing of the name, and how would he probably attempt to tran
scribe it in Chinese characters ?
It is stated in the " Chinese Repository " that 1007 the etymolo
gies of the Chinese are sometimes deserving of notice as an index
of their habits of thought, and modes of combining relative
ideas in order to embody a new one ; and Professor Williams says
that 2494 scholars are fastidious as to the introduction of merely
phonetic words into their compositions, and prefer to translate
everything that they can.
Hence, the probability is strong that Hwui Shan would at
tempt both to translate the name, and to adopt a character which
would to some extent describe the country.
Dall gives the following statement as to the name applied by
the natives of the Aleutian Islands to the adjoining continent,
and as to its meaning : 1168
"Alaska. This name, now applied to the whole of our new
territory, is a corruption, very far removed from the original
word. When the early Russian traders first reached Unalashka,
they were told by the natives that to the eastward was a great
land or territory. This was called by the natives Al-ak-shak, or
34:0 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Al-ay-ek-sa. The island now known as Unalashka was called
Na-gun-alayeksa, or the land near Alayeksa. From Alayeksa
the name became, by corruption, Alaksa, Alashka, Aliaska, and
finally Alaska. . . . We have then Alaska for the territory, Ali
aska for the peninsula, and Unalashka for the island ; all derived
from the same root, meaning a GKEAT country or continent"
Pinart also states that among the Aleuts 2039 a tradition of the
people is mentioned, in which they say that, before coming to
their present home, they lived " in a great land, which was also
called Alidkhskha that is to say, * a continent. "
Coxe also mentions the acquaintance of the Aleutian Island
ers with the size of the adjoining continent, in the following
words : 1123
" Glottof did not land till he reached the last and most east
ward of these islands, called by the inhabitants Kadiak ; from
which the natives said it was not far to the coast of a wide, ex
tended, woody continent."
Hence, when Hwui Shan was in the Aleutian Islands, he, too,
probably heard of the " great land," " the continent," to the
east ; and this he indicated by the character TA, meaning "great."
That the character is used with this meaning, and not as a
mere phonetic, is quite conclusively proven by the fact that in
the twenty-eight cases in which it is used by Hiuen Ts ang, 1616 in
the names of towns or districts of India, it is invariably a trans
lation of the Sanskrit " Maha," having the same meaning, while
m the twenty cases in which the syllable " TA " is transliterated,
some other character is always used. 1617
While it is possible that he may have meant "China" by the
character " Han," thus intending to call the continent " Great
China," and so indicate the fact that it was larger than China, it
seems more probable that he meant to go back to the original
meaning of the character, and thus indicate that it was a great
country of dashing icater, or a great country reached with diffi
culty by water.
This would be very appropriate, as Langsdorff says that 1699
the current, or the influence of the ebb and flood tides, is very vio
lent and irregular here between the numerous islands, and needs
to be carefully watched by every sailor. While the Encyclo
paedia Britannica states that 1292 the Aleutian Islands are bare and
mountainous, and their coasts are rocky and surrounded by
THE NAME " GREAT HAN." 341
breakers, by which the approach is rendered exceedingly dan
gerous.
Although the population of the Aleutian Islands is now
very small, the islands were once thickly peopled. Langsdorff
says, for instance, that 170 about 1770 the population of Kadiak
and the neighbouring islands was estimated at fifty thousand
people.
One curious indication of the location of the country named
"Han " is found in the Chinese character ^|, of which the Hok-
kee n pronunciation is CHAY. This is defined as 1864 "driftwood
floating down a river, upon which they fable that genii ride in
order to float into the Milky Way, or Heavenly River, and thus get
among the stars." Here is evidently a myth founded upon the
character " Han," which was applied by Hwui Shan to a country
far to the northeast, upon which driftwood floating in the Kuro-
siwo, or gulf-stream of the Pacific, would ultimately be thrown.
After the existence of this country was partly forgotten, some
surviving statement, that the driftwood floated to " Han," was,
on account of the fact that one of the meanings of the character
is "the Milky Way," supposed to mean that the driftwood
floated to this Heavenly River.
Before taking up the account of the lands of "Marked
Bodies " and " Great Han," and examining them clause by clause
to see whether similar accounts are given by other travelers to
the same region, attention should be called to the fact that a
thorough examination of Hwui Shan s story should lead to some
one of the following conclusions :
First. His story is entirely false ; nothing more than an
effort of the imagination of a " lying Buddhist priest."
Second. He himself had not visited the countries which he
described, but he had heard some account of them from others
who had visited them, and he attempted to repeat their stories.
Third. He had actually visited the countries described by
him, and he attempted to give a truthful account of his travels.
In deference to the views of those scholars who see in every
nursery tale and every history a myth of the rising sun, a fourth
theory might be added : that the story of Fu-sang is a " sun-
myth." This Procrustean theory is so all-embracing applying
with equal force to " Sing a Song of Sixpence " and the Iliad ; to
the history of Jacob and the life of either of the Napoleons
342 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
that the various arguments used to adapt it to any tale what
ever might be applied (even with special force, as to some points)
to the history of Fu-sang, " the Land of the Rising Sun." A
sprinkling of Sanskrit, and a reference to the clouds surrounding
the rising sun as " cows " or " herds," would make the argument
complete.
As it is reasonable to presume, however, that not more than
nine tenths of early history is a variation upon the sun-myth
theme, let us assume that the story of Fu-sang is among the
few early tales that have some claim to other foundation.
In such case it is but reasonable to ask that the story as a
whole should lead to some one of the three conclusions before
mentioned. A portion of the story should not be accounted for
by one hypothesis, and another of its statements by a different
theory, wholly inconsistent with the first. It is not proper, for
instance, to arrive at the conclusion that there was no such land
as Fu-sang, and then in the next sentence attempt to prove that
there was a land of Fu-sang, but that it was located in Japan.
The author will attempt to show that the third theory is the
true one. It is not necessary to remove every objection ; some
difficulties will unquestionably remain unsolved. But the true
point to be decided is as to which one of the possible theories
offers the fewest and least serious perplexities. If it be shown
that Hwui Shan describes a particular region in America, with
its characteristic plants, and mentions peculiar customs of its
people, such as are not known to have ever existed elsewhere ;
if truth after truth is told, of a nature such as could never have
been imagined if America had not actually been visited a
point will soon be reached when even explanations that would
otherwise seem improbable may be accepted in regard to some
few difficulties that present no other solution.
If it requires infinitely more explanation to account for Hwui
Shan s story upon either the first or second theory than it does
upon the third, then the third may be considered as established
with reasonable certainty. In the following pages an effort will
be made to show that this is the case.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE CUSTOMS OF THE LAND OF " MAKKED BODIES," AND OF
GEEAT HAN.
Necessity of examining the account in detail The resemblance of the people of the
two countries Their customs Their languages The marks upon their bodies
Tattooing with three lines Existence of the custom in America The marks
a sign of the position of their bearer The merry nature of the people Their
feasts and dances Their hospitality Hospitality of the American Indians
The.Iroquois The Esquimaux The Aleutians Absence of fortifications
The chiefs The decoration of their dwellings The Haidah Indians Other
Indian tribes from British Columbia to Alaska Esquimaux fondness for
ornamentation Ditches The dwellings of the people Water-silver Proof
that ice is meant Quicksilver No country ever had ditches filled with
quicksilver The traffic by means of precious gems No money used Value
of amber The peaceful nature of the people The punishment of crime
Summary of facts mentioned by Hwui Shan Application of the doctrine of
chances The two countries bearing the name of Great Han.
MARSDEN, in his edition of the " Travels of Marco Polo," 1739
states that while much ingenuity has been shown, on the one
side, in pointing out what seem to be improbabilities, defects,
and inconsistencies in his work, and, on the other, in defend
ing it upon general principles, little has hitherto been done, by
editors or commentators, toward an examination of the particu
lar details, with the view of bringing them to the test of mod
ern observation ; and yet it is upon the unexceptionable evi
dence of their consistency with known facts, rather than the
strength of any argument, that the reader is expected to ground
his confidence in the intentional veracity of the author.
This criticism seems equally true in regard to the Chinese
descriptions of eastern lands ; and this chapter will therefore be
devoted to an examination of "the particular details" of the
account of the Countries of Marked Bodies and Great Han, in
order to show " their consistency with known facts."
344: AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
I. THE RUDENESS OF THE CUSTOMS (of the people of the
two countries) is THE SAME, BUT THEIR LANGUAGES ARE DIF
FERENT.
Latham says 170T that the inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands,
properly so called (i. e., of Behring s and Copper Islands), of the
Rat Islands, of the Andreanowsky Islands, of the Prebulowiini
Islands, of Unalaska, and of Kadiak, are all Esquimaux ; a fact
which numerous vocabularies give us full means of ascertaining.
In respect to the difference of speech between particular islands,
there is external evidence that it is considerable. The people of
Atka have a difficulty in understanding the Unalaskans, and
vice versa. Again, the Kadiak vocabulary, as found in Lisiansky,
differs very notably from the Unalaskan of the same author ;
indeed, it may be doubted whether the two languages are mu
tually intelligible.
Dall states that 1154 the language of the western Innuit differs
totally in the vocabulary from that of any Indian tribes, while
there are many words common to the Greenlanders and the
Behring s Strait Esquimaux. On the other hand, the words of the
language of the Aleutians are in very large part quite dissimilar
to those of the most adjacent Innuit. There is more difference
in this respect between them and the Innuit of Kadiak than ex
ists between the Greenlandic and Behring s Strait dialect. Never
theless, the Aleutian language is clearly of the Innuit type, and
is only entitled to rank as a branch of the Orarian stock.
While Langsdorff repeats, almost verbatim, the words of
Hwui Shan : "The inhabitants of Kadiak are but slightly dif
ferent from those of Unalaska. In general the people are some
what taller and more robust, but otherwise they are undeniably
of the same race. The language is different. The customs, man
ners, methods of living, means of sustenance, and the clothing,
however, are almost exactly the same." 1709
il. THE PEOPLE HAVE MARKS UPON THEIR BODIES LIKE
WILD BEASTS.
It does not seem quite certain whether Hwui Shan meant
that the marks were like those upon animals, or that they were
pictures of wild beasts, or merely that the people resembled
animals from the fact that their bodies were marked.
If it is meant that the marks were representations of wild
beasts, the Haidah Indians, of Queen Charlotte s Islands, who
CUSTOMS OF THE LAND OF " MARKED BODIES." 345
live not far from Alaska, and who may have moved from a still
nearer neighbourhood during the last fourteen centuries, ex
actly meet the description. They seem to be intruders in their
present location, as Swan states that there is a 24 24 marked differ
ence in their manners and customs from the Indians of the main
land. He adds that a singular 2423 custom which prevails among
them, and which seems to be a distinctive feature of this tribe, is
that of tattooing their bodies with various designs, all of which
are fanciful representations of animals, birds, or fishes, either an
attempt to represent in a grotesque form those which are known
and commonly seen, or their mythological and legendary crea
tions ; he says also that 2422 each of the people will have on some
part of the body a representation in tattooing of the particular
figure which constitutes his or her family name or connection.
The chief will have all the figures tattooed on his body to show
his connection with the whole.
If it is merely meant, however, that the people resembled
wild beasts rather than men, because their bodies were marked
or tattooed, it is not necessary to look farther than to the tribes
now living in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands.
Bancroft says that, 101 were these people (the Esquimaux)
satisfied with what nature has done for them, they would be
passably good-looking. But with them, as with all mankind,
no matter how high the degree of intelligence and refinement
attained, art must be applied to improve upon nature. The few
finishing-touches neglected by the Creator, man is ever ready to
supply. Arrived at the age of puberty, the great work of im
provement begins. Up to this time the skin has been kept satu
rated in grease and filth, until the natural colour is lost, and
until the complexion is brought down to the Esquimaux standard.
Now pigments of various dyes are applied, both painted out
wardly and pricked into the skin.
John Ledyard, who visited Unalaska with Captain Cook,
stated that, among the people whom they saw, 108 both sexes
had undergone the usual face painting and ornamentation ; and
Langsdorff mentions that 1698 tattooing was very customary in
former times in the Aleutian Islands, especially among the women.
They punctured the chin, the neck, and the arms.
III. IN FRONT (OB UPON THEIR FOREHEADS) THEY HAVE
THREE MARKS.
346 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Richardson says : 105 " The women tattoo their faces in blue
lines, produced by making stitches with a fine needle and thread
smeared with lamp-black." Beechey reports that, between
Kotzebue Sound and Icy Cape, 102 " all the women were tattooed
upon the chin with three small lines." Armstrong states that, 109
at Point Barrow, the women have on the chin a vertical line
about half an inch broad in the center, extending from the lip,
with a parallel but narrower one on either side of it, a little
apart. Choris assures us that, 102 on Behring s Isle, men as well
as women tattoo ; many men having the face tattooed. Coxe
mentions that im the women of the Aleutian Islands were orna
mented with different figures sewed into the skin, and that 118
the faces of the women of the Fox Islands were marked with
blackish streaks made with a needle and thread in the skin ; and
Bancroft says that 105 young Kadiak wives secure the affection
ate admiration of their husbands by tattooing the breast and
adorning the face with black lines ; while the Kuskoquim women
sew into their chin two parallel blue lines.
This custom seems to have spread over a large portion of
Northwestern America.
Ross says that all the Esquimaux women met by him 162 were
tattooed to a greater or less extent, chiefly on the brow, and on
each side of the mouth and chin ; this ornament consisting in
lines alone, without any peculiar figures, and thus conforming
to the usages of the Northwestern Esquimaux of America, as they
have been described by different voyagers.
Mackenzie, after mentioning that 1773 the Chepewyans have a
tradition among them that they originally came from another
country, inhabited by very wicked people, and had traversed a
great lake which was narrow, shallow, and full of islands, where
they had suffered great misery, it being always winter, with ice
and deep snow, adds that Im both sexes have blue or black bars
of from one to four straight lines on their cheeks or forehead,
to distinguish the tribe to which they belong. He also asserts
that 1775 the men of both the Slave and Dog-rib tribes of Indians
have two double lines, either black or blue, tattooed upon each
cheek, from the ear to the nose, and that some of the Kniste-
naux women 1771 tatoo three perpendicular lines, which are some
times double, one from the center of the chin to that of the under
lip, and one parallel on either side to the corner of the mouth.
CUSTOMS OF THE LAND OF "MARKED BODIES." 347
Powers remarks that the Karok 2058 squaws tattoo in blue three
narrow fern-leaves perpendicularly on the chin, one falling from
each corner of the mouth, and one in the middle, and that the
Wintun 2059 squaws all tattoo three narrow lines, one falling
from each corner of the mouth, and one between.
IV. IF THE MARKS ABE LARGE AND STRAIGHT, THEY INDICATE
THAT THOSE WHO HAVE THEM ARE OP THE HIGHER CLASSES ;
BUT IP THEY ARE SMALL AND CROOKED, THEN THEIR POSSESSORS
ARE OP THE LOWER CLASSES.
Armstrong states that at Point Barrow some of the wom
en 103 " have two vertical lines protruding from either angle
of the mouth ; which is a mark of their high position in the
tribe."
V. THE PEOPLE OF THE LAND ARE OP A MERRY NATURE,
AND THEY REJOICE WHEN THEY HAVE AN ABUNDANCE, EVEN OF
ARTICLES THAT ARE OF LITTLE VALUE.
It is singular that nearly every traveler to Alaska and the
Aleutian Islands has mentioned this peculiarity in the disposi
tion of the people, by which they are clearly distinguished from
the taciturn and phlegmatic tribes occupying other portions of
the American Continent.
Bancroft states that 109 the Aleuts are fond of dancing.
Langsdorff asserts that 169S the character of the people of the
island of Unalaska is in general kind and good-natured, sub
missive, and obedient. Ball states m6 that originally the Aleu
tian tribes were active and sprightly, and that, 1172 like most
of the Innuit tribes, they were fond of dances and festivals,
which, like those of Norton Sound, were chiefly celebrated in
December. Food was then plenty, and the otter-hunting
season did not commence till a little later. 1157 Whole villages
entertained other villages, receiving the guests with songs and
tambourines. Successive dances of children, naked men beating
their rude drums, and women curiously attired, were followed
by incantations from the shamans. If a whale was cast ashore,
the natives assembled with joyous and remarkable ceremonies.
They advanced and beat drums of different sizes. The carcass
was then cut up, and a feast held on the spot.
This peculiarity seems to be shared by the Kamtchatkans,
for it is stated of them that 1641 they pass their time in singing
and dancing, and in relating their intrigues, and the greatest
34:8 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
misfortune that they can suffer is to be deprived of these
amusements.
VI. TRAVELING VISITORS DO NOT PREPARE FOOD FOR THEIR
JOURNEYS, AND THEY HAVE THE SHELTER OF THEIR (THE IN
HABITANTS ) DWELLINGS.
By referring to the seventeenth chapter, it will be seen that
some of the former translators of this passage have thought that
reference was made to " a fertile land, where all that is neces
sary to sustain life may be found in abundance "; to a country
where "the various products are abundant and cheap," and
where " the travelers who pass through it have no need to fur
nish themselves with provisions." The Marquis d Hervey de
Saint-Denys renders the first clause of the paragraph above
quoted, " The traveler easily finds food"; and in another place
translates the same clause, " The traveler has no need to carry
food with him (the country furnishing it to him in abundance)."
The version of this passage by Professor Williams will be
seen, however, to agree in its main features with that given by
the present author.
The statement of the Chinese account is, that "traveling
visitors do not prepare food for their journeys "; and the in
ference of former translators, that the reason is that " the coun
try furnishes it in abundance," is merely an inference, and hap
pens to be erroneous.
The true reason is, that the people, although poor, are so hos
pitable that they supply travelers freely with all that they them
selves have. This complete hospitality, which is carried to such
a point that it is considered to be a right of the traveler to share
freely of all that may be found in the dwellings that he enters,
and that there is no thought on either side that it is an act of
mere courtesy, is characteristic of the aborigines of the Ameri
can Continent ; as it existed throughout all of North America,
at least, and was probably found in South America also ; while
it is doubtful whether the same universal and complete hospi
tality has existed anywhere else in the world.
So accustomed were all or nearly all of the tribes of America
to this hearty welcome in every house that they entered, that
Mr. Stephen Badger, in a letter to the Massachusetts His
torical Society, published in 1798, complains that " 6 the Indians
are strangely disposed and addicted to wander from place to
CUSTOMS OF THE LAND OF "MARKED BODIES." 349
place, and to make excursions into various parts of the country,
and sometimes at no small distance from their proper homes,
without anything on hand for their support in their perambula
tions, as for this they depend, with unanxious concern, upon the
charity and compassion of others.
Morgan says that 1936 one of the most attractive features of In
dian society was the spirit of hospitality by which it was per
vaded. Perhaps no people ever carried this principle to the
same degree of universality as did the Iroquois. Their houses
were not only open to each other, at all hours of the day and of
the night, but also to the wayfarer and the stranger. Such
entertainment as their means afforded was freely spread before
him, with words of kindness and of welcome. He states again
that, 1919 among the Iroquois, hospitality was an established
usage. If a man entered an Indian house in any of their vil
lages, whether a villager, a tribesman, or a stranger, it was the
duty of the women therein to set food before him. An omis
sion to do this would have been a discourtesy amounting to an
affront. If hungry, he ate ; if not hungry, courtesy required
that he should taste the food and thank the giver. This would
be repeated at every house he entered, and at whatever hour in
the day. As a custom it was upheld by a rigorous public senti
ment. The same hospitality was extended to strangers from
their own and from other tribes. Upon the advent of the Euro
pean race among them it was also extended to them. Quotations
follow from " Smith s History of Virginia," from the Rev. John
Heckewelder, from Lewis and Clarke, and from many others, to
show that this hospitality is universal among the Indian tribes.
