Part 33 (2/2)
”Observe, Leon,” said the Doctor, ”how easily I could have administered the added drug without your knowledge, for just as you see no difference that the eye can detect, so also will your potion be as tasteless as before. Will you drink it?”
Leon took the gla.s.s and drank, without hesitation.
”I thank you for this evidence of your faith in me,” said the Doctor, and pausing awhile, presently spoke again: ”Leon, you were probably surprised when, as a part of your task for to-night, I told you to read a portion of the book of Genesis, in the Bible. I had a special purpose in view, which I will now explain. I have a sort of story to tell, which at first may seem entirely unconnected with our work, but bear with me, be closely attentive, and you will soon discover that all I shall say has an important bearing. The beginning of the Bible of the Jews should make all who study it pause to consider a singular circ.u.mstance. The creation of the world, and all that occurred up to the time of the Flood, is narrated in seven short chapters, the end of the seventh recording the Flood itself, and the almost total annihilation of all the creatures of the earth. But from the Flood up to the nativity of the Christ, we find the historian well stocked with facts, and hundreds of pages are filled with his narration.”
”Was it not because Moses, or the author of the earlier books, had more data concerning the events following the Flood, than those which preceded it? Indeed, it is probable that the Flood itself obliterated the records of previous times.”
”A good argument, my boy, if we consider the Bible as a mere history.
But does not the religious world claim that it is an inspired work? If the Creator actually revealed the past to Moses, then there was no reason why he could not have been as explicit about the occurrences before the Flood, as after? But your explanation is the true one. The author of Genesis did not have access to actual records, but could merely generalize from the legends then in existence. There are two events in the history of the world which stand out pre-eminently important. First, the Flood, which destroyed mankind, and second, the discovery of America, which restored a lost continent. That these two events have a very close relations.h.i.+p is suspected only by a few scientists.”
”How are they connected? A great period of time separates them.”
”True. But let me tell you the real story of the Flood, and you will comprehend my meaning. I shall not stop to give you arguments to substantiate what I say, because that would take too long, and would lead us away from what I am aiming at. However, while my own knowledge of the facts was received from other sources, when you have the time you will find the whole subject ably expounded in a work in my library, ent.i.tled _The Lost Histories of America_, by Blacket.
”At the time of the Flood, or just prior thereto, the highest civilization in the world existed in Mexico. There, a vast empire flourished. The arts and sciences had received much attention, and beautiful cities, populated by cultured people, abounded everywhere in the land. Navigation was well understood, and colonies from Mexico had made new homes for themselves on the western coast of Africa, in Ireland and England, along the Mediterranean, and, in the opposite direction, they had even penetrated Asia, crossing the vast Pacific.
Then came that great convulsion which all peoples, in all climes, remember to-day through legends of waters rising and submerging the whole surface of the earth. It is probable that a great tidal wave narrowed the continents of North and South America along both sh.o.r.es, eating away the central portion more extensively, the complete division of the two being prevented only by the mountainous character of the region. In South America, we find the southermost part narrowed to a point.”
”Do you mean that South America was once wider?”
”The proof of my a.s.sertion lies in the ruins and monuments still to be found buried beneath the waves, hundreds of miles from the sh.o.r.e, though some were undoubtedly on islands which also sunk at this time.
What would be the first effects of a cataclysm of such magnitude? The s.h.i.+ps at sea, if they escaped at all, would sail for home. Arriving where the original sh.o.r.es had been, and finding nothing for even fifty miles beyond, the survivors would imagine that the whole country had been lost, and so would turn towards those other sh.o.r.es which their race had colonized. They would carry with them the story of the Flood which had submerged the whole of the western continent, and from this account we would finally inherit our version of the awful event.
Having accepted the theory of the destruction of their home-land, and being thus compelled to adopt permanently their new abiding-places, would not these colonists immediately set about making their new home to resemble as much as possible the old? Undoubtedly! Hence we find them building the tower of Babel, in which project they were foiled by the confusion of tongues. Would it surprise you, however, to know that a similar legend is found in Central America?”
”I am ignorant, Doctor, of all that pertains to the subject.
Therefore, of course, I should be surprised, but I am deeply interested.”
”The legend is still current among the natives dwelling near the pyramid of Cholula, to which it alludes, but I will give you a version of it which is recorded in a ma.n.u.script of Pedro de Los Rios. It is as follows:
”Before the great inundation, which took place four thousand eight hundred years after the creation of the World, the country of Anahuac was inhabited by giants. All those who did not perish were transformed into fishes, save seven, who fled into caverns. When the waters subsided, one of these giants, Xelhua, surnamed the Architect, went to Chollolan, where, as a memorial of the mountain Tlaloc, which had served for an asylum to himself and his six brethren, he built an artificial hill in form of a pyramid.... The G.o.ds