In another place 1937 Morgan gives the following anecdote in
illustration of the difference between the hospitality of the In
dians and that of the whites :
Canassatego, a distinguished Onondaga chief, who flourished
about the middle of the last century, said, in a conversation with
Conrad Weiser, an Indian interpreter : " You know our prac
tice. If a white man, in traveling through our country, enters
one of our cabins, we all treat him as I do you. We dry him if
he is wet, we warm him if he is cold, and give him meat and
drink that he may allay his hunger and thirst ; and we spread
soft furs for him to rest and sleep on. We demand nothing in
return. But if I go into a white man s house at Albany, and ask
350 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
for victuals and drink, they say, Where is your money ? And
if I have none, they say, Get out, you Indian dog I "
Mackenzie speaks particularly m2 of the generosity and hos
pitality of the Knistenaux ; and Ross 216S mentions several in
stances 2164 in which he had " ample proof of the hospitality " 2163
of the Esquimaux whom he met.
To return to Alaska and the Aleutian Islands : Dall mentions
a case of great kind-heartedness shown to him by two of the
natives of Alaska. 1152 He says again of the Aleutians that 1171 hos
pitality was one of their prominent traits.
Quoting from Veniaminoff, he says 1169 that it is the custom of
the Aleutians for the successful hunter or fisher, particularly in
times of scarcity, to share his prize with all, not only taking no
large share, but often less than the others ; and if he has forgotten
any one at the distribution, or any one arrives too late, he shares
the remainder with him. All those in need of assistance hasten
to meet the returning hunter at the landing, and sit down silently
by the shore. This is a sign that they ask for aid ; only the
infirm or orphans send persons to represent them : and the hunt
er divides his prize, without expecting thanks or restitution.
Continuing his quotations from the same authority, he adds : 1161
" The Aleuts are not inhospitable, but they practice hospital
ity in their own way. They meet all strangers at the landing-
place, though rarely saluting them by word or sign, except
where they have learned the custom, daily becoming more uni
versal, from the Russians. If the stranger has a relative or inti
mate friend, he goes to him ; if not, no one will invite him, but
all are ready to receive him : he can choose his quarters himself.
Then he is entertained in the best manner ; the woman of the
house takes care of his clothing, mending his kamlayka, or what
ever stands in need of repair ; but she is not obliged to receive
him, as was formerly customary. They never think of asking
their guest for anything, but let him stay as long as he may ;
they even provide him with food of every kind when he departs"
The duplication by Veniaminoff, in the clause in italics, of the
statement given in the Chinese account, should be particularly
observed.
Bancroft says that 109 the Aleuts are given to hospitality ; and
Coxe mentions that 1124 when the natives of the Fox Islands are
on a journey, and their provisions are exhausted, they beg from
CUSTOMS OF THE LAND OF "MAKKED BODIES." 351
village to village, or call upon their friends and relations for
assistance.
VII. THEY HAVE NO FORTIFICATIONS OB WALLED CITIES.
This is so well known to be true of the Aleutians and Alas
kans, that no quotations upon the subject will be necessary.
VIII. THE RESIDENCE OF THE KING (OR KINGS) OF THE
COUNTRY IS ADORNED WITH GOLD AND SILVER AND PRECIOUS
AND BEAUTIFUL OBJECTS ABOUT THE DWELLING.
First, as to the ruler, Bancroft states that, 110 in the Aleu
tian Islands, every island, and, in the larger islands, every village,
has its toyon,* or chief, who decides differences, is exempt from
work, and is allowed a servant to row his boat, but in other re
spects possesses no power.
The houses of the chiefs are not now decorated in the Aleu
tian Islands as described in the account, but some remnants of
such decoration still exist in Alaska, and, by going a little way
down the American coast, we find, among the Haidah Indians
(who, as has already been stated, seem to be intruders in their
present position, and who may have migrated from the Aleu
tian Islands or their neighbourhood during the last fourteen
hundred years), carvings and decorations which recall the de
scription given above.
As it is mentioned, a little farther on in the account, that, in
their barters, precious gems are used (as the standard of value,
instead of gold and silver), it is evident that, at the time when
the residence of the chief was adorned with gold and silver,
these metals were used merely as ornaments. After their value
as the medium of exchange with foreign nations was learned, it
is not likely that the outside of any dwelling would long be
covered with them, and they would, therefore, soon be replaced
with other decorations.
Swan, in his account of the Haidah Indians, gives an engrav
ing which he says 8422 is intended to represent one of the carved
posts or pillars which are raised in front of the houses of the
chiefs or principal men. These pillars are sometimes from fifty
to sixty feet high, elaborately carved, at a cost of hundreds of
* This word, which is found with the same meaning, and with but slight
changes in sound, throughout Eastern Asia, and in the Aleutian Islands and
Alaska, is a proof of an early communication between the two continents. E.
P. V.
352 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
blankets ; some of the best ones even costing several thousand
dollars : consequently, only the most wealthy individuals of the
tribe are able to purchase the best specimens. These pillars are
carved out of a single cedar-tree, the back hollowed so as to re
lieve the weight when raising it in a perpendicular position.
They are deeply and firmly set in the earth, directly in front of
the lodge, and a circular opening near the ground constitutes the
door of entrance to the house. The Chimsean Indians, at Fort
Simpson, and the Sitka tribes, have this style of carved posts,
but they set them at a short distance from the front of their
houses. The figures carved on these posts are the family totems,
or heraldic designs of the family occupying the house ; and as
these Indians build large wooden lodges, capable of containing
several families, the carvings may be said to indicate the family
names of the different occupants. The chief or head man owns
the house, and the occupants are his family and relatives.
Dall mentions similar 1162 high posts, curiously carved, as being
frequently erected before the houses of the Thlinkeets, and says
that they are sometimes placed directly in front, so that an en
trance is made through the block or log, which is often of enor
mous size.
The Niskah or Naas Indians, of British Columbia, have elabo
rately carved poles in front of many of their houses. Some of
the houses have their fronts built in the form of an animal s
head. The front of one of their houses is described as shaped
like a wolf s head, the nose being the porch, and the mouth the
door. 14 " 4 A chief s rank is marked by the height of the pole
erected in front of his house (on which the crest which distin
guishes his division of the tribe is carved) ; and no offense leads
to more frequent quarrels than the attempt on the part of a
chief to put up a pole higher than his rank warrants. 1423
Fondness for ornamentation is shown by both the Alaskans
and Aleuts, their boats being frequently 1173 inlaid very prettily
with lozenge-shaped pieces of gypsum.
The same love for such ornamentation, which led to the deco
ration of their houses, is still shown in many smaller matters.
Langsdorff says that 1697 the Aleutian, who but seldom has an op
portunity of obtaining a piece of good wood a few inches in diam
eter, when he obtains a suitable piece, occupies himself for weeks
together in shaping it into a board so made that, when it has
CUSTOMS OF THE LAND OF "MARKED BODIES." 353
been soaked in water for some little time, it can be bent evenly
and uniformly. He then attempts to gradually bring together
the two corners of the little board, which he has previously
given the form of a semi-oval, and sew them together with sinew-
thread, by which means a pyramidical cap is made. If he is
successful in this work, which is not always the case, for the
board often either breaks or bends unevenly, he paints it with
coloured earth and ocher, brought from the far distant crater of
the volcano, and adorns it with figures labouriously carved from
walrus-tusks, without any tools worthy of the name. He also
decorates it with glass or amber beads, obtained from the Rus
sians, and with the bristles from the muzzle of the sea-lion, which
to a certain extent take the place of the ornamental plumes used
by Europeans ; the Aleutians placing a high value upon a bunch
of these bristles which are the trophies of a successful hunter
as each sea-lion has but four.
IX. THEY MAKE A DITCH OF A BKEADTH OF ONE ROD (of
ten Chinese feet, or nearly twelve English feet), WHICH is FILLED
WITH WATER-SILVER. WHEN IT RAINS, THEN THE RAIN FLOWS
UPON THE SURFACE OF THE WATER-SILVER.
As the Chinese seldom punctuate their writings, it is uncer
tain whether the clause " ABOUT THE DWELLING," which in the
present translation was used as the closing member of the pre
ceding phrase, may not really be the opening clause of the pres
ent sentence ; in which case the ditch above mentioned should
be considered as surrounding the house or houses, either of the
ruler or of the people.
Coxe says that the inhabitants of some of the Aleutian Isl
ands lm live in holes dug in the earth, but elsewhere "" explains
his meaning more clearly by saying that their 1121 dwellings are
hollowed in the ground, and covered with wooden roofs, resem
bling the huts in the peninsula of Kamtchatka. These are de
scribed as 1643 surrounded by a wall of earth, or by a palisade.
Langsdorff states that M96 the dwellings of the Unalaskans consist
of pits, which are covered with a roof of earth thrown over them,
upon which, after they have stood for a few years, high grass
grows, so that a village then resembles a European church-yard
with high grave-mounds. He adds that, 1701 although the dwell
ings of the inhabitants of Kadiak are in most respects like those
of the Unalaskans, they differ somewhat, from the fact that more
23
354: AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
wood is used in their construction. These houses, half-buried
in the earth, although without stoves, are warm enough in the
winter to protect their inhabitants from the cold.
It is evident from these quotations that the earth, excavated
within the walls of the dwelling, is thrown up about them out
side and upon the roof. Those who have had occasion to erect
tents know that one of the most essential precautions to secure
comfort is to dig a small trench about them, to carry away any
rain that may fall ; and in a country so intolerably I1M rainy as
is Alaska, 1163 it would seem as if a ditch about the houses were
an absolute necessity. Hayden describes the cabins or huts of
the Arikaras 1463 in very much the same language as that used
above in picturing the dwellings of the Alaskans, and adds :
" Around the house, on the outside, a small trench is dug, to carry
away the rain." No such ditches are described as existing in
Alaska, however, although Petroff states that 203 storms and tides
often 1 inundate the swampy shore on which their partly sub
terranean dwellings are built, and, filling them with water, drive
the inmates out ; while Dall also concurs in the statement that ""
their underground houses are, in summer, full of water.
It is not certain, however, that Hwui Shan meant to say that
the ditch or ditches surrounded the houses. All that can be de
rived with certainty from his words is, that somewhere in the
country he saw one or more ditches filled with a substance suf
ficiently remarkable to be, in his opinion, worthy of mention.
He describes this substance as "water-silver." Now, although
this term usually means quicksilver 119 (and it has therefore been
so translated by all others), yet here it seems to be impossible
that it can have been used otherwise than as a descriptive phrase
for ice. We, who see every year the wonderful transformation
of water into a solid crystalline substance, easily forget the sur
prising nature of the change to one who has not been accustomed
to it. The king of Siam could believe all the marvelous tales
of foreign lands that were told to him, until this transformation
was mentioned. Then his credulity was taxed too far, and he
announced his disbelief, and the reasons for it. " Water," said
he, 1038 " is a fluid, and a fluid is not a compact body ; therefore,
water can never appear in a compact form, and all the fables
about ice, snow, and hail are unworthy of credit."
Now, although ice is occasionally formed in Northern China,
CUSTOMS OF THE LAND OF "MARKED BODIES." 355
the temperature is seldom low enough 986 to form it at Canton ;
and, as it is seen throughout the most of China and other coun
tries of Southern Asia, it is merely a thin and easily melted cake,
differing widely from the glittering and immensely thick mass
which is formed in the ditches in the Aleutian Islands. It is
therefore not surprising that Hwui Shan should have spoken of
the great thickness of ice seen in this country. The character
CHI,* in the phrase, may possibly be used, not in its most common
sense, as a mere particle indicating the relations to each other of
the words between which it is placed, but in its original sense
as a verb, meaning 2412 " to proceed, to go to," 1305 " to proceed
to," or, as Professor Williams defines it, "to pass from one
state to another," and it seems not impossible that Hwui Shan
may have meant that the rain passed from the state of a fluid
into that of the " water-silver." The passage is very obscure,
and many educated Chinamen have confessed that they were
unable to decide with certainty as to its meaning.
Had it been the intention to say that the ditches were filled
with quicksilver, there is 2531 a character 1866 (^, HUNG) meaning
quicksilver, which could have been used instead of the compound
"water-silver." This would have placed the meaning beyond
question, and the nature of the Chinese language is such that
it will hardly permit two characters to be used when one would
fully express the meaning.
It is possible that the original term may have been "icy-
silver," as ;J^, PING, ice? differs by only one dot from 7]^, SHUI,
water. It seems more likely, however, that Hwui Shan wished to
distinguish between this hard, solid, transparent ice of the Arctic
regions, and the thin crusts, scarcely deserving the name, which
were all that could be seen in China ; and, in order to do so, he
used a compound analogous to a number of others existing in
Chinese. Quartz crystal is, for instance, called 2574 SHUI-TSING,
" water - crystal," or 2578 SHUI-YUH, "water-gem." This last
term was also applied to glass, 2658 "because it is clear as water
and hard as a gem," when that substance was first introduced in
China a few centuries ago. "Water-silver" is as appropriate
and natural a term for ice as the other compounds above named
are for the substances to which they are applied.
It should be again insisted that Hwui Shan is fairly entitled
* See chap, xvii, character No. 706.
356 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
to that translation of his account which will make his story con
form with the truth, provided that such a translation is possible.
If he were relying upon his imagination, innumerable statements
would be made which no possible ingenuity could harmonize
with the truth. If " water-silver " is translated " ice," all diffi
culties vanish, and his account becomes simple and truthful. If
it is translated " quicksilver," we become involved in manifest
absurdities, as, for instance : " When the ditch is filled with quick
silver, and the rain is allowed to flow off from the quicksilver,
the water is then regarded in the markets as a precious rarity."
This should not be understood as an imputation upon the schol
arship of the late Professor Williams, the depth of whose learn
ing, and whose thorough acquaintance with the Chinese language
are too well known to need mention. .His translation is quoted
merely as showing the utter absurdity of the whole passage if
" water-silver " is translated by its usual equivalent of " quick
silver." There never was a country in which there was a ditch
filled with quicksilver. If such a country had ever existed, rain
water flowing upon it, and then flowing off from it, would not
be in any way affected by it ; and if the water were affected by
it, it could not be considered in the markets as a precious rarity,
as an unlimited amount of water could have been permitted to
flow over it. Can it be believed that any sane man would ever
have told so absurd a story ?
X. IN THEIR TEAFFIC THEY USE PEECIOUS GEMS (or Valu-
ables as the standard of value instead of gold or silver).
As late as the beginning of the nineteenth century, Langs-
dorff stated that m3 no money was current in the country. Yeni-
aminoff 116 describes the custom of bartering existing among the
Aleuts, and says that " it is of great age, and has been preserved
without change." Dall mentions 1165 amethysts, zeolites, tourma
lines, garnets, spinel, agates, carnelians, variegated marble, hy-
pochlorite (commonly used for ornaments by the natives, resem
bling jade, and sometimes called malachite), and fossil ivory, as
existing in Alaska.
Langsdorff says that 1704 a species of mussel-shell, the sea-
tooth (Dentdlium entails), which is called tache, or heikwa, is
very highly prized by -the Aleutians, and even now is in great
request. Bancroft states that 106 at times amber is thrown up in
large quantities by the ocean on the south side of Kadiak, gen-
CUSTOMS OF THE LAND OF "MARKED BODIES." 357
erally after a heavy earthquake, and that at such times it forms
an important article of commerce with the natives. Dall 1159 also
speaks of their fondness for amber, and states that among im the
relics forwarded to the Smithsonian Institution from the Aleu
tian Islands, was one rude amber bead, evidently of native make,
on a sinew thread. The amber was obtained from the lignite
beds, which are reported on the islands of Amchitka, Atka, and
Unalaska, and may exist elsewhere. We know that amber was
held in great esteem by the early natives, and extraordinary
value set upon it. This bead, therefore, may have represented
in value a good many sea-otter skins.
Amber is among the articles included by the Chinese under
the general term "gems," and its value in China was formerly
very great. 9
XI. THEY (the people of Great Han) HAVE NO MILITARY
WEAPONS, AND DO NOT WAGE WAR.
This well characterizes the peaceful Esquimaux, and is a
statement that it would be impossible to make with truth regard
ing any of the tribes of Northeastern Asia.
XII. HE WHO HAS COMMITTED A PETTY CRIME IS SCOURGED.
HE WHO IS ACCUSED OF A CRIME DESERVING DEATH IS THROWN
TO WILD BEASTS TO BE DEVOURED. IF THE ACCUSATION IS CA
LUMNIOUS, THE BEASTS KEEP AT A DISTANCE FROM HIM, IT IS SAID
(instead of devouring him) ; THEN, AFTER A NIGHT (of trial), HE
IS SET AT LIBERTY.
This statement was copied by the Marquis d Hervey de Saint-
Denys from the Chinese "History of the South." Ma Twan-
lin, for some reason, did not think it best to include it in his
account. The white bears and other large wild beasts, which
once existed in the Aleutian Islands, have long been extinct.
No trace of the custom above referred to can therefore now be
found in those islands, and the most that could be expected to
have survived to the present day would be some dim trace, to
be found among the nearly allied tribes of Kamtchatka or
Alaska.
The author fancies that he has seen an account of the aban
donment to wild beasts, by the Alaskans, of some alleged witch
es ; but if so, he is unable to find it again. Possibly the night
of trial through which their medicine-men pass before assuming
the office, when, alone in the forest or plains, they wait for their
358 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
guardian spirit to appear to them in the guise of some wild ani
mal, may be a trace of the ancient custom.
Something of the kind may still exist in Kamtchatka, as it
is stated that those who have committed a theft 1642 are released,
for the first offense, by returning what they have taken, and by
living isolated from dealings with their countrymen, without
being able to expect any help from them.
If it be considered that any difficulties in the foregoing ac
count are not satisfactorily explained, let it be asked again,
Which one of the possible theories upon the subject is accom
panied by the fewest and least serious difficulties ?
Is it possible that Hwui Shan could have told the following
truths, except as the result of an actual visit to America by way
of the Aleutian Islands ?
1. Land was to be- found in the Pacific Ocean, some twenty-
three hundred miles northeasterly from Japan.
2. Some sixteen hundred miles farther east, land was again
to be found.
3. The journey could be continued easterly, for some six
thousand miles at least, and land would still be found.
4. The second of the countries mentioned by him was known
as a " great " land ; and it not only lay east of the first coun
try, but was so extensive that it also lay to the east of China.
5. The people of the first two countries were alike in their
customs, but their languages were different.
6. The people of the first of the countries tattooed their
bodies.
7. They had the custom of tattooing some portion of the
face with three lines.
8. These lines indicated the position of their owner in the
tribe.
9. The people were of so merry and joyous a nature that the
fact was worthy of notice.
10. They were so hospitable as to furnish their visitors, not
only with shelter, but also with food for their journeys.
11. They had no fortifications or walled cities.
12. They had no military weapons and did not wage war.
13. The dwellings of their chief men were curiously adorned,
externally.
14. The ditches in their land were filled with some singular
CUSTOMS OF THE LAND OF "MARKED BODIES." 359
substance to which the term " water-silver " could be applied,
and this substance was in some way connected with the rain.
15. Gold and silver were not used as the standards of value,
but their place was filled by " gems."
If it be assumed that there is just one chance out of two
that each one of these statements would be true as to any newly
discovered land, then the probability that they would all be true
is as one to the fifteenth power of two, or one to over thirty-two
thousand, a proportion which makes it practically impossible
that the story can have been imaginary. It will readily be ad
mitted that there is no more than one chance out of two that any
one of the fifteen statements above referred to would be true of
an unknown region, and it is evident that of some of them the
chance is not one in a dozen. The probability that such a story,
if invented by one who knew nothing of the region, would prove,
upon exploration, to be true, instead of being one in thirty-two
thousand, is really, therefore, but one in millions, and it is easier
to accept almost any difficulty, as to one or two of the points,
than to believe that the account was imaginary, or that it related
to any other country.
D Hervey (see Chapter XII) has clearly explained the difficulty
into which earlier writers had been led by confounding the two
regions called Ta Han, or Great Han one to the north of China
(and hence on the Asiatic Continent), and the other to the east
or northeast (and hence on the American Continent). This con
fusion between the two countries, which caused de Guignes and
other writers to look upon the Asiatic Continent for Hwui Shan s
Great Han country, has been the chief cause of the desperate
attempts to locate Fu-sang, also, somewhere else than in America.
CHAPTER XX.
THE COUNTRY LYING IN THE REGION INDICATED BY HWUI SHAN.
The direction from China, Japan, and Great Han in which Fu-sang lay The
trend of the American Pacific coast The distortion of the common maps
Mexico lies in the region indicated The nations inhabiting Mexico in the
fifth century Their language Traces of their beliefs and customs existing
one thousand years laterAztec traditions The Toltecs Their character
Their civilization The time of their dispersion Their language The Pacific
coast The evidence of place-names The Aztec language Limits of the
Mexican empire The name of the country The city of Tenochtitlan The
application of the name "Mexico" First applied to the country Early
maps Late application of the name to the city Pronunciation of the word
Similar names throughout the country Meaning of the syllable " co "
Varying explanations Real meaning of the term " The Place of the Centu
ry-plant " Meaning of the syllable " ME " Meaning of the syllable " xi "
Its meaning in other compounds Other abbreviations Appropriateness of
the designation The god Mexitli Proof that he was the god of the century-
plant Reason that the Spaniards were misled as to the meaning of " Mexico."
HAVING, in the preceding chapters, arrived at the conclusion
that the country referred to by Hwui Shan under the name of
" Great Han " was located in the
let us continue the examination of his story, and endeavour to
identify the land which he calls the country of Fu-sang.^
His first reference to it is as follows :
I. FU-SANG is SITUATED TWICE TEN THOUSAND LI OR MORE
TO THE EAST OF THE GREAT HAN COUNTRY. THAT LAND IS ALSO
SITUATED TO THE EAST OF THE MlDDLE* KlNGDOM (China).
Attention should first be called to a fact, already noticed, that,
as the greater part of the route from Japan to the Great Han
country bears in a northeasterly direction, the route from the
land of Great Han to a country lying to the east of China can
not be directly east, but must lie somewhat southerly.
Probably but few realize how the western coast of America
THE COUNTRY INDICATED BY HWUI SHAN. 361
trends toward the east. We are so accustomed to consider the
top of our maps as the north, and the bottom as the south, and to
think, half unconsciously, that a perpendicular line upon the map
represents a true north and south line, that, when we see the
usual maps of North America drawn upon the customary projec
tion, in which, in order to represent the rounding surface of the
earth upon a plane surface with as little distortion as possible,
the westerly meridians are drawn sloping from near the center of
the upper margin of the map toward the lower left-hand corner,
we forget that these sloping lines are the true meridians, and
learn to consider the western coast of America as bearing almost
north and south. If Hwui Shan had said that the land six thou
sand miles beyond Alaska lay to the south of that country, prob
ably no one would have thought of objecting that it lay also to
the east ; and yet it is quite as true to say that Mexico lies to the
east of Alaska as it is to say that it lies to the south. A map of
the northern half of the hemisphere including the North Pa
cific Ocean, drawn upon the customary projection, in which
the meridians passing through the western coast of America
are placed upon the right side of the map, instead of on the
left, as we are accustomed to see them, will help to fix the
true direction of the coast in the mind, and will also show how
natural it would have been for Hwui Shan to consider his jour
ney beyond Alaska as a continuation of the same general course
which he had been pursuing, and not as an abrupt turn at right
angles from the east to the south. (See Frontispiece.) It is
difficult for us to realize that San Francisco lies farther east of
the westernmost of the Aleutian Islands than Portland, Maine,
lies east of San Francisco, and that, in going from California to
Panama, the route trends so much toward the east that its termi
nus is found to be upon nearly the same meridian as Washington.
If a voyage of some six thousand miles (making a due allow
ance for the sinuosity of the coast, and for a slight but natural
exaggeration by a traveler who had no means of measuring the
distance accurately) were made from Alaska, in an easterly di
rection, but trending toward the south, so that at the end of the
journey the destination would lie easterly from China, where
would the traveler find himself ?
A few moments study of a map will answer the question
clearly and unmistakably : on the coast of Mexico.
362 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
If a traveler had made this journey in the latter part of the
fifth century, A. D., what tribe of people would he have found
upon the Pacific coast of Mexico, what language was then
spoken there, what were the manners and customs of the people,
what was their state of civilization, and by what name was the
country then known ?
Here, unfortunately, except for the account given by Hwui
Shan himself, we are compelled to rely upon tradition, supple
mented only by a few scanty hieroglyphical records, and by
vague recollections of more complete accounts which once exist
ed ; upon the ruins scattered about the country, and upon cus
toms and arts, which had evidently come down from distant
generations, which were found to exist in the land at the time
of the Spanish conquest. It is surprising, however, to find how
much of the history of Mexico at the time spoken of may, on
close and careful study, be vaguely discerned through the mists
of the intervening centuries.
M. Lenoir very justly observes that 1726 there necessarily ex
isted a great affinity between the customs, arts, and beliefs of the
Mexicans, at the time of their conquest by the Europeans, and
those which existed, when the population of Guatemala flour
ished, and Palenque and Mitla were founded. We may, there
fore, by first examining the religion, the customs, the arts, and
even the literature, of the Mexicans during the reign of Monte-
zuma, hope to obtain some knowledge of these earlier tribes,
even though the Mexicans seem to have to a great extent
forgotten them, and to have been ignorant in regard to the
state of civilization which had been reached by the nations who
were the founders of their arts and sciences.
There is no question that several races of conquerors suc
ceeded one another in the Mexican empire, and that they had suc
cessively adopted the religion and the customs of the vanquished
people ; and it may be again repeated that it is indisputable that
some traces of the primitive religion and customs must have sur
vived, and that a mixture of the old and the new religion must
have occurred, as was the case in the history of Christianity
when it overcame paganism.
According to the traditions of the Aztecs, they migrated
during the eleventh 1601 or twelfth lm century to the region where
they dwelt at the time of the conquest. When they reached
THE COUNTRY INDICATED BY HWUI SHAN. 363
this country 1226 they, according to Humboldt, found the pyramidal
monuments of Teotihuacan, of Cholula, or Cholollan, and of Pa-
pantla. They attributed these immense works to the Toltecs, a
powerful and civilized nation which had lived in Mexico for five
hundred years ; they used hieroglyphic writing, and knew the
length of the year more exactly than the greater part of the
nations of the Old World. The Aztecs did not certainly know
whether other tribes had lived in the country of Anahuac before
the Toltecs. In regarding the " Houses of God " of Teotihuacan
and Cholollan as the work of this last nation, they assigned to
them the greatest antiquity of which they had any knowledge.
It is possible, nevertheless, that they were constructed before the
invasion of the Toltecs an event which, according to some
writers, occurred in the year 648 of our era.
Humboldt also states, in another place, 1601 that the Toltecs
preceded the Aztecs, in the country of Anahuac, by more than
five centuries, and differed from them by that love for the arts,
and that religious and peaceful character, which distinguished the
Etruscans from the first inhabitants of Rome.
M. Lenoir says that 1727 the Toltecs, who inhabited this part
of America toward the seventh century, and who, according to
tradition, had a mild and gentle religion, and offered only flowers
and fruits to their gods, were displaced successively by the
Chichimecs and the Aztecs, whose ferocious and sanguinary relig
ion was practiced by the nation over whom Montezuma ruled
at the time of the Spanish conquest. According to the Mexican
tradition, the Toltecs who inhabited the land of Anahuac were
far advanced in the arts and sciences. After their migration to
the Bay of Campeche and Honduras, their country was occu
pied by the Chichimecs, a warlike and ferocious nation, but one
whose people profited by the presence of some Toltecs who still
remained in their old home, and acquired, from them, a knowl
edge of agriculture and the arts.
Bancroft also refers to "the old-time story, how the Tol
tecs in the sixth century appeared on the Mexican table-land ;
how they were driven out and scattered in the seventh century ;
how, after a brief interval, the Chichimecs followed their foot
steps ; and how these last were succeeded by the Aztecs, who were
found in possession."
The preceding quotations fix the date of the arrival of the
364 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Toltecs in the land of Mexico as in the sixth or seventh century.
The traditions are too vague and unreliable, however, and the
scanty paintings which confirm them too brief and uncertain as to
their precise meaning, to permit the exact century to be deter
mined with accuracy. No writer fixes the date later than the
sixth or seventh century, but many set it much earlier.
The Mexican historian, the Abbe Domenech, 316 places the
Toltecs arrival in New Spain about the third century before the
Christian era.
The Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg says that 624 the uncer
tainty regarding the origin of the Toltec race prevents the fix
ing, with any surety, of the epoch when they appeared upon the
shores of Mexico ; everything leads to the belief, however, that
it was during the century before the Christian era, or in the
first century after Christ. A date mentioned by him, of which
he does not undertake to guarantee the authenticity, appears to
fix the time of the arrival of the tribes speaking the Nahuatl
language as in the year 279 B. c.
According to Bancroft, 417 the date of the arrival of the Tol
tecs in Huehue Tlapallan is given by Ixtlilxochitl, in his first
Toltec Relation (p. 322), as 2,236 years after the creation, or 520
years after the flood. That is, it occurred long before the
Christian era. In other places (pp. 206 and 459) the same author
represents the Toltecs as banished from their country, and mi
grating to Huetlapan, in California, on the South Sea, in 387 A. D. ;
and this last-named date is repeated by Gallatin (in Schoolcraft s
"Arch.," vol. v, p. 96) and Muller ("Reisen," tome iii, p. 97).
As, according to Gallatin, 1402 we may safely conclude that,
within a few years after the conquest, there did not exist a
single historical painting in which events prior to the fifteenth
century were faithfully recorded under their proper date, it is
impossible to arrive at any positive conclusion as to the exact
time when the Toltec empire was founded ; but we can rely
with much confidence on the general conclusion, stated by Ban
croft, that 195 as the Nahua nations were living when the Span
iards found them, so had they probably been living for at least
ten centuries, and not improbably for a much longer period.
We are, therefore, carried back to about the days of Hwui
Shan, and have reason to believe that if he had made the jour
ney to Mexico he would have found there either the Toltecs,
THE COUNTRY INDICATED BY HWUI SHiN. 365
or some nation speaking substantially the same language, and
having many of the arts and customs which were possessed by
the Toltecs of later days.
The quotations already given show that 245 the Aztecs derived
their system of hieroglyphics from the Toltecs, and that the
civilization of the latter was far superior to that of their suc
cessors. According to tradition, it was 195 during the Toltec
period of Nahua culture that husbandry and all the arts pertain
ing to the production and preparation of food were brought to
the highest degree of perfection, and similar traditions exist as
to all other arts known to the Mexicans at the time of the con
quest.
The indications which we have, all agree 178 that the ancient
Toltecs and the seven tribes of Nahuatlacas, or Nahuas, had the
same origin, and spoke the same language, which was the Mexi
can, Kahuatl, or Aztec. Buschmann says : 862 " That the Aztecs
were of a common origin with the Toltecs, Acolhuas, and other
inhabitants of Mexico, is shown by the language common to all
and still known as the Aztec, although the people are prefer
ably and more usually called Mexicans."
Similar statements are made 421 by Bancroft, 356 McCulloh, 1843
Bandelier, 611 and all other authorities that have referred to the
subject.
It might be thought, however, that the quotations which have
been given refer only to the region in the neighbourhood of the
city of Mexico, and that a different state of affairs may have
existed upon the shore of the Pacific. It is found, however, that
the Toltecs colonized that coast, and that the Aztec language
was spoken upon nearly the whole of the western border of the
country of Mexico.
Ixtlilxochitl, 433 in Kingsborough (vol. ix, p. 214), mentions a
Toltec party that emigrated to the Michoacan region, and dwelt
there for a long time. Sahagun (tome iii, let. x, pp. 145-146) refers
to a Toltec migration as an issue from the same region. Veytia
(tome ii, pp. 39-40) speaks of Toltecs who founded colonies all
along the Pacific coast, and gradually changed their language
and customs. Gallatin 361 says that Copan was a colony of Tol
tecs ; and the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg says that the Pipiles,
a tribe speaking the Mexican language, occupied a portion of
Guatemala 655 before the great emigration of the Toltecs in the
366 Atf INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
eleventh century ; and he also states that, 762 in that part of Ana-
huac which lay upon the sea-shore, north and south, and particu
larly upon the shore of the Pacific Ocean, the Nahuatl (Mexican
or Aztec) language was found as the native dialect, and that 7W
the Xinca language of Guatemala was probably a corrupt dia
lect of the Mexican.
Between the east and southeast from Zacatecas, 909 Hervas
(vol. iii, p. 64) sets the Mazapili, who, according to him, proba
bly spoke a dialect of the Aztec language. He also says that 1541
this language extended far beyond the limits of the Mexican
empire, and quotes the statement of Herrera, that it was spoken
in Nicaragua and in Guatemala.
A glance at a map of Mexico, by one having even a slight
acquaintance with this tongue, will show that the names of
places are nearly all Aztec, even in regions of the country in
which other languages are spoken. The map given by Orozco
y Berra, 2007 at the end of his " Geografia," and reproduced by
M. Malte-Brun, 1780 shows that the Aztec or Mexican-speaking
tribes had possession of the entire Pacific coast of Mexico, from
latitude 16 40 (just south of Acapulco) to latitude 25 20
, (about half-way between Mazatlan and Guaymas) ; but Mexican
names will be found far beyond these limits.
It has been generally admitted that 2102 the presence through
out nearly the whole of the Spanish peninsula, of topographical
names significant in the Euskarian language, and evidently de
rived from it, makes it a safe inference that this language had
formerly a similar extension ; and the same course of reasoning
leads to the conclusion that the Mexican language must once
have been spoken in nearly all portions of the present republic
of Mexico.
To account for this, 154 says Bancroft, we have, if other causes
are not sufficient, the unknown history and migrations of the
Nahua people during the centuries preceding the Toltec era.
The Aztec language was, and is, according to Alexander von
Humboldt, 863 the most widely extended of any in Mexico. It is,
as he states, "at the present day extended from 37 north lati
tude to Lake Nicaragua, over a length of four hundred leagues."
Buschmann 885 adds that the first reasons that present themselves
are not sufficient to explain the intensity of the extension of
Aztec place-names : the thick setting of such names in provinces
THE COUNTRY INDICATED BY HWUI SHAN. 367
in which other tongues, chiefly or only, were spoken, or their
dispersion, although more sparsely, to great distances from the
extreme north of Mexico nearly to the southern boundary of the
kingdom of Guatemala. As an example of the strong setting
of Aztec names in provinces in which other languages ruled,
Oaxaca, Michoacan, and the whole northerly half of Guatemala,
may be mentioned.
Even at the time of the Spanish conquest, however, the Az
tec civilization and the Aztec language ruled throughout a great
portion of the country. Bancroft says that 365 the Nahua, Aztec,
or Mexican, the language of Mexican civilization, was spoken
throughout the greater part of Montezuma s empire, extend
ing from the plateau of Anahuac, or valley of Mexico, as a
center, eastward to the Gulf of Mexico, and along its shores
from above Vera Cruz east to the Rio Coatzacoalcos, westward
to the Pacific, and upon its border from about the twenty-sixth
to the sixteenth parallel ; thus forming an irregular but continu
ous linguistic line from the Gulf of California southeast, across
the Mexican plateau to the Gulf of Mexico, of more than four
hundred leagues in extent. Again, it is found on the coast of
Salvador and in the interior of Nicaragua, and it also had some
connection with the languages of the nations of the north.
Solis, speaking of the limits of the empire of Mexico at the
time of the conquest, says 2342 its length from east to west was
more than five hundred leagues, and its breadth from north to
south was in some places fully two hundred leagues.
On the east it was bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, and
extended along its shores from Panuco to Yucatan. On the
west it touched upon the other sea, and looked out upon the
Asiatic Ocean (or the Gulf of Anian), from Cape Mendocino
as far as to the limits of New Galicia. On the south it was
bounded by the South Sea, from Acapulco to Guatemala, and
even insinuated itself through Nicaragua into that isthmus or
stretch of land which both divides and unites the two Americas.
On the northern side it reached to the district of Panuco, and
included that province.
Orozco y Berra 2006 states that the Mexican empire, when it
reached its greatest extension, included a part of the State of
Mexico ; those of Puebla and of Vera Cruz on the east ; on the
west the greater part of the country between the Zacatula River
368 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
and the Pacific Ocean ; and that on the south it was bounded
by the river Coatzacoalcos.
Clavigero 1053 says that it extended toward the southwest and
south as far as to the Pacific Ocean ; and Bancroft says that it 428
reached the Pacific coast, along which it extended from Zaca-
lotlan to Tututepec.
As to the identity of the civilization of the other inhabitants
of Mexico with that of the Aztecs or Mexicans, properly so
called, we have the express statement of Gomara, 521 that " speak
ing of the Mexicans, is to speak in general of all New Spain."
Such information as we have, therefore, confirms us in the
conclusion that if Hwui Shan had visited the Pacific coast of
Mexico during the latter half of the fifth century, he would have
found there a nation of the same blood as that from which the
Aztecs of Cortez s day descended, and one speaking substan
tially the same language as that which was found to be current
at the time of the conquest : a nation resembling the Aztecs in
many of their manners and customs, but of a milder, gentler
nature ; free from the horrors of the superstitious rites to which
the Aztecs of later times abandoned themselves, and (unless the
greater civilization that is mentioned by tradition was wholly
the result of Hwui Shan s visit) more advanced in many of the
essential arts of civilization.
The question now arises as to the name of this country.
Had it any general name ? If so, what was it, and what was its
meaning? It is well known that the country is now called
" Mexico "; but it appears to be quite generally thought that this
term was properly the name of the city of Mexico, and that it
was not until after the coming of the Spaniards that it over
spread the immense region now so designated. This statement
is made by Bancroft 451 and Buschmann, 883 and was undoubtedly
repeated by them from some of the older historians of the coun
try. The weight of evidence is strongly against this conclusion,
however. It is stated, time and again, by the best authorities,
that the real name of the city was not Mexico, but Tenochtitlan,
or some very similar term, different authors giving the variations
Temixtitlan, 1200 Tenuchtitlan, 1200 Tenuthtitlan, 2349 Tenustitan, 2600
Temixtitan, 1102 Tenuxtitan, 1782 Tenuchtitan, 2603 Temixitan, 1091 Te-
mistitan, 1605 Tenoxtitlan, 1605 Temihtitlan, 1605 Themisteton, 451 Timi-
tistan, 451 and Tenuchitlan. 451
THE COUNTRY INDICATED BY HWUI SHN. 369
Torquemada MT ("Monarq. Ind.," tome i, p. 293) says ex
plicitly : " The natives do not call it (the city) Mexico, but Te-
nuchtitlan." Gage 1376 states that "the old and first name of the
city, according to some historians, was Tenuchtitlan " ; and Solis
says, 8349 " The great city of Mexico was formerly known by the
name of Tenuthtitlan, or by a similar name, which is given a
little different pronunciation by others." Even Buschmann, who
claims that the term Mexico was originally applied to the city,
and not to the country, states in other places that 882 "the Mexi
cans themselves appear to have called it Tenochtitlan in prefer
ence, or at least a part of it (Tlatelulco not having been included
in that designation 884 ), and it appears that the Spaniards first
made the name Mexico general." Diaz 120 says that Temixtitlan,
or Tenuchtitlan, was the proper name of the city, but adds that
"Mexico" was certainly also an old appellation, which the elder
Indians rejected after the conquest, but which was afterward
accepted by the younger generation of Indians.
It certainly can not take long to decide whether the " elder
Indians " or the " younger generation " best knew the true Aztec
designation of the city. " Tenochtitlan " so evidently occurred
in the name, that many of those, who think the term Mexico to
have been also connected with it, give the compound " Mexico-
Tenochtitlan " 248 as the true appellation. 461
In order to explain this double name, Herrera stated that 1689
the old residence of the Aztecs, Tenuchtitlan, had two large
divisions, of which one was called Tlatelulco and the other
Mexico. Gage 1380 makes the same statement, and adds that,
because the imperial palace was in this last-named portion of
the city, the whole city was also sometimes called Mexico, al
though that was not its original name. Solis 451 is of opinion
that Mexico was the name of the ward Tenochtitlan being ap
plied to the whole city; from which Bancroft concludes that the
compound Mexico-Tenochtitlan would signify the ward Mexico
of the city Tenochtitlan, but adds that it was but gradually that
the Spanish records began to add Mexico to Tenochtitlan, and
that in the course of time the older and more intricate name
disappeared.
Brasseur de Bourbourg states, however, that 731 the city was
divided into four quarters, sections, or wards, instead of two,
and that the names of these were Teopan, Atzacualco, Moyotlan,
24
370 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
and Quepopan. Bandelier 503 copies this statement, spelling the
last name " Cuepopan," and translating the four terms in their
order, "Place of God," "House of the Heron," "Place of the
Mosquito," and "Place of the Dike."
The term " Mexico " was first heard by Europeans when
Grijalva landed on the coast in May, 1518, as the designation of
a country rich in gold. 1688 Diaz says that when the Spaniards
asked where the Indians obtained their gold and jewels, 1197 " they
pointed toward the place of sunset, and said Culhua and Mex
ico" In another place m6 he states, " They could not give us
more gold, but in a land far away toward the setting sun it
might be found in abundance. Then they said Culba, Culba,
and Mexico, Mexico / but we did not understand the meaning of
these words." Prescott 2072 and Zamacois 2586 repeat the statement.
Can it be believed that these Indians, when they pointed to
ward the land from which their gold was obtained, referred to a
ward of the city of Tenochtitlan ?
The early map-makers seem to have been for a long time un
decided as to whether the term Mexico was the name of the city
or of the country, and they usually compromised by so giving the
name that it might be understood either way. The two oldest
maps of America, 1689 have the name " Mexico " written in rather an
uncertain manner some distance back in the country, and do not
indicate whether they would have it understood to mean a prov
ince or a city. In " Apiano, Cosmographica," 1575, is a map,
supposed to be a copy of one drawn by Apianus, in 1520, on
which the name " Themisteton " is given apparently to a large
lake in the middle of Mexico ; 451 Fernando Colon, in 1527, and
Diego de Ribero, 1529, both give the word " Mexico " in small
letters, inland, as if applied to a town, although no town is desig
nated ; Ptolemy, in "Munster," 1530, gives " Temistitan " ;
"Munich Atlas," No. VI, supposed to have been drawn be
tween 1532 and 1540, " Timitistan vel Mesicho" ; Baptista Ag-
nese, 1540- 50, "Timitistan vel Mesico " ; Ramusio, 1565, " Mex
ico"; "Mercator s Atlas," 1569, "Mexico," as a city, and "Te-
nuchitlan " ; Michael Lok, 1582, "Mexico" ; in Hondius, about
1595, in Drake s " World Encompassed," the city is " Mexico,"
and the gulf, " Baia di Mexico" ; Hondius, in "Purchas, His
Pilgrimes," Laet, Ogilby, Dampier, " West-Indische Spieghel,"
Jacob Colon, and other seventeenth century authorities, give
THE COUNTRY INDICATED BY HWUI SHAN. 371
uniformly to the city, or to the city and province, but not to the
country at large, the name as at present written.
M. Nicolas Schotter, in connection with an essay regarding
Americus Vespucius, 1091 exhibited to the Congress of Americanists,
at Luxemburg, in 1877, a remarkable map of the world, which is
" a reproduction upon a plane surface of a silver globe, which
made part of a chalice which the Duke Charles IV, of Lorraine,
brought from Germany, and which is now deposited in the
library at Nancy." Neither .tjie name of the maker nor the date
of his work is known, although it is seen that the German car
tographer gave to the southern part of the continent of America
the name of " New America," to Mexico that of "New Spain,"
and that all the remainder of North America is represented as
being an integral part of Asia, bearing the names of " Asia Ori-
entalis," " Asia Magna," and " India Orientalis." The Indian
Ocean is represented as extending from the eastern coast of
Africa to the shores of South America. Its southeastern part,
however, bears the names of the " Ocean of Magellan," and of
the "Pacific Sea," proving, beyond controversy, that the globe
in question was made after the year 1520.
LTpon this map the capital of New Spain bears the name of
"Temixitan," while the term "Mexico" is found to the south
west, not far from the Pacific Ocean. To the northwest again
occurs the name " Messigo," while not more than a dozen names
in all are given within the territory now covered by the country
of Mexico.
It appears from these references that it was not until about
half a century after the date of the conquest that the map-makers
felt certain that they were right in applying the term Mexico to
the city rather than to the country, and that in the earlier maps
the indications are that it was thought that it might be the name
of the land.
The Bishop Juan de Zumarraga dates a letter, 2602 in 1529, from
"Tenuxtitlan " ; again, in 1530, he speaks of "this great city of
Tenuchtitan," and signs the same document, " Given in the said
city of Tenuxtitan." In 1529 he dates one of his letters from
" Mexico-Tenustitan " 260 and in it says, " The Calzonzi of Micho-
acan was, next to Montezuma, the most powerful king of all
Mexico." Here, only a few years after the conquest, the term
Mexico is used not as the name of the city or of a province, but
372 *AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
as the name of the whole country, embracing even Michoacan,
which was not subject to Montezuma. In a work, published
in 1522, the following passage occurs, " They have conquered a
city called Temistitan." 464 Here, again, in one of the first refer
ences to the city that appeared in Europe, there is no hint that
its name was Mexico.
Cortez certainly had a favourable opportunity to learn the
name of the city that he had conquered. Time and again he
refers to mo " the great city of Temistitan" ; and in one place
he adds, 1102 " Before I describe this great city and the others
already mentioned, it may be well, for the "better understanding of
the subject, to say something of the configuration of Mexico in
which they are situated, it being the principal seat of Muteczuma s
power. This province is in the form of a circle, surrounded on
all sides by lofty and rugged mountains, its level surface com
prising an area of about seventy leagues in circumference."
Summing up the evidence, it appears that the name " Mexico "
was first heard as the designation of the country from which the
Indians on the Gulf of Mexico obtained their gold ; that Cortez
applied the name to the valley in which the capital city and
many others were situated, while de Zumarraga applied it to the
whole region, including Michoacan ; that the elder Indians did
not recognize it as the name of their city, and that all its wards
or divisions had other names ; that in the earlier maps and
accounts the name of the city is given (with variations of spell
ing) as Tenochtitlan ; and that it gradually passed through the
compound " Mexico-Tenochtitlan " to " Mexico," taking about
half a century to make the change. During all this time, how
ever, the term " Mexico " was steadily applied to the country sub
stantially as it is* still applied.
No other term is given in any place as the name of the coun
try ; and if the land had any general name by which it was
known, that name must have been " Mexico."
This was neither pronounced " Mec-si-co," nor, as the Span
iards pronounce it, " Mejico," with the " j " sounding like the
German "ch" or Greek " x " ; but "Me-shi-co," the "x" being
pronounced like " sh " in English 357 or " ch " in French. 2036
Numerous place-names, either fromf the same root or from one
very similar, will be found scattered over the country. The Abbe"
Brasseur de Bourbourg -mentions Mexilla 626 (evidently from Me-
THE COUNTRY INDICATED BY HWUI SHlN. 373
xi -\-the Aztec place-termination "tlan"), Meztitlan 1 (from
Mez -f- the terminations " ti " and " tlan "), Iztacmixtitlan 737 (from
Iztac= white -\-mix -f- the terminations "ti" and "tlan"),
Mixiuhcan (from Mi-xiuh + the termination "can"), and
Mixco 752 (from Mix + the place-termination " co "). Bancroft
mentions " Mexi-caltzinco " and " Mexiuh-tlan," 42 and a glance
at a map of the country will also show the forms "Mixtan,"
" Mextitlan," and " Mexcala." If these words, or the majority
of them, have a common root, it is evident that its meaning
must be applicable in some way to a very large portion of the
region known as Mexico.
The last syllable, " co," serves as a suffix 869 to many place-
names, 2173 and " signifies in or within that which is signified by
the noun " (Parades, p. 39) ; or possibly it conveys the broader
meaning of the region, " in " which it is situated, or " at " or
"near" that which is signified by the preceding syllables. Ex
amples of its use are found in " Soconusco," ^ (formerly
"Xoconochco" 887 ), " Matlatzinco," 8M " Tenantzinco," 87 "Azca-
potzalco," 88 " Xochimilco," 881 " Tezcuco," " Acapulco," 1963 etc.
The meaning of the remainder of the word " Mexico," or of
the entire word, has been stated in many different ways by the
various authors who have attempted to explain it. McCulloh
says that 1842 the etymology of Mexico is, "Place of Mextli?
the name Mextli being a synonym of Huitzilopochtli, the desig
nation of their god of war. He borrows this statement from
Clavigero, and is followed by Pimentel, 2035 Buschraann, 882 Tyler, 322
Bancroft, 247 and others.
Brasseur de Bourbourg states that, 662 according to several
authors, the Mexicas, or Mexicans, derived their name from one
of their first chiefs, Mecitl, or " the Hare of the Aloes." Saha-
gun says that 22C9 the name Mexicatl was formerly pronounced
Mecitl, formed from me or metl, which signifies the maguey r , and
from citli, a hare. This, therefore, should be written Mecicatl
but the change of c to x has produced the corruption Mexicatl.
It is said that this name was given to the people because the
Mexicans, when they first arrived in the country, had a chief or
lord named Mecitl, who at the moment of his birth was surnamed
Citli (or the Hare). As, moreover, a large leaf of the maguey
was given to him for a cradle, he was therefore called Me-citl, as
if to say, the man raised in this maguey leaf. When he had
3T4 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
grown up he became priest of their idol, and in this quality he
had relations with the demon a thing which insured him respect
in the eyes of his subjects, who, according to the account of the
elders, adopted the name of this high-priest, and were called Mex
ica, or Mexicatl.
Herrera says 1689 that, according to some, " Mexico " means a
spring ; and this statement is often copied : but, upon reference to
the Aztec or Mexican dictionaries, it will be found that there is
no word in the language having any such meaning which bears
even the most distant resemblance to the term "Mexico."
Bancroft has the following on the subject : 451 " A number
of derivations have been given to the word Mexico, as mexitli,
( navel of the maguey ; metl-ico, f place amidst the maguey ;
meixco, on the maguey border ; mecitli, hare ; metztli, moon ;
amexica, or mexica, you of the anointed ones. The significa
tion, spring or * fountain, has also been applied. ,But most
writers have contented themselves by assuming it to be identical
with the mexi, mexitl, or mecitl, appellations of the war-god,
Huitzilopochtli, to "which has been added the co, an affix imply
ing locality ; hence * Mexico would imply the place or settle
ment of Mexico, or Mexicans. This war-god, Huitzilopochtli, as
is well known, was the mythic leader and chief deity of the Az
tecs, the dominant tribe of the Nahua nation. It was by this
august personage, who was also called Mexitl, that, according
to tradition, the name was given them in the twelfth century,
and in these words, Inaxcan aocmoamotoca inam azteca ye am
mexica, Henceforth bear ye not the name Azteca, but Mexica. "
Torquemada 32 ("Monarq. lud.," tome i, p. 293), referring to
the principal god of the Aztecs, which had two names, Huitzilo-
puchtli and Mexitly, says that this second name means " Navel
of the Maguey."
Clavigero gives the following account : 1061 " There is a great
difference of opinion between different authors as to the etymol
ogy of the word Mexico. Some derive it from Metztli, the
moon, because they saw the moon reflected in the lake as the
oracle had predicted. Others declare that Mexico means at
the fountain or spring, because they found a spring of good
water upon its site. But these two derivations are too violent,
and the first is not only violent, but also ridiculous. I thought
at one time that the name should be Mexicco, which would mean
THE COUNTRY INDICATED BY HWTJI SHlN. 375
* in the center of the magueys, or Mexican aloe-plants ; but,
from the study of the history of these people, I have been un
deceived, and have become convinced that Mexico means the
place of Mexitli J (or Huitzilopochtli who was the Mars of the
Mexicans), because of the sanctuary there built to him ; hence
Mexico means to the Mexicans the same that Fanum Martis
meant to the Romans. From words of this description, when
compounded, the Mexicans take away the final letters tl. The co
that is added is equivalent to our preposition in. The word
Mexicaltzinco means the place of the house or temple of the god
Mexitli : so that Huitzilopochco, Mexicaltzinco, and Mexico, the
names of the three places which were successively inhabited by
the Mexicans, mean substantially the same thing."
Professor J. G. Mtiller, commenting upon these various state
ments, says: 1964 " If we inquire concerning the meaning of Mex
itli and Mexico, we find the singular answers that Mexitli
means the god of Mexico, and that Mexico means the
city of Mexitli. The name of the place called Huitzilopochco,
and the name of the god Huitzilopochtli, might be explained in a
similar way by their connection with each other, or the name of
Tenoch, the mythical founder of Tenochtitlan, by its connection
with the name of that city. Clavigero was therefore wrong
when he was induced, by this course of reasoning in a circle, to
withdraw his earlier view, according to which Mexico meant
in the midst of the maguey, or the Mexican aloe. The Mexi
can word for maguey is metl, from which the final consonants
tl, as is the custom in the case of that termination in the Mexi
can language, are dropped when the word is compounded with
others. This gives a very good explanation of the name Mex
ico. The usual name of the city in olden times was Tenoch
titlan, meaning the prickly pear upon the stone ; and this w^as
also the hieroglyph of the city, it being clearly an emblem of the
wandering multitude who at first were oppressed with many
troubles. Soon, however, the place became a Mexico, a place
in the midst of magueys the plants which were the richest of all
in their blessings to the Mexicans, for they furnished them with
their favourite drink, called octli, and also with a species of
hemp, and with paper."
Having given this full account of the views of others, the
present author now hopes to show that the real meaning of the
376 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
term Mexico is "Place of the Century-plant." The name of the
agave, or century-plant, in the Aztec language is metl, mi and, as
already explained, 1987 nouns ending in tl lose that termination in
compounds and derivatives. The syllable me is sometimes used
as the plural termination of nouns, 1403 and it is in a few cases in
terchanged with ma, the root of maitl,** or maytlj** the hand ;
as, for instance, inT the word meaning to carry a burden on the
shoulders, which is sometimes written mama 190T and sometimes
meme. im With these exceptions, however, it is doubtful whether
the syllable me occurs in any Aztec word, except as the repre
sentative of the name of the agave. There is no question as to
the power of the termination co, and the misunderstandings as to
the meaning of the whole word have all arisen from the difficulty
of explaining the syllable xi. The only explanation that has been
given is that of Clavigero, who, by writing the word " Me-xic-co,"
derived the middle syllable from xic^-tli, " the navel." This is
not a satisfactory derivation, however, and it is surprising that no
one has noticed that the syllable xi is the abbreviated represent
ative of the word xihuitl, 615 or xiuitl, mi meaning an herb or
plant. 1928 In accordance with the rules of the Mexican language,
the tl would be dropped in the compound, and the abbreviation
of the remaining xiui to xi is less violent than that which takes
place in the Mexican language in many other cases. Buschmann,
who is one of the leading authorities upon the subject of the Az
tec language, and whose soundness of judgment is universally
recognized, speaks as follows regarding a case of much greater
abbreviation : 872
" I may be permitted to call it great boldness to point out
the letter x in the forms maxtlatl and maxtli as the last trace
of the verb xeloa. As it is found there in close connection,
both with the following consonant and the preceding syllable,
it would at first sight seem that it should be regarded as a
middle letter of a word. That an etymologist should venture
such an unheard of conjecture as that above made, has only
become possible through the unlimited power of induction,
proceeding cautiously step by step. In these two examples,
which I have treated with etymological accuracy, I have taken
a glance into the dark history of word destruction (or abbre
viation) into which the tribes throughout the whole of North
America have plunged in lawless licentiousness ; the Aztec
THE COUNTRY INDICATED BY I1WUI SHAN. 377
idiom to a less degree than others, but still more than has been
believed. Only one example of a simple kind need be cited:
Niltze, which Molina gives as an exclamation, * ho ! halloa ! is
an abbreviation of nopiltzine, my son (from pilli = son, no = my,
tzin, the reverential form applied here rather as an endear
ment and e, the sign of the vocative)."
In one case the syllables mexi (used with the same meaning as
in Mexico) are abbreviated so that the xi appears as x, s, or z.
This is in the word usually written mexcalli, but also appearing as
mexical, mescal, mezcal, mezcale, mescali, mescale, and mizcal
the name of the maguey-plant (i. e., the metl,pita, agave, Ameri
can aloe, or century-plant for these different terms are all ap
plied to the same plant, 1508 or to mere varieties of what is essen
tially the same plant), or of a plant of similar growth, and a name
which is also applied to a spirituous liquor distilled from its
juice. Sahagun also defines the words as " the cooked leaves of
the aloe."
It may be stated, by the way, that the concluding syllable of
this word is evidently a form of qualli, good, 908 which is perhaps a
participle of qua, to eat, mjeaning that which one can eat. 873 Hence
the word mexical, mezcal, or mexcalli, would mean the good or
edible century-plant, or that part of the century-plant which can
be eaten or drunk when suitably prepared for the purpose. This
is surely a more appropriate etymology than that suggested by
Buschmann, who thinks it to be from metz-calli, meaning the
house or temple of the moon. 886
Returning to the word " Mexico " : In the Maya language of
Yucatan we find the word xihuitl abbreviated to xiu. m In the
Aztec language we find the name of the Mexican balsam-tree 1496
to be hoitzilo-xitl, 1497 and there is no other possible etymological
explanation of the termination of this word than that it is a
corruption of xihuitl. The form xitl, when followed by a word
with which it was compounded, would be reduced to xi, as we
have it in "Me-xi-co."
Fortunately, however, we are able to give a number of Mexi
can words which can not be explained in any other way than
by considering the syllable xi as the representative of the word
xihuitl. This word is almost the only one in the Mexican lan
guage which has two or more radically distinct meanings. It,
however, means not only an herb or plant, but also has the
378 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
meanings 1928 " a year," " a comet," and " a turquoise." Now,
we find, in Molina s Aztec Dictionary, 1926 the following words :
" Ximmictia, to choke or smother the plant of wheat, or
anything similar.
" Ximmatlaliztli, a sapphire, a precious stone.
" Xippachoa, to cover anything with herbs, or to choke the
plant of wheat, or anything similar."
In these words the doubled consonants indicate, merely, that
the preceding vowel is short, and it is necessary to reject one of
the two in order to arrive at the true etymology. The root
mic, which occurs in the first word, conveys the idea of death,
and is connected with miqui, to die ; 868 tia is a verbal termina
tion. Mictia means " to kill," and xi-mictia, if we are right as
to the meaning of the first syllable, would mean " to kill a
plant." This is practically the definition given by Molina. The
third word is compounded from xi and the verb pachoa^
meaning " to rule over, to govern, to set upon eggs like a hen."
Here, again, the idea of overshadowing, or covering over, ex
pressed by pachoa, when combined with the idea of plants or
herbs expressed by xi, produces the definitions given in the dic
tionary.
In the second case, the syllable xi means a turquoise ; liztli
is a grammatical termination, and the matla of xi-matla-liztli is
connected with the word matla-lin, ms meaning "an obscure
green colour." The whole word, therefore, means a turquoise of
an obscure green colour.
In these cases there seems no possibility of doubt as to the
fact that xi is an abbreviation of xihuitl. Two other cases may
be cited in which this word is abbreviated to tz and z, just as, in
the different forms of mexcalli, it is reduced to x, s, or z. Otti
is the Aztec name for India rubber, 1916 while metzolli means 1914
"the marrow or soft part of the maguey." Here me means
the maguey, olli the soft elastic portion, and the tz can mean
nothing else that plant. We also find meztallotl* "the white
heart of the maguey before it throws out its shoot," and metol-
lotl, m * "the marrow or soft part of the maguey." It is difficult
to explain why the inserted z in the first word does not affect the
meaning, on any other theory than that it means plant. Another
case in which the termination huiil is dropped in a compound
is seen in the word quammaitl " a branch of a tree," of which
THE COUNTRY INDICATED BY HWUI SHAN. 379
the part maitl means a hand or arm in this case, a branch
while the syllable qua can be nothing else than the abbreviated
representative of the word quahuitl, a tree.
From these illustrations, drawn from the Mexican language,
it appears to be established beyond any reasonable question that
the term "Me-xi-co" (pronounced by the Aztecs Me-shi-co)
means "the Place of the Agave-plant," or "the Region of the
Century-plant. That this is an appropriate designation, and one
which would very naturally be given by any people coming into
the country from beyond its borders, will be admitted by all
who have visited it.
The plant is peculiar to the country ; it grows throughout
nearly all portions of the land ; its peculiarities are such as to in
stantly attract attention ; and, as will be explained in the follow
ing chapter, it may be claimed to be of greater value to the
inhabitants than any and all other plants growing in the
country.
There is, therefore, reason to believe that if Hwui Shan visited
the region which he claimed to have explored, he reached the
country now known as Mexico, and then probably called by the
same name ; this appellation, as we have seen, being derived from
that of the most useful and remarkable plant which is found there.
The connection between the term Mexico and the name of
the god Mexitli) or Huitzilopoclitli, may be explained by suppos
ing him to have originally been a deification of the century-
plant.
" They manufactured so many things from this plant called
maguey, 324 and it is so very useful in that country, that the devil
took occasion to induce them to believe that it was a god, and
to worship and offer sacrifices to it." (" Spiegazione delle Tavole
del codice Mexicano," in Kingsborough s "Mex. Antiq.," vol. v,
pp. 179-180.)
His name of Huitzilopochtli which has been supposed to be
derived from Huitzitzilin, or, as Molina spells the word, Vitzitzi-
/m, 1930 " the humming-bird," and the root opoch, found in the
word opochmaitl " the left hand" (maitl meaning "hand")>
and which he was said to have been given because he had a fringe
of humming-birds feathers adorning his left leg seems rather
to have been derived from Huitzla " a thorny place or a
thorny plant," and the root poch, with the termination tli, as
380 AN INGLOKIOUS COLUMBUS.
found in tel-pochtli "a youth," and icli-poclitli^ " a maiden,"
and to have meant "the Ever-youthful One of the Thorny
Plant."
The termination pochtli occurs in the name of the god
0-pochtli, protector of fishermen 2239 (perhaps originally A-pochtli,
"the Youthful One of the Water"), and it here evidently has
nothing to do with the left hand. That the termination pochtli
was not an essential part of Huitzilopochtli s name is shown by
the fact that 744 the place in which his temple was situated was
called Huitzillan, a compound formed from Huitzil with the
place-termination tlan.
Bancroft states 321 that Huitzilopochtli was the son of the
goddess of plants, and that his connection with the botanical
kingdom is shown by the fact that he was specially worshiped at
three ancient yearly feasts, which took place exactly at those
periods of the year that are the most influential for the Mexican
climate : the middle of May, the middle of August, and the end
of December.
The theory, that he was originally a deification of the century-
plant, is strengthened by the fact that he was considered as the
god of vegetation, by whose power it was annually revivified. 1965
We also find the word Vitzyecoltia (which by many other
authors would be spelled Huitzyecoltia, Molina always using v or u
before a vowel to indicate the sound of the English w, which
other writers indicate by the letters hu) defined as meaning
" to celebrate the feast of the vine." The syllable yec is from
the root of yec-tli, meaning " good." The last five letters form
a verbal termination. The syllable vitz can mean nothing else
than a thorn or thorny plant, and must have originally referred
to the century-plant which was the one from which the Mexi
cans obtained their " wine," which was the only intoxicating
liquor with which they were acquainted ; and the plant is therefore
frequently referred to by early authors as the " vine " of the
country. The Mexicans certainly had no feast dedicated to the
grape-vine, as, although it occurs in the country (as will be
shown in Chapter XXII), it is seldom referred to, and they never
made wine from grapes. 1 -
Since writing the above, I have found the following statement
in Sahagun : 2m " New wine made from the maguey is called
uitz-tli." This seems to remove all possibility of doubt of the
THE COUNTRY INDICATED BY HWUI SHlN. 381
connection of the verbal root variously spelled uitz, vitz, and
huitz, with the century-plant.
The name Camaxtle, lS5& or Camaxtli under which this god
was worshiped by the Tlascaltecs, seems to have been formed
from the prefix ca (meaning unknown) and a variant of the
name Mexitli. This people also knew him by the name of Mix-
couatl* in which another variation of the same word may be
seen.
While it is true that the word " Mexico " means " the Place
of the Century-plant," it could also be used with the meaning of
" the Place of Mexi-tli "/ Mexi-tli being (as above explained)
nothing but a name for the personified or deified century-plant.
Now, in the center of the city of Tenochtitlan, there was a large
square containing the temple in which the god Huitzilopochtli,
or Mexitli, was worshiped. This square and its temple would
be called " Mexico," meaning (in this connection) " the Place of
the God Mexitli," and this fact explains how it was that the
name was thought to apply, first, to a ward of the city, and,
later ) to the whole city ; why it was that many of the Spaniards
supposed it to be applicable to a limited area only, instead of to
the whole country, and why they failed to learn its original sig
nification.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE FU-SANG TREE AND THE BED PEARS.
Connection between the name of the country and that of the " tree " Application
to smaller plants of the Chinese character translated "tree Application
of the term " tree " to the century -plant Description of the metl, maguey,
agave, aloe, or century -plant The leaves of the fu-sang Disagreement of dif
ferent texts The t ung tree Evidence of corruption in the text Conject
ure as to original reading Similarity of the young sprouts to those of the
bamboo Their edibility Thread and cloth from the fiber of the plant
The finer fabric made from it Variation in the texts Manufacture of pa
per The red pear The prickly-pear Resemblance of the century-plant to
the cacti Preserves made from the prickly-pears Confusion in the Mexican
language between milk and the sap of the century-plant The Chinese " lo,"
or koumiss The liquor made from the sap of the century -plant Its resem
blance to koumiss Indians never use milk Confusion in other Indian lan
guages between sap and milk Meaning of the name fu-sang Variations in
the characters with which it is written The spontaneous reproduction of the
century-plant The decomposition of the character " sang " The tree of the
large wine-jar The tree having a great cloud of blossoms Blooming but
once in a thousand years The Chinese name of the prickly-pear Eitel s
definition of the term " fu-sang " Professor Gray s statement.
HAYING thus settled, as far as it is now possible to do so, the
character of the nation which Hwui Shan would have found in
the region indicated by him, if he actually took the journey
which he claimed that he had made, and having attempted to
determine the name of the country, and its meaning, let us now
continue the examination of his story.
II. THAT REGION HAS MANY FU-SANG TREES, AND IT is FROM
THESE TREES THAT THE COUNTRY DERIVES ITS NAME OF Fu-SANG.
THE LEAVES RESEMBLE ? AND THE FIRST SPROUTS ARE LIKE
THOSE OF THE BAMBOO. THE PEOPLE OF THE COUNTRY EAT
THEM AND THE (or A) FRUIT, WHICH IS LIKE A PEAR (in form),
BUT OF A REDDISH COLOUR. THEY SPIN THREAD FROM THEIR
THE FU-SANG TREE AND THE RED PEARS.
383
BARK, FROM WHICH THEY MAKE CLOTH OF WHICH THEY MAKE
CLOTHING ; THEY ALSO MANUFACTURE A FINER FABRIC FROM IT.
. . . THEY MAKE PAPER FROM THE BARK OF THE FU-SANG. . . .
THEY HAVE THE RED PEARS KEPT UNSPOILED THROUGHOUT THE
YEAR.
One of the first points to attract the attention is, that there \
is a connection between the name of the country and that of a
species of " tree " which grows there. It has already been shown
that there is a similar connection between the name " Mexico "
and the agave, or century-plant. It might be claimed, however,
that this is not a " tree."
In reply to this objection, it may be said that it is probable
that the century-plant would be included by the Chinese under
the general term MUH, fa which is here translated " tree," this
character being used by the Chinese not only as the radical of
trees, but also of shrubs. 2491 Fig. 10 contains illustrations of two
iJfc/
FIG. 10. Two plants classified in the En-YA, under th c heading MUH, or " trees."
plants which in the Rii-YA (a book written by one of the most
celebrated scholars of the Han dynasty, between B. c. 202 and
A. D. 25) are included under this general heading of MUH, or
"trees." It is evident that, if these insignificant plants can
properly be included in that term, the century-plant the flower
ing-stalks of which sometimes tower to a height of forty 2373 or
fifty 2372 feet, throwing out branches on every side, 2373 and being
384 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
sufficiently solid to be used as beams, 2370 of which houses are built
in many places ; 222 these stalks being said to make " very good
rafters," and being also used as fuel, 11 can hardly be excluded,
either on the ground of size or of lack of woody consistency.
As a matter of fact, the term " tree " was usually applied to
the century-plant by < the early writers. Acosta, for instance,
says : " " The maguey is the tree, of marvels, to which the Indians
are accustomed to ascribe miracles, inasmuch as it gives them
water, wine, oil, vinegar, honey, syrup, thread, and a thousand
other things. It is a tree which the Indians of New Spain es
teem very highly. . . . The wood of this tree is hollow and soft,
and is used for preserving a fire, for it burns slowly like a match
lock, and keeps the fire for a long time, and I have seen the In
dians use it for this purpose."
So, too, Gage says : 1379 " About Mexico, more than in any
other part, groweth that excellent tree called metl" ; and, 1377
"There are also mantles made of the leaves of a tree called
metV Bartram also speaks of " a forest " of agaves, and ex
plains : 55 " I term it a forest, because their scapes, or flower-
stems, arose erect near thirty feet high."
It is therefore manifest that Hwui Shan is not alone in his
application of the term " tree " to the century -plant.
Before examining his description of the plant, or tree, from
which the country took its name, it will be best to note what is
said by other writers regarding the plant which, if Mexico is
identified with Fu-sang, must have been the " f u-sang tree " of
Hwui Shan.
Prescott says : 2066 " The miracle of nature was the maguey r ,
whose clustering pyramid of flowers, towering above their dark
coronals of leaves, were seen sprinkled over many a broad acre
of the table-land. Its bruised leaves afforded a paste from which
paper was manufactured ; its juice was fermented into an in
toxicating beverage, pulque, of which the natives to this day
are excessively fond ; its leaves further supplied an impenetrable
thatch for the more humble dwellings ; thread, of which coarse
stuffs were made, and strong cords, were drawn from its tough
and twisted fibers ; pins and needles were made of the thorns at
the extremity of its leaves ; and the root, when properly cooked,
was converted into a palatable and nutritious food. The agave,
in short, was meat, drink, clothjng, and writing-materials, for the
THE FU-SANG TREE AND THE RED PEARS. 385
FIG. 11. A century-plant in blossom.
386 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Aztec ! Surely, never did nature inclose in so compact a form
so many of the elements of human comfort and civilization . "
Clavigero, in his " History of Mexico," has epitomized the
uses of the various kinds of agaves of that country in the fol
lowing language : 237
" Some species furnish protecting inclosures, and afford im
passable hedges to other objects of cultivation. From the juice
of others are extracted honey, sugar, vinegar, pulque, and ardent
spirits. From the trunk and the thickest part of the leaves,
roasted in the earth, an agreeable food is obtained. The flower
ing-stalks serve as beams, and the leaves as roofs for houses. The
thorns answer for lancets, awls, needles, arrowheads, and other
cutting and penetrating instruments. But the fibrous substance
of the leaves is the most important gift of the agaves of Mexico.
According to the species, the fiber varies in quality from the
coarsest hemp to the finest flax, and may be employed as a supe
rior substitute for both. From it the ancient Mexicans fabri
cated their thread and cordage ; mats and bagging ; shoes and
clothing ; webs equivalent to cambric and canvas ; the ham
mocks in which they were born, and in which they reposed and
died, and the paper on which they painted their histories, and
with which they adored and adorned their gods. The value of
these agaves is enhanced by their indifference to soil, climate,
and season ; by the simplicity of their cultivation, and by the
ease with which their products are extracted and prepared. It
is not, therefore, surprising that the ancient Mexicans used
some part or preparation of these plants in their civil, military,
and religious ceremonies, and at marriages and deaths ; nor that
they perpetuated an allusion to their properties in the name of
their capital." 107S
Fig. 11 is a cut of a century-plant, adapted by the engraver
from a photograph, by Mr. Taber of San Francisco, of a plant
now (December, 1884) in blossom in that city. The represen
tation of the flowering-stalk is much better than that of the
leaves about its base.
It is unfortunate that the various Chinese authorities differ
so radically as to what it was that the leaves of the fu-sang tree
resembled, that it seems impossible to determine, with any cer
tainty, the real statement of Hwui Shan on the subject.
In Ma Twan-lin s account, it is said that they resemble those
THE FU-SANG TREE AND THE RED PEARS.
337
of the T UNG tree. This is said by Klaproth to be the Bignonia
tomentosa, by Neumann to be the Dryandra cordif olia, by Julien
to be the Paullownia imperialis, and by Leland to be the Dry-
anda cordata, or Eleococca verrucosa.
Fig. 12, copied from the Rn-YA, shows, on the left, the
YUNG-T UNG, or " Beautiful T UNG " tree ; now called the wu-
Fio. 12. The t ung tree and the wild mulberry.
T UNG ; and this in Williams s Dictionary (p. 1060) is said to be
the Eleococca verrucosa. In the same engraving is given a pict
ure of the wild mulberry, or mountain mulberry, the leaves of
which will be seen to closely resemble those of the YUNG-T UNG.
Leland states, however, 1718 that in the "Year Books of the
Liang Dynasty," the character is not written jffl, T UNG, the t ung
tree, but Jp), T UNG, copper. According to this older authority,
therefore, the leaves of the fu-sang tree resembled copper. The
old Chinese geography, called the Shan Hai King, adds to the
confusion by saying that the leaves are like mustard, or sinapis.
The two characters given above have the same "phonetic," or
"primitive" (the part at the right), and differ only in the "radi
cal" (the part at the left), which, in the first is "tree," and, in
the second, is " metal." The characters are so much alike that
the indications are strong that the first was substituted for the
second by some copyist or commentator, who reasoned as fol-
388 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
lows : " The appellation c f u-sang means the useful mulberry.
The tree was therefore some species of mulberry. The Regis
ters of the Liang Dynasty say that its leaves resemble copper.
This is evidently a mistake ; there is no plant having leaves re
sembling copper ; the character, however, very much resembles
that used for the T UNG tree, and the leaves of this tree are very
similar to those of the mulberry. It is therefore probable that
some copyist, transcribing the old records, written before print
ing was invented, mistook a carelessly written character, T UNG,
H3, meaning * the T UNG tree, for the character T UNG, $p], * cop
per. I will correct his error, and restore the reading as it
must originally have stood." So, like many of our Shakespearean
commentators, he probably substituted his own conjecture for
the original text, merely because he was unable to understand
the latter ; and thereby made it almost impossible for those
coming after him to detect the real meaning of the author.
If I may be permitted to submit a surmise, which is con
fessedly a mere conjecture, of which the most that can be said is
that it is possibly true ; I would suggest that the old reading " cop
per " is probably an error, but that the mistake is not in the radi
cal, but in the phonetic. There is in the Chinese language a
character, j, KEu, 2538 which closely resembles the one used for
" copper," jjj). This character KEU is defined as meaning " a
hook, a barb, a claw, a fluke ; a sickle, a bill-hook ; a crooked
sword ; to hook, to make crooked or hooked." It is evident that
the general idea is that of being crooked, sharp, and barbed ; and
the character was probably originally composed of the radical
" metal " with a picture of a fish-hook and its bait. This character
is used in the compound KEu-YAo, 2577 " the barbed-exotic," which
is applied to a species of thistle found in Kiang-su. No charac
ter in the Chinese language would better describe the curved
and prickly leaves of the century-plant, " armed with teeth like a
shark," 1282 than this term KEU, " a hook, a barb, a crooked sword."
Now, if Hwui Shan said that the leaves of the f u-sang resembled j,
it is not beyond the limits of reasonable possibility that this may
have been so illegibly written as to have been mistaken for ||sj,
or that some copyist may have carelessly made this change
while transcribing. Then the course of reasoning above sug
gested would very naturally have led to the substitution of the
character Jpi), and the accounts would have exhibited the confu-
THE FU-SANG TREE AND THE RED PEARS.
3S9
sion and contradiction that we now find. It is not contended
that these changes are proved, or anything more than merely
possible. It is claimed, however, that unless some such changes
took place, the variations in the texts can not be explained ; and
that it is now impracticable to decide with certainty as to the
character originally used. The fact that the leaves of the cent
ury-plant do not at all resemble those of the TUNG tree is there
fore no proof that the fu-sang tree was not the century-plant
In Hwui Shan s next statement we find a detail regarding
which there is no dispute, which makes it absolutely impossible
that the original description of the plant can have represented
that its leaves resembled those of the T UNG tree. This is the fact
that " the first sprouts are like those of the bamboo." Now, the
bamboo is an endogenous plant, and the first sprouts of nearly all
endogens have a similar general character, but differ widely from
those of the exogens. No mulberry, no T UNG tree (if this is cor
rectly identified by any of the authors above named), ever exhib
ited a " first sprout " which even the most careless observer could
consider as at all resembling that of the bamboo, while this com
parison might be made with
justice as to the sprout of
almost any endogenous plant.
Fig. 13, a copy of another
illustration of the Rn-TA,
gives a picture of these bam
boo-sprouts. It is not difficult
to find specimens of the cent
ury-plant in almost any of
our cities, and young sprouts
may frequently be found push
ing up around them. If the
reader will take the trouble to
examine some of these, he will
see that the illustration of
bamboo-sprouts will answer
nearly as well for those of the
century-plant. The resemblance is very close and very striking.
Hwui Shan would hardly have been likely to mention these
shoots, however, if it were not a fact that their great number
about the elder plants is such as to attract attention. M. Jourdanet,
FIG. 13. Bamboo-sprouts.
390 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
in his notes upon Sahagun, says that, 2221 at an advanced period of
the plant s development, eight or ten shoots grow up about it ;
while Bartlett M9 and Squier 2372 agree in the statement that " an
infinity of shoots " springs from the decaying roots of the old
plants, and that no known plant multiplies with greater facility.
Our Asiatic traveler noticed a second point of resemblance to
bamboo-shoots, however, and that lay in the fact that they were
edible. Professor Williams states that 249 the tender shoots of
the bamboo are cultivated for food, and are, when four or five
inches high, boiled, pickled, and comfited. Crawf urd says that 1136
the young shoots of the bamboo are, with the natives of the In
dian Islands, a frequent, favourite, and agreeable esculent vege
table, and may be either boiled, or used with vinegar as a pickle.
The " Chinese Repository " gives the following account : 988
"The young and tender shoots of the bamboo are used as a
vegetable for the table in different ways ; if cut as soon as they
appear above the ground, they are almost as tender and delicate
as asparagus. They are white and palatable, and when in this
state are used as pickles, as greens, as a sweetmeat, and as a
medicine. The fondness for these young shoots is so general
that they are made articles of commerce, and are sent to the
capital and all parts of the empire. They are cured by exposing
them, when fresh, to steam, and afterward drying them. They
often form a part in the feasts of the rich, and constitute an im
portant article of diet for the priests. These young shoots are
artificially cultivated during the most part of the year. All
classes use the pickle, as a relish, with rice and other vegetable
dishes."
The statement of Clavigero, 2370 that, from the trunk of the
century -plant and the thickest part of the leaves, roasted in the
earth, an agreeable food is obtained, has already been quoted.
Bancroft mentions the maguey-plant, Agave Mexicana, among
the articles on which the natives of New Mexico rely for food, 115
and also names "roasted portions of the maguey stalks and
leaves" 203 among the articles of food used by the natives of
Mexico. General Crook, in his report to the Government of his
expedition against the Mescalero Apaches (who take even their
name from the " mescal," before referred to a species of agave),
states as one of the reasons which make it almost impossible to
capture them, that 1U9 " the agave grows luxuriantly in the mount-
THE FU-SANG TREE AND THE RED PEARS. 391
ains, and upon this plant alone the Indians can live." M. God-
ron says that 1413 they not only eat the tender roots of the plant,
but also the central shoot, keeping its soft and fleshy consistence.
It is reasonable to believe that the young and tender shoots
would be included among the parts of a " soft and fleshy consist
ence," and so would be eaten with the rest. Other authors do
not mention them particularly, as they would form only a small
portion of the food derived from the plants, but Hwui Shan
would be led to refer specially to them, because of their resem
blance to the edible shoots of the bamboo.
The Chinese text says that the people of the country spun
thread from the bark of the fu-sang tree, from which they made
cloth, of which they made clothing, and that they also manufact
ured a finer fabric from it.
In the case of most exogenous fiber-producing plants, it is
from one of the layers of bark that the fiber is derived, and those
who are accustomed to seeing flax, hemp, or the paper-mulberry,
naturally learn to associate fiber with the "bark," and to speak
of it as derived therefrom, even in the case of endogenous
plants, which have no true bark, and in which the fiber is scat
tered through the stems and leaves. The Abbe Brasseur de
Bourbourg, for instance, makes the statements that 657 the Cak-
chiquels made garments from the bark of trees, and of maguey s,
and that 659 nequen is a species of coarse hemp which the Mexi
cans draw from the bark of the aloe, or maguey.
Dr. Brinton, also, after mentioning that three Central Ameri
can codices, described by him, were all 841 written on paper
manufactured from the leaves of the maguey-plant, refers to the
statements of old writers, who said that the books of the Mexi
cans were made of the bark of trees.
In Ma Twan-lin s text, the clause which I have translated,
"They also manufacture a finer fabric from it" (the thread),
reads, " They make KIX, |g, from it " (the thread). The term KIN-
IS defined as meaning " embroidered stuff, or embroidered and
ornamented stuff in general." 1713 Professor Williams (p. 399
of his dictionary) defines it as a kind of thin brocade, and in
the article, copied in Chapter XIV of this work, says that the
word is applied to embroidery and parti-coloured textures. It is
not so much the damask-like figure that is the essential point,
but among the Chinese the kin always has a variety of colours.
392 Atf INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
Mr. Leland says, however, 1713 that the " Year Books of the
Liang Dynasty" have, instead of KIN, the character MIEN (evi
dently $), which signifies fine silk. This "Register of the
Liang Dynasty " is the original authority on the subject, and, in
case of a variation in the texts, its reading is entitled to at least
as much attention as that of Ma Twan-lin.
Hepburn defines the character MIEN, " cotton, floss silk," I4M
and says that the "Tree-MiEN," ^f; $, is a kind of cloth, made
of the bark of the mulberry, worn in ancient times. 1493 Professor
Williams defines the word, " soft, cottony, like fine floss or raw
silk, drawn out, prolonged, extended, as a thread or fiber."
It is therefore probable that in the time of Hwui Shan the
term was applied to some species of soft textile fabric, made
from the fiber of the paper-mulberry, of a finer quality than the
usual coarse material manufactured from it, and if the word was
so used in his days, he would naturally apply it to a similar ma
terial made from the agave fiber.
As to the manufactures of the Mexicans, McCulloh says : 1846
" From the maguey they made two kinds of cloth, one of which
was like hempen cloth, and a finer kind which resembled linen"
Clavigero states that 1082 "from the leaves of the pati,* and
of the quetzalichtli (species of maguey), they drew a fine thread,
with which they made cloth as good as that made of linen, and
from the leaves of other species of maguey they derived a
coarser thread similar to hemp." This account is repeated by
the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg. 719
Sahagun, also, when speaking of the merchant who deals in
mantles made from the fiber of the maguey, says : 2208 " Some of
those which he sells are of light tissue, similar to those which
are used for head-dresses, such as the finely woven mantles of
the single thread of the nequen, and those which are made from
the twisted threads of this plant. He also sells others of coarse
texture, very closely woven, and still others coarse and thick,
made either from the pita, or from the thread of the maguey."
The Chinese account says that paper, also, is made from the
bark of the f u-sang ; and the following quotations regarding the
paper manufactured from the fiber of the agave, maguey, or
century-plant will be of interest in this connection.
Bancroft says : 232 " Paper, in Aztec amatl, used chiefly as a
* Perhaps a typographical error. The pita is probably meant. E. P. V.
THE FU-SANG TREE AXD THE RED PEARS. 393
material on which to paint the hieroglyphic records, was made
for the most part of maguey fiber, although the other fibers used
in the manufacture of cloth were occasionally mixed with those
of this plant. The material must have been pressed together
when wet, and the product was generally very thick, more like a
soft pasteboard than our paper. The surface was smooth, and
well adapted to the painting which it was to bear. Certain gums
are said to have been used for the more perfect cohesion of the
fiber, and the amatl was made in long, narrow sheets suitable
for rolling or folding."
The Cavalier Boturini,* a collector of Mexican relics, in
forms us 2453 (yet from sources which he has omitted to quote) :
" Indian paper was made from the leaves of the maguey, which,
in the language of the natives, was called metl, and in Spanish
pita. The leaves were soaked, putrefied, and the fibers washed,
smoothed, and extended for the manufacture of thin as well as
thick paper." 216
Squier makes the following statement : 2372 "The fiber of the
maguey is coarser than that of the Agave Sisilana, but it is,
nevertheless, of great utility, and is extensively used. The an
cient Mexicans painted their hieroglyphical records and ritual
calendars on paper made from the leaves of this plant, macerated
in water, and the fibers deposited in layers, like those of the
Egyptian cyperus (papyrus), and the mulberry of the South Sea
Islands ; and in modern times the fibers are used for a corre
sponding purpose. Indeed, the paper made from the maguey
is so much esteemed for its toughness and durability, over that
made in the United States and Europe, that, in 1830, a law was
enacted by the Mexican Congress requiring that no other kind
of paper should be used in recording the laws, or in the execu
tion of legal documents."
He adds 2373 that Mr. Brantz Mayer, in his work, " Mexico as
It Was and as It Is," p. 313, observes : "The best coarse wrap
ping or envelope paper I have ever seen is made in Mexico, from
the leaves of the Agave Americana. It has almost the tough
ness and tenacity of iron."
Hwui Shan s account says that the people of the country ate a
fruit which was like a pear in appearance, but which was red. The
*Cavaliere Lorenzo Boturini Benaducci, " Idea de Una Nueva Historia Gene
ral y Catalogo del Musco Historico," Madrid^ 1746, p. 95.
394: AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
character SHIH used to designate the fruit, indicates that it did
not have a nut or kernel, 2563 as, if it had, the term KWO 2544
would probably have been used instead. The connection is such
that it is naturally inferred that the fruit referred to was that
of the fu-sang. This seeins the most probable meaning of the
text ; and yet I hardly think it entirely certain that the meaning
may not have been that the people ate a fruit instead of the
fruit (of the fu-sang). The fruit referred to can be nothing else
than the well-known prickly-pear, otherwise called the noctli, 1 * 00
nopalli 1 nopal? nochtli tuna* or Indian fig. 2590 The re
semblance of its shape to that of a pear is such that it derives
its best-known name from this fact, and, while there are species
of many different colours, 1386 the common wild variety is red. It
is the fruit of a species of cactus. The agave, or century-plant,
belongs to a different botanical family, and yet it so closely re
sembles the cacti, in many of their most striking peculiarities, that
travelers frequently fall into the error of classing it with them.
Lieutenant Herndon, for instance, says that the " maguey is a
species of cactus." 1533 An editorial article in the New York
"Herald," of February 17, 1883, says that "the present customs
duty on hennequin, or Sisal hemp which is the product of a
kind of cactus is six dollars a ton " ; the fact being that
the so-called Sisal hemp is derived from a species of agave very
closely related to the century-plant. So, also, an article in the
Chicago "Tribune," of May 11, 1884, mentions "that species
of cactus called the maguey." Both the agaves and the cacti
are distinguished from other plants by their thick, fleshy, stem-
less leaves, which, in both cases, are usually armed with strong
spines or thorns. They grow in arid 2372 and barren 2373 lands,
in which scarcely any other plant except varieties of artemi-
sia, or sage-brush can live ; and it is not strange that they
should be considered by the unscientific observer as different
species of one general family. It is possible that Hwui Shan
used the term fu-sang as a generic name, under which he in
tended to include all varieties of the cactus, and that he classed
the agaves with them. Mexico is the home of both plants, and
they form the characteristic vegetation of a large portion of
that country. They are indigenous nowhere else except in the
neighbouring regions, and it is in Mexico that they present more
varieties and larger species than in any other part of the globe. 586
THE FtJ-SANG TREE AND THE RED PEARS. 395
The prickly-pear abounds in nearly all portions of Mexico, and
it is a fruit that is much esteemed, and which enters largely into
the food of the inhabitants. Gage says of it that it is 1386 " abso
lutely one of the best fruits " in the country. Emory speaks of
its " truly delicious " taste. Diaz states that the army of Cortez 1204
lived for a time upon it ; and Prescott says that the provisions
with which his camp was supplied from the friendly towns in the
neighbourhood consisted of fish and the fruits of the country, 2081
" particularly a sort of fig borne by the tuna ( Cactus opuntia)."
The last statement of the Chinese text regarding these " red
pears " is, that they are kept unspoiled throughout the year. In
the relation of the voyage to Cibola, undertaken in 1540, con
tained in vol. ix, of the first series of the " Voyages," etc., pub
lished by M. Ternaux-Compans, it is stated that the people of the
country 2437 " make many preserves from tunas, the juice of which
is so sweet that it preserves them perfectly without adding any
syrup." The statement is also made in another place that, " in a
province called Nacapan, many tunas, or Indian figs, are found,
of which the people make preserves." 2431
The Marquis d Hervey de Saint-Denys, in his notes, which are
given in the twelfth chapter of this work, calls attention to the
fact that the Encyclopaedia, Ku-kin-tu-shu-tai-ching, gives the
passage of the Chinese text last above referred to, " They have
the pears of thefu-sang tree" etc., instead of the reading given
by Ma Twan-lin. This seems to indicate that there was a doubt
in the minds of various Chinese authors and compilers as to
whether the (< red pears " were or were not the fruit of the f u-
sang tree.
Before leaving the account of the fu-sang, there is another
statement of the Chinese text, which, in my opinion, should be
connected with the details regarding this plant, and that is :
III. FROM MILK THEY MAKE KOUMISS.
As this phrase follows a reference to the deer of the country,
it has usually been translated, " from the milk of the hinds they
make butter, cheese, creamy dishes, or cream " ; for all these
articles are named by different authors as indicated by the Chi
nese character LO, which in the translation given above is ren
dered "koumiss." The words, "of the hinds," italicized above,
are not found in the Chinese text, and are supplied only from
the inferences of the translators.
396 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
According to the " Chinese Repository," 987 the products of
the dairy, as milk, butter, and cheese, are hardly known among
the Chinese. Milk is usually cooked by boiling ; it is also em
ployed in making cakes, pastry, etc. Butter and cheese are not
used by them, nor do they understand the process of making the
latter. Professor Williams refers to the same fact in the following
words : 2501 " The Chinese use very little from the dairy, as milk,
butter, or cheese ; the very small number of cattle raised in the
country, and the consequent dearness of these articles, may have
caused them to fall into disuse, for they are all common among
the Manchus and Mongols. A Chinese table seems ill-furnished
to a foreigner when he sees neither bread, butter, nor milk upon
it, and, if he expresses his disrelish of the oily dishes or alliaceous
stews before him, the Chinese thinks that he gives a sufficient
reply to the disparagement of his taste, when he answers, You
eat cheese, and sometimes when it can almost walk. "
In many other parts of Asia, as, for instance, in Sumatra,
the natives use no milk or butter. 1822
Koumiss, or some similar preparation, was made by the Chi
nese, however, 1008 as far back as in the days of the Han dynasty
(B. c. 202 to A. D. 25), and the following account of it is given 1009
in the " Chinese Repository " :
" The Chinese describe a preparation, made from the milk of
various domestic animals, that resembles the koumiss, found
among the Tartars. It is called lo, and is made in the follow
ing manner : Put a quart of milk into a boiler, and simmer
it for some time, when another quart is to be added, and the
whole boiled until many bubbles arise to the surface, all the
while stirring it about with the ladle ; now pour it into a ves
sel, and wait till it is cold, when the pellicle that forms upon
the surface is to be taken off to form the soo (a kind of oil
that is simmered from such pellicles). Now add a little old lo,
and cover it up for a while with paper, until it is completely
made."
This is evidently the LO mentioned in our text, and it was,
therefore, neither butter, cheese, cream, nor any similar article
of food.
Attention has been called to the. fact that a " wine," much
resembling koumiss, was made by the Mexicans from the sap of
the agave, and it has been claimed that if Hwui Shan was at-
THE FU-SANG TREE AND THE RED PEARS. 397
tempting to describe the agave, or century-plant, in the tree which
he calls fu-sang, he would have referred to this liquor that was
made from it. Bancroft 204 says that one of the most popular
Nahua beverages was that since known as pulque. This liquor,
called by the natives octli pulque, or pulcre, being a South
American aboriginal term applied to it in some unaccountable
w r ay by the Spaniards was the fermented juice of the maguey.
One plant is said to yield about one hundred pounds in a month.
A cavity is cut at the base of the larger leaves, and allowed to
fill with juice, which is removed to a vessel of earthenware or
of skin, where it ferments rapidly and is ready for use.
In another place 122 he states that their principal and national
drink is pulque, made from the Agave Americana, and is thus
prepared : When the plant is about to bloom, the heart, or stalk,
is cut out, leaving a hole in the center, which is covered with the
outer leaves. Every twenty-four hours, or, in the hotter climates,
twice a day, the cavity fills with the sap from the plant, which
is taken out and fermented by the addition of some already-
fermented pulque, and the process is continued until the plant
ceases to yield a further supply. The liquor obtained is at first
of a thick white colour, and is at all times very intoxicating.
Brasseur de Bourbourg also states that the colour of pulque is
whitish, like that of whey, 714 and it is, therefore, evident that, in
its colour and general appearance, as well as in its fermentation
and its intoxicating quality, it closely resembles the koumiss, or
"lo," and no better term than this could be found for it in
Chinese.
That koumiss, or some other intoxicating liquor, was used
in Fu-sang, is indicated by that clause of the account in which
it is stated that the people of the country feasted and drank* at
the great assemblies which they held to pass judgment upon
criminals of a high rank.
The question instantly arises, however, " If this was the arti
cle to which Hwui Shan referred, why did he say that it was
made from milk ? " The answer to this query is, that the Mexi
cans applied the term milk to the sap of the century-plant, or
rather designated both articles by a common term, which was
originally the name of the sap.
Milk, in the Mexican or Aztec language, is called " memeyal-
* See character No. 182, in chapter xvi, p. 276.
.398 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
lotl." 1906 The last part, " yallotl," is elsewhere spelled " yollotl," 616
or " yullotli," 1903 and means the heart, the life, or, in case of a
plant, the sap, the juice. The syllable "me" is, as is the case in
the word Mexico, from metl, a century-plant, or agave ; and the
reduplicated form, meme, indicates the plural. 1403 The whole word
therefore means " century-plants sap."
Powers states that it 2061 is a singular fact that the Indians
generally have no word for " milk." They never see it, for they
never extract it from any animal, because that would seem to
them a kind of sacrilege or robbery of the young. Hence, an
Indian frequently sees this article for the first time among civil
ized people, and adopts the Spanish word for it.
The confusion existing in the Aztec language between the
name for milk (i. e., the natural food of young children) and the
sap of the century -plant is shown by the following quotation
from Bancroft : 302
" The children were given to Xolotl to bring up, and he fed
them on the juice of the maguey : literally, in the earliest copy
of the myth that I have seen, the milk of the thistle, i la leche de
cardo, which term has been repeated blindly, and apparently
without any idea of its meaning, by the various writers that
have followed. The old authorities, however, and especially
Mendieta, from whom the legend is taken, were in the habit of
calling the maguey a thistle ; * and, indeed, the tremendous
prickles of the Mexican plant may lay good claim to the l Nemo
me impune lacessit * of the Scottish emblem."
Thomas, also, speaking of "pellets of milk? which were
burnt before a certain idol in Yucatan, says : 2446 " By the term
milk, as here used, is meant the milky juice of some plant."
The same confusion between sap and milk exists in other
American languages ; as, for instance, in the Chippeway (or Ojib-
beway), in which milk is called 1761 " the sap of the breast," 1762
and wine is called 928 "grape-milk."
The Chinese also occasionally use the word milk in a figura
tive sense, as in the compounds " milk-gold," 2535 for liquid gold
used in painting ; " bamboo-milk," for tabasheer ; and " milky
* " Maguey is the thistle from which they extract honey," Mendieta, " Hist.
Ecles.," p. 110. " Metl is a tree or thistle which, in the language of the islands,
is called maguey," Motolinia, " Hist, de los Ind.," in Icazbalceta, " Col. de Doc.,"
tome i, p. 243.
THE FU-SAXG TREE AND THE RED PEARS. 399
perfume," for olibaimm or incense : but they probably do not
use it any more freely in this figurative sense than it is so em
ployed in English.
The foregoing explanations appear to remove all material
difficulties in Hwui Shan s account, as far as it is quoted in this
chapter, and the statements which are copied from other authors
prove that if he had gone to Mexico he would there have found
a country deriving its name from a remarkable plant, whose
first shoots were like those of the bamboo, and which were
edible ; that thread, clothing, and two varieties of cloth were
prepared from its fiber, and that paper was also made from it ;
and, finally, that a species of red pear was found in the land,
which it was the custom to preserve in such a manner that it
served as an article of food throughout the year. There is no
other country in the world as to which all of these statements are
true, and there therefore seems no escape from the conviction
that Hwui Shan either visited Mexico himself, or else derived
his information from some one who had been in that country.
This chapter will be concluded with an account of the charac
ters used by the Chinese in writing descriptions of Fu-sang, or
of the fu-sang tree, and with a reference to Chinese traditions
regarding the existence of a "tree" having the most striking
peculiarities of the century-plant ; traditions which may be
founded upon the verbal statements of Hwui Shan, which would
naturally be fuller and more complete than those embodied in
the official record.
The name FU-SANG is usually written in Chinese with the two
characters J ||, of which the first means "to assist, to sup
port, to defend " ; and the second indicates the mulberry. It is
probable that the characters are used only as phonetics, but there
is a possibility that their signification was borne in mind and
that the name was intended to mean "the useful mulberry," or
" the defensive mulberry " ; the term " mulberry " being applied
to the plant on account of the similarity between the uses made
of its fiber and those to which that of the paper-mulberry was
applied. As to the appropriateness of the term "useful," as
applied to the agave, there can be no question ; and if the first
character is considered to mean "defensive," or "defending,"
rather than " useful," this would also be appropriate, as it was,
and still is, a custom in Mexico to use the agaves as a defensive
00 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
hedge ; 5U their strong and numerous spines rendering it impos
sible for animals, or men, to force their way through it.
In some cases the character ^j-Jj, which is also pronounced FU,
is used instead of the first of the two given on the last page. 2527
In one instance the character $j|, su, is used instead of |j|, SANG.
This is in the phrase, j[ ^ J jj|, SHAN YIU FU-SU, which Pro
fessor Williams translates, "the hills produce mulberries." The
first two characters mean, " the hills produce " (or " the island
produces "), and the term " mulberries " must therefore be his
translation of the last two characters. He adds the statement
that this ancient name FU-SU is probably the same as FU-SANG.
The last character, su, is composed of a " plant," and " to revive/*
and means, " to resuscitate, to revive as when wilted, or from
apparent death, to breathe again, to rise from the dead." The
compound FU-SU might therefore be translated, "the useful res
urrection-plant," or " the useful plant that rises again when ap
parently dead."
This definition might well be applied to the century-plant,
for it reproduces itself spontaneously. 2221 It perishes after efflo
rescence, 2372 but an infinity of shoots then spring from the decay
ing roots, and no plant multiplies with greater facility. 549
The character gj, su, the phonetic of the word j$j, su, men
tioned above, is, on account of its meaning, used for writing
the last syllable of the name JESUS (jE-su). 1043
The character Jjj|, SANG, is sometimes decomposed into its two
parts, and written ^ /fc, JOH MUH, " the JOH tree," which Pro
fessor Williams describes 2534 as a " divine, self-existing tree,
which grows in Fu-sang," and it can be nothing else than another
term for the fu-sang tree.
We find in the Chinese dictionaries 2651 the character /fi[g, NIH
(composed of a tree and a large wine-far], which is described as " a
fabulous tree, said to be a thousand feet high ; it flowers once in
a millennium, and perfects its fruit in nine more." . This charac
ter, and the description, seem to have grown from some exag
geration of the peculiarities of the agave, which is a tree, or
plant which fills a large wine- jar with its sap ; which towers
above all 33 surrounding plants, and which, although it does not
require either a millennium to develop its blossoms (as the Chi
nese legend has it), or a century 2373 (as our own popular tradi
tions have it hence the common name of "century-plant"),
THE FU-SANG TREE AND THE RED PEARS. 401
still does not blossom for quite a number of years the exact time
of flowering varying with localities and climate. 2373
Hepburn 1491 gives a word or phrase, which in Japanese is
pronounced Udonge, and in Chinese YIU-T AN-HWA, the charac
ters meaning, " a great cloud of blossoms," which he defines as
the name of a fabulous flower, said to bloom but once in a thou
sand years. Here again a tradition seems to have been pre
served of some description that Hwui Shan gave of the century-
plant, for its flowering-stalk rises to the height of forty feet or
upward, and throws out branches on every side, like those of a
candelabrum, so as to form a kind of pyramid, each branch sup
porting a cluster of flowers, greenish-red 2313 (in some species) or
yellow 633 (in others). It is therefore evident that no plant better
deserves the appellation of " a great cloud of blossoms."
The Chinese call the prickly-pear 1488 JiJ] ^ ^, SIEN-JAN-CHANG,
"the palm of the fairy people s hand." 2520 The first character,
which is translated " fairy," is composed of a man and a mountain,
or island, and hence may have originally meant the inhabitant of
some mountain, island, or region beyond the sea. Many of the
Chinese legends called fairy stories relate to such a region, and
it is just possible that they knew that the prickly-pear was a na
tive of such a trans-oceanic land.
In EitePs Chinese Dictionary 1279 1 very unexpectedly came
upon the following definition : " ^p, Fu, in the phrase, ^j| |j|,
FU-SANG : a divine tree found in the East (Japan) ; a tree
(Agave Chinensis) found in Corea."
It is evident that the location of the FU-SANG tree in Japan,
in the first part of the definition, is founded upon the opinion,
enunciated by Klaproth, that the country of FU-SANG must have
been situated in Japan. But how does Eitel come to describe
the term as being applicable to a species of agave ? The agaves
are all natives of America, and it does not seem possible that, if
they had ever been introduced into Corea, they could have sur
vived for any length of time in so cold a country. Professor
Gray informs me that botanists do not know of any plant or tree
called the Agave Chinensis, or Agave Sinensis, and that he has
every reason to believe that no species of agave exist in that coun
try. Mr. Yu Kill Clum, a gentleman connected with the Corean
embassy, who remained in this country after the other members
had returned home, was shown a picture of the agave, when he
26
402 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
said that no such plant was to be found in Corea, and also took
occasion to say that the statements of those who attempted to
locate FU-SANG in Corea or Japan were false.
I am, therefore, uncertain as to the authority which Mr. Eitel
had for saying that the term FU-SA^G was applied to a species of
agave growing in Corea ; but it is certainly strange that of all
the plants in the world he should have named the one described
by Hwui Shan.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE LANGUAGE OP FIT-SANG.
Peculiarities of the Chinese language Difficulty of indicating pronunciation of for
eign words Examples Change in sound of Chinese characters The pisang
or banana tree Names of countries terminated with KWOH The character
SANG The character FU The most distant countries at the four points of
the compass distinguished by names beginning with FU Mexican dialects
FU-SANG-KWOH and Me-shi-co The title of the king Montezuma s title Ti
tle of the noblemen of the first rank The Mexican Tecuhtli, or Teule The
Petty TUI-LU The NAH-TO-SHA, or Tlatoque The title lower than that of
Tecuhtli Its meaning Transcription of foreign words by characters indi
cating both the meaning and the sound TO-P U-TA OCS, or tomatoes The
grape-vine The tree of stone A Mexican pun Danger of being misled
by accidental or fancied resemblance.
Ix the preceding chapters the fu-sang tree has been identified
with the agave, and the country of Fu-sang with Mexico, and the
question will naturally arise, why the term " Fu-sang " should
have been used as the transcription or translation of the word
"Mexico."
Before attempting to answer this question, it will be neces
sary to examine some of the peculiarities of the Chinese lan
guage, and of the transliterations which it adopts for other for
eign proper names.
On this point the testimony is unanimous, that 783 it is as im
possible for the Chinese to render the correct pronunciation of
words of other languages by their hieroglyphs as it is to indi
cate the exact pronunciation of Chinese characters by European
spelling. One will find, in the different manuals for learning
the Chinese language, the most detailed directions for pronounc
ing Chinese characters. In Romanizing Chinese sounds, not only
all European letters and ciphers are laid under contribution, but,
besides this, the letters are marked with strokes, crotchets, ac-
4:04:
AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
cents, etc. This is a vain trouble. No Chinese will understand
the words pronounced by Europeans according to these rules.
According to Crawf urd, 1146 the articulation or pronunciation
of the Chinese is so imperfect, and so utterly unlike that of all
the rest of mankind, that it is only by mere accident that they
ever pronounce a foreign word rightly. Professor Williams says,
in reference to this subject : 2495 "If it is difficult for us to ex
press their [the Chinese] sounds by Roman letters, it is still
stranger for the Chinese to write English words. For instance,
baptize, in the Canton dialect, becomes pa-p i-tai-sz? ; ( flannel
becomes fat-lan-yin ; stairs becomes sz -ta-sz / impregnable
becomes im-pi-luk-na-pu-U, etc." So, also, in the transcription of
Sanskrit words, " Aurva " becomes Tu-liu ; 555 " Kakshivat," Kia-
/<; ; 556 "Udaye," Tau-to-i; 551 and " Visv&mitra," Pi-she-po.
Max Miiller remarks that 1961 " the Chinese alphabet was never
intended to represent the sound of words. With such a system
of writing it was possible to represent Chinese, but impossible
to convey either the sound or the meaning of any other lan
guage. Every Sanskrit word, as transcribed by the Chinese Bud
dhists, is a riddle which no ingenuity is able to solve. Who could
have guessed that Fo-to, or, more frequently, Fo, was meant
for Buddha ? Jfo-lo-keou-lo for Rahula/ the son of Buddha ?
Po-lo-ndl for ( Benares ? Tcha-li for ( Kshattriya ? Siu-to-lo
for < Sudra ? Fan, or Fan-lan-mo, for Brahma ? "
As instances of the difficulty of identifying foreign words
which the Chinese have attempted to reproduce in their charac
ters, the following are given, as specimens of a much longer list
which was prepared, but which it would be wearisome to insert
at length :
Foreign Word.
Chinese Transcription.
Foreign Word.
Chinese Transcription.
Russia
Ngo-lo-sz. 2517
Tak-kat. 1146
( Ha-la-ho-lin, usu-
1 ally abbreviated to
( Ho-lin. 78T
Pu-su-man. 785
Tan-too-loo. 1003
Sz-me-li. 2334
France
Fah-lan-si. 2517
Bang-ka-sat. 1146
Pa-le-kwan. 1018
P u-hua. 1 " 3
Ki-sze-da-ni. 777
Ha-she-ko-urh. 1021
A-ko-lap. 1003
Kak-tsze. 1003
Che-la-t o-po-mo. 1622
Chi-li-ti-p o. 1621
Ngo-tche-li-ye. 1694
Ta<ml
Macassar
Barkoul
Bokhara
Mussulman (writ
ten by Plano-
carpin " Bes-
sermin ")
Dentro
Constantinople . .
Kashffar .
Azora
Casa
Craddhavarma . .
Siberia
Atcharya
THE LANGUAGE OF FU-SANG. 405
The last three words are from the Sanskrit, and some imper
fections in the transliteration might be expected, from the fact
that the Sanskrit books from which the names were taken were
translated fourteen centuries ago, and that the powers of the
Chinese characters used to represent the syllables of these words
have changed in the mean time. 1272
The other words in the table are, however, of comparatively
recent adoption, and show how imperfectly, even when they are
first chosen, the Chinese characters represent the sounds which
they are intended to transcribe. When to this original imperfec
tion is added that produced by the fact that, since the days of
Hwui Shan, the sounds attached to the characters have been in a
state of slow but constant flux, 1269 it may be admitted that the
present sounds, FU-SANG, of the characters JJ* J| may be very far
from representing the pronunciation of the foreign word which
they were so long ago chosen to express.
As a further illustration of the changes produced in the
sound of the Chinese characters in the course of centuries, it may
be noticed that Sanskrit syllables, pronounced in all of the follow
ing ways, i. e., 9ya, ye, 9% yi, chya, yva, dja, djha, dha, dya,
dhya, and tcha, 1618 were, some fourteen or fifteen centuries ago,
transcribed by Chinese characters all of which are now pronounced
CHE (the ch like the English sh}.
The foregoing statements illustrate the extreme difficulty of
attempting to decide with certainty as to the sounds which the
characters now pronounced FU-SANG were originally intended to
represent.
My own opinion is that, long before the Christian era, the
Chinese had obtained some imperfect knowledge of the Philippine
Islands, or some of the neighbouring islands, upon which the plan
tain, or banana (called in Malay 2459 the pisang*), grew, and that
there were then numerous popular stories and traditions regard
ing this " Land of the Pisang" and of the wonderful pisang-tree
to be found upon it, far away to the east or southeast, and that
the characters Ife H, FU-SANG, the " useful mulberry," or f$j JJ,
FU-SANG, the "supernatural mulbery," or ^J ||, FU-SANG, the
" distant mulberry-tree," were adopted as both describing the
tree and transcribing its name. My reasons for this opinion will
be given in a following chapter. For the present, I will merely
say that if, when Hwui Shan reached China, from a distant
406 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
eastern country, which derived its name from a wonderful plant
or tree growing in it, the fact was that the Chinese already had
a number of vague traditions regarding a land situated in the
east and taking its name from a remarkable tree, they would
be very likely to consider the two countries as identical ; and if
the characters which they had adopted for expressing the name
of this land, already vaguely known, could, by any possibility,
be considered as representing the sound of the name of the
country mentioned byHwui Shan, the likelihood that they would
consider the two regions as one and the same, and therefore
use for the name of the newly discovered land the characters
already applied to the other eastern country, would be much in
creased.
Absurd as it may appear at first sight, I think it very prob
able that the Chinese, having the characters FU-SANG, already
well known as the name of an eastern country, took these charac
ters, with the addition of |9, KWOH, 2326 meaning country, and
used them to transcribe the name " Mexico " of the country that
had been visited by Hwui Shan.
It should first be mentioned that in Chinese the names of coun
tries are usually followed by this word KWOH, or, as it is some
times written, KWO, "kingdom." 2408 MEI KWOH, ^| g (the
Fertile or Beautiful Country), is used as the name of the United
States of America, 2326 and is unquestionably an attempt to trans
literate the word "America," the character KWOH representing
the final syllable "ca" of America. As the Chinese have no
characters which have the sound either of "a" or "ri," both
these syllables have been omitted.
Great Britain 2335 is called ^ " gl, TA-YING-KWOH (the Great
YING Land, or the Great Excellent Country). Here the fc TA,
" Great," is taken from the first word of the name Great Britain.
YING-KWOH represents " England," the syllable TING being in
tended for the "Eng " of England, and the last syllable, " land,"
being translated by KWOH.
The character [U, KWOH, country, being so near, both in sound
and meaning, to the terminal syllable " co " (meaning at, in, place,
or region) of "Mexico," it is of all the characters in the Chinese
language the one which would most likely be chosen to transcribe
that syllable.
Tkere is, therefore, no difficulty, so far as the final syllable is
THE LANGUAGE OF FU-SANG. 4QT
concerned, in believing that FU-SANG-KWOH may have been used
by the Chinese as the transcription of ME-XI-CO.
Now, as to the middle syllable : this, as we have already seen,
was pronounced by the Mexicans " shi." Can the character ||,
now pronounced SANG, have ever been used to represent this
sound ? In some dialects of the Chinese, the character has prob
ably been pronounced substantially as it now is, for two thousand
years or more ; but in other dialects the sound has, as probably,
been quite different. This character is now usually pronounced
so by the Japanese ; but Professor Williams (see Chapter XIV
of this book) says that the Japanese pronunciation of FU-SANG-
KWOH is FU-SHI-KOKU. Here the middle syllable is pronounced
exactly as the Mexicans enunciated the corresponding syllable
of the name of their country. His authority for this pronun
ciation is not stated, but there are other evidences that the
character was sometimes given nearly this sound.
It may be noted that the use of a character having a terminal
nasal is not always a proof that the transcribed syllable has such
a nasal. M. Julien says l619 that KIANG-LANG was written for the
Sanskrit Mia, and T OUNG-LOUNG-MO for the Sanskrit drouma.
In this last word, the letters NG must be dropped, leaving T OU-
LOU-MO, which was as near as the Chinese seemed able to come
to drouma. So, too, we find 2327 MAN-LAH-KIA written for Ma
lacca, and MENG-KIA-SAH for Macassar.
It has already been stated * that, when referring to the fu-
sang tree, the character H is sometimes decomposed into its two
parts and 2534 written * x ?fc, " the JOH tree." The first part is
the "phonetic" of the character |J|, and is supposed to give to
it" its sound. It is seen, however, that, when written separately,
the character is pronounced JOH (j given the French pronuncia
tion, like zn), and not SANG. Attention was also called, in the
same connection, to the fact that a character pronounced su is
sometimes substituted for SANG.
The Sanskrit word sramana, applied to a Buddhist priest, is
not only written in Chinese with characters pronounced SHA-MAN,
but also H P J, SANG-MAN, 2559 and || P*j, sni-MAN. 2169 Here the
character g|, SANG, is used as the equivalent of other characters
pronounced SHA and SHI.
* See page 400.
408 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
In view of the illustrations already given of the imperfection
with which Chinese characters frequently represent the sounds
which they are intended to transcribe, is it beyond the bounds
of possibility that the character usually pronounced SANG, but
fluctuating in sound at different times or in different dialects
toward so, su, SHI, SHA or ZHOH, may have been considered by
the Chinese as a sufficiently good representative of the xi (or
SHI) of Me-xi-co ?
As to the first syllable, M. de Paravey claims that, as a coun
try in the extreme north was known as FU-YU (j fj;), 2317 one in
the extreme south as FU-NAN (j^ ]fj), 2319 and one in the extreme
west as FU-LIN (fjjj} |^), 2320 the Chinese adopted this fourth ru,
in FU-SANG, as being properly expressive of a country at the ex
treme east.
In the Chinese SAN-FUH-TSi, 2331 a term applied to a kingdom
in the island of Sumatra, and which is probably intended to rep
resent the same name for which we have adopted the word
" Sumatra," the Chinese character run seems to be equivalent to
our syllable " ma." M. Julien finds the character ^, ru, written
for the Sanskrit IM in Subhuti, and for 16 in Bodhisattva. 1628
He also finds other characters, now pronounced ru, written ioipa
in Vachpa, 1629 and for ve in Vetala, 1627 as well as for pu and pti.
It is therefore evident that, of the characters now pronounced
FU-SANG-KWOH, the first may have been intended to represent any
of the sounds FU, FU, PU, PU, BO, BHU, PA, or VE ; the second to
represent SANG, so, su, SHI, SHA, or ZHOH ; and the third to rep
resent KWOH, KWO, or co.
Now, let it be borne in mind that there have undoubtedly
been some changes in the sound of Mexican words during the
last fourteen centuries ; that different dialects varied in their
pronunciation ; and that one language is mentioned by Busch-
mann as closely connected with the Mexican, which substituted
v for the Mexican M, and which would therefore pronounce
" Me-shi-co " as " Ye-shi-co."
With this allowance, is it impossible that the characters now
pronounced FU-SANG-KWOH, and which at one time, or in some
particular dialect, may have been pronounced PA-SHA-CO or VE-
SHI-CO, may have been taken as the representatives of the Aztec
word " Me-shi-co," or of a possible variant " Ve-shi-co " ?
All this is not given as absolutely proving that the term Fu-
THE LANGUAGE OF FU-SANG. 409
SANG-KWOH was used for " Mexico," but merely as indicating that
the connection is not as distant as it appears at first sight, and
that any argument drawn from the apparent dissimilarity of the
words can have but little weight.
My own opinion is, as already stated, that when Hwui Shan
related his adventures to the Chinese, and told that this distant
eastern land derived its name of " Me-shi-co " from a remarkable
" tree " growing there, they immediately inferred that the coun
try was the same of which they had before heard as FU-SANG-
K\VOH ; believing that the possible sounds of these characters
were near enough to those of the name of the country visited by
him to make it probable (when other circumstances were taken
into consideration) that the country was the same.
Having thus referred to the subject of language, let us now
consider that portion of Hwui Shan s story in which he gives a
number of the words of the language used in the country which
he visited.
IV. THE TITLE OF THE KING OF THE COUNTRY IS " THE
CHIEF OF THE MULTITUDES." THE NOBLEMEN OF THE FIRST
RANK ARE CALLED " TUI-LU " ; THOSE OF THE SECOND RANK, " PET
TY TUI-LU " J AND THOSE OF THE THIRD RANK, " NAH TO-SHA."
The first clause is translated by others, " The king is called
noble Y-chi? < Y-Jchi? < Yit-khi, I-chi? < I-ki? < Y-U? or
* Yueh-ki "/ and if it were not for the translation by de Rosny
of the Japanese form of the story, in which he says, "They
give to their king the name of Kiki-zin, that is to say, * the most
honourable man? " I should have felt more hesitation about ren
dering the title as " Chief of the Multitudes." It appears to me
that the two characters should have been reversed, so as to read,
" K I-YIH," instead of " YIH-K I," if this were the meaning ; but a
number of educated Chinamen, whom I have consulted on the
subject, all concur in the statements that the characters as they
stand mean " the chief of the multitudes," and can have no other
meaning, and that, while they are not quite sure whether the
characters should be translated or transliterated, they are of the
opinion that it was not the intention to use them merely as
phonetics, and they therefore think that they should be trans
lated as above. Moreover, the meanings of the characters,
taken separately, are so exactly those of the words of which the
title of the Mexican ruler was composed, that I can not doubt
410 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
that the characters were intended by Hwui Shan as its transla
tion. The first character, YIH, ,, means, " one, bent, the first "
(Williams s Dictionary, p. 1096), and the second, K I, jjj|J, "full,
abundant, very, large, numerous, multitudes, a crowd of people "
(Williams s Dictionary, p. 345). Medhurst 187 also gives the mean
ing " great." This character is composed of a city, or region,
and to worship, and was probably first adopted as a representa
tion of the assembly of the people, when they gathered, once a
year, to witness the public worship of the Supreme God by the
emperor. Hence its first meaning would be, "the people, the
multitude," from which the meanings " numerous," " abundant,"
" full," " large," and " great " would subsequently be evolved.
In Hwui Shan s time the word may have been in the first stage,
and have meant distinctively " the people."
The title of the Mexican emperor is seldom mentioned by
historians, and is in fact so rarely referred to, that some authori
ties even state that the Mexican language has no word for em
peror. 506 Nevertheless there are occasional references to Monte-
zurna s title, which is given as " Chief of Men," 607 " Tlaca-tecuh-
tli." 524 This title is composed of " tlaca-tl," a man, or, in the
plural, men or people, and " tecuhtli," the title which will be next
considered, and which is equivalent to " lord " or " chief." The
compound therefore means " Lord of Men " or " Chief of the
People."
Sebastian Ramerez de Fuenleal, Bishop of San Domingo, in
a letter to the Spanish empress, 2138 dated Mexico, November 3,
1532, said : " Montezuma bore the title of Tecatecle Tetuan Intla-
catl 9 and this is the title which they also give to your majesties ;
its meaning being Wise and Powerful Lord. 5 " The good bishop
evidently knew but little of the Mexican language. The first
word is a compound of " teca," meaning nation, tribe, or people,*
and " tecle," which is one of the numerous variations 1878 of the
title given in the last paragraph as " Tecuhtli," meaning lord 1198
or chief. No such word as tetuan is found in the Aztec diction
aries, but teuan is defined as " our," and this is probably the
word meant. " Intlacatl " is a compound of " in," nearly equiv
alent to the English " the," and " tlacatl," " man or people." Here
the meaning is substantially the same as that of the title given
* The names of most of the Mexican tribes end in " tcca," or its abbreviation,
" tec," as, for instance, the " Az-tecas " or Aztecs, the " Tol-tecas " or Toltecs.
THE LANGUAGE OF FU-SANG. 411
in the last paragraph, " chief " and " people " being found in both,
the whole meaning literally, " the Nation s Lord of our People."
Let us now examine the statement of Hwui Shan, that the
noblemen of the first rank are called TUI-LU, Jj|. The first
character is not used in transcribing Sanskrit words, but it does
not seem to have been subject to much, if any, fluctuation in
sound. The second character is used to represent the Sanskrit
syllables Id, r6, ru, lu, rti, and Iri, I631 and when written with a
small square (or "mouth") at the left which does not affect its
sound for Iri, r<?, 1630 ru, and rtf. 1638
Was there any such title as this in existence among the Mexi
cans ? Bancroft says : 166 " There were several military orders
and titles, which were bestowed upon distinguished soldiers for
services in the field or the council. There was one, the member
ship of which was confined to the nobility ; this was the cele
brated and knightly order of the Tecuhtli. To obtain this rank
it was necessary to be of noble birth, to have given proof in sev
eral battles of the utmost courage, to have arrived at a certain
age, and to have sufficient wealth to support the enormous ex
penses incurred by members of the order."
In another place 168 he states that the rank of Tecuhtli was the
highest honour that a prince or soldier could acquire.
Molina 1919 and Biondelli 613 spell the word " Tecutli" the
first defining it " a cavalier or chief," and the second, " a warrior,
a prince, a chief. " Morgan gives the form " Teuchtli. " 194 Ol-
mos, 1982 Buschmann, 89 and Clavigero 1072 use the form " Teuctli."
Bancroft also uses it in the compound Mictlan-teuctli, Lord of
Hades. 803 Olmos 1991 explains this change of spelling or pronun
ciation by saying that sometimes, when u follows after c, the it
is made liquid, and, although it is not lost in the written word, it
seems to be lost in the pronunciation, or at least is but slightly
sounded, and the c remains in the pronunciation with the pre
ceding vowel. As to the rank of these noblemen, Clavigero says
that the Teuctli took precedency of all others in the senate as
well in sitting as in voting ; 1073 and Buschmann says 905 that
Tecutli, or Teuctli, is the Mexican word for what we are accus
tomed to call a cazique, prince, chief, chieftain, a lord in general,
or a high noble. In the name of OmetochtU, one of the numerous
Nahua gods of wine, 204 the part " tochtli," which by itself means
rabbit, is evidently a variant of this title.
412 AN" INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
The name of the general in command of the army first met
by Cortez is given as Teutile, 2341 Teuhtlile, 453 or Teudile. 2118
Here again we have the same title, which, as in other cases, took
the place of the name. 506 If proof is needed, it is found in the
fact that the name of his companion or lieutenant is given as
Pilpatoe, 2341 which is evidently a title also : from Pitti, noble/ 17
and Patio, precious. In a letter written by Nicholas DeWitt, in
1554, " Pipiltic " is named as one of the titles given to noble
men. 2439 The form " Tecle " has already been mentioned, and this
is stated to be an older form than the preceding. 528 Zurita gives
the form " Teutley," 504 and Arenas, Teuhtli. 65 Gallatin gives the
name of the god, before referred to, as Hometewfa , 1408 and de
Zumarraga 2601 and the auditor Salmeron 2223 and his colleagues
use the form " Teule." It will be seen that these various forms
differ as much between themselves as Hwui Shan s form TUI-LU
differs from any of them ; and it seems beyond all reasonable
doubt that he intended to transcribe the title given above.
In the notes of M. the Marquis d Hervey de Saint-Denys,
reproduced in Chapter XII of the present work, he states that one
of the Chinese texts gives this title as " Great Tui-lu " instead of
merely " Tui-lu." The use of a word meaning " great " or
" noble," in connection with a title expressing elevated rank, is
common in all countries. As to its use in Mexico, Solis mentions
that, 2354 when approaching Montezuma, his subjects entered into
his presence barefooted, and made three reverences without rais
ing their eyes from the earth saying at the first, " lord ! " at the
second, " my lord ! " and at the third, " great lord ! "
The Chinese account continues that the noblemen of the
second rank were called "Petty TUI-LU."
I have not found any case in which a word meaning " petty "
is attached to the title Teuctli. I find in Molina, however, 1921 the
forms Tlatoca-tepito, a petty ruler or king, and Tlatoca-tontli,
a petty king or lord. In these compounds Tlatoca is the title
next referred to, tepito means " little, small," 192 and tontll in
dicates diminution, 1984 littleness, depreciation, or humiliation. 1985
It is therefore evident that the Mexicans were accustomed to
divide at least one of their ranks of nobility into two classes, the
less powerful being indicated by attaching to the title a word
meaning " little " or " petty."
Hwui Shan says that the nobles of the third rank are called
THE LANGUAGE OF FU-SANG. 413
NAH-TO-SHA. This is the Mexican title referred to in the last
paragraph, which takes the forms Tlatocayo, 1922 Tlatoani, 906 or, in
the plural, Tlatoque. 1923
As to the use of NAH for the syllable " Tla " : it should be re
membered that the Chinese language has no word in which one
consonant is followed by another without the interposition of a
vowel, and it is therefore absolutely powerless to express such a
sound as " Tla." La would seem the most likely form to use for
it ; but I and n are so regularly interchanged with each other, in
the various Chinese dialects, that it is not strange that in this
case, as in many others, na should be used for la. In Med-
hurst s Dictionary, 1873 a large number of words will be found
written with an initial I and pronounced with ??, or written with
n and pronounced with I. In " Smith s Vocabulary of Proper
Names" we are told, under the heading Lui, 2330 "For words
commencing with this character, see NUI, the more correct
word."
In transcribing Sanskrit words, characters pronounced NA,
NIB, and NO are used to represent the Sanskrit syllable da (with
the cerebral d) and also the syllable da (with the dental c?). 1620
Bancroft says, in relation to the title : 317 " The nobles of
Mexico, and of the other Nahua nations, were divided into
several classes, each having its own peculiar privileges and
badges of rank. The distinctions that existed between the vari
ous grades and their titles are not, however, clearly denned.
The title of Tlatoani was the highest and most respected ; it
signified an absolute and sovereign power, an hereditary and
divine right to govern. The kings and the great feudatory lords,
who were governors of provinces, and could prove their princely
descent and the ancient independence of their families, belonged
to this order."
Although Bancroft seems to be uncertain as to the exact na
ture of the distinction between various ranks, there is no ques
tion that this title, Tlatoani, Tlatoca, or Tlatocayo, was a lower
title than that of Teuctli.
Buschmann says in regard to it : 06 " Tlatoani is the parti
ciple, present, active, of itoa, or tlatoa, to speak.* It expresses,
* Tlatoa is derived from itoa, " to speak," with the prefix tla, a species of
pronoun, meaning " it " or " something." It therefore means, " to speak something
of importance something to which attention should be paid," i. e., " to command."
414: Atf INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
/
first, in reality, speaker ; second, however, and chiefly, great
lord, nobleman, governor, prince, cazique. 3:
The word is really equivalent to the English title " Command
er." The fundamental radical of the word is the syllable to (from
itoa, to speak), and this syllable is represented in Chinese by the
character Pj|}, TO, also meaning to speak. There are a great num
ber of other Chinese characters pronounced TO, but this particu
lar one was chosen because of its coincidence in meaning as well
as in sound with the syllable which it was to represent.
This is in accordance with the usual custom of the Chinese,
who, in transcribing foreign words, often seek for meanings,
allusions, fortuitous coincidences, and plays of words. 1344 Thus,
for the word "opium," they use characters pronounced YA-
PIEN 2406 (which is as near as they can come to the sound of the
word), and meaning " black flakes." For the name of the Ganges
(or Gunga) they use the characters HANG-no, 2321 which, like the
original word, mean " the ceaseless river." So they transcribe
the word " Turk " 93T with the characters T IU-KIUE, meaning
" insolent dogs."
The last syllable of the words Tlatoca, Tlatocayo, or Tlatoque
is represented by a character pronounced SHA, the sounds K and
SH being in this case, as in many others, interchanged.
Another phrase is used by Hwui Shan in which I think that
I detect an attempt to transcribe a Mexican word. This is the
statement that
V. They have TO-P TJ-T AO-CS in THAT PLACE.
The characters TO-P U-T AO I think to be intended for the
Mexican word 1924 which we have adopted as the name of the
tomato.
The translators have had much difficulty with this phrase,
rendering it : " They have the iris and peaches in abundance " ;
" There are also many vines " ; " In addition there are many
apples and reeds, mats being made from the last " ; " There are
many grapes " ; and " Water-rushes and peaches are common."
The exact meaning of the characters, TO-P TJ-T AO is "numer
ous reed-peaches," or "many reeds and peaches."
A compound, 1471 pronounced P U-T AO, is used as the name of
the grape-vine by the Chinese, 2570 but it is written with different
The suffix nij or cayo, turns the verb into a noun, precisely as our suffix " er "
turns " command " into " commander."
THE LANGUAGE OF FU-SANG. 415
characters from those used in the text. Klaproth claims that the
name was formerly written with the characters given in this
place, but I have not been able to find any other authority for
the statement. Beal seems to think that the P U-T AO may have
been the sugar-cane. 567
Reeds or rushes are found in great numbers along the water
courses of Mexico, and Tulan, the capital of the Toltecs, took its
name from the "tules," or reeds, in its neighbourhood. This
Aztec word has passed into the English language, and the reeds
growing in the marshy lands of California are now universally
called "tules." The Mexicans wove the mats of which their
beds were made from these reeds, or tules. 722
The term " reed-peach " would have been particularly appli
cable to the tomato, as the straggling vine upon which it grows is
somewhat analogous to a reed, and different compounds of the
word "peach," with a modifying adjective, are, in Chinese, used
to designate various soft, round fruits that are destitute of a
kernel or stone. Thus the " fairy peach " is a poetical name for
a fig, 2672 the " divine peach " is a variety of orange, the " fragrant
peach " is the lemon, and the " flossy blossoming peach " is the
flower-bud of cotton.
Bancroft refers 202 to the use made of the tomato by the Mexi
cans, and, in fact, even at the present day there are few of the
characteristic dishes of the country of which it does not form a
part.
If the compound is decided to mean " grapes " or " grape
vines," it is equally true that they were found in the country.
The fact that they were found in " Vinland," or New England,
does not prove that they existed in Mexico, some four thousand
miles distant. After finding, however, that grapes were indige
nous 1606 to California, 2457 Texas, 1970 Arizona, 691 New Mexico, 2479 24SO 243S
and Sonora, 534 and at Parras, in the state of Durango, Mexico, 548 1
finally found several references to their existence throughout the
land of Mexico, although it is evident that the fruit was not
esteemed, and that little use was made of it.
Prescott refers incidentally to the grape-vines in Mexico. 2073
Acosta says : * In New Spain there are some vines which bear
grapes, although no wine is made from them." 12 Diaz states that,
1199 " in the middle of August, in the year 1519, we left Sempoalla.
We came the first day to Xalapa and then to Socochina, a well-
416 AN INGLORIOUS COLUMBUS.
kept place of difficult accessibility, where there are a multitude
of arbours of the grape-vines of this country." To this statement
the translator adds the following note :
"The grape-vine was certainly brought from Europe to
the West Indies, yet it can not be doubted that the Spaniards
had before found it growing wild in America." Oviedo, whose
work, so far as it relates to the historical portion of natural his
tory, is of great value, says, explicitly : " These wild vines bear
good, black grapes. I say good, for, considering that they are a
wild growth, they well deserve that appellation. They are found
throughout the whole West Indies, and I believe that all the
vines now remaining there have descended from this wild stock."
Finally, Clavigero gives the following account regarding
them : 1055
" Grapes are not entirely lacking in this country. The places
called Parras and Parral, in the diocese of New Biscay, were so
named from the abundance of vines which were found there, of
which many vineyards were made, which, to this day, yield good
wine. In Mixteca there are two species of wild vine, native to
that country : the one, in its shoots and in the figure of its leaves,
resembles the common vine, and bears red grapes, which are large
and covered by a hard skin, but which are of a sweet and agree
able taste, which would surely be improved by cultivation ; the
grapes of the other vine are hard, large, and of a sour flavour,
but they make a very good preserve."
The Chinese account may possibly refer to grapes, but I can
not help thinking that " tomatoes " is the true rendering.
In Chapter XY attention was called to the fact that the Chi
nese have a legend of a tree of stone, called " the agate gem," "the
green-jade-stone tree," or " the coral tree." This may possibly
be founded upon Hwui Shan s account of the gems, which were
most highly prized by the Mexicans, and which they called Chal-
chiuitl, m * or Chalchihuitl. m These were green or bluish-green
stones, resembling amethysts, 544 emeralds, 2358 or turquoises, 5 . 85 and
probably very similar to the green -jade stone so highly prized in
China. These were considered as valuable by the Mexicans as
diamonds are by us, 2388 and when Montezuma wished to send to
the ruler of Spain the most royal present which it was possible
for him to give, he sent his general to Cortez with four of these
stones, which were handed over with great solemnity as jewels
THE LANGUAGE OF FU-SANG. 417
of inestimable value, 2343 and with the statement that he could
not consent to part with them except to give them to so power
ful a monarch as the one to whom Cortez yielded obedience must
be. Each stone was declared to be worth a load of gold 455 (i. e.,
the weight that a man could carry some sixty pounds), or,
according to some authorities, two loads. 1932 Chalchihuitl was
one of the titles bestowed upon Quetzalcoatl, and it was the name
given to Cortez, 738 by the Mexicans, who knew of no title that
they could give him which would more fully express their sense
of his superiority.
This word is evidently composed of xalli (pronounced shalli,
and, after dropping the terminal li, scarcely distinguishable from
chal), meaning sand or a sandy stone, 1927 and x 
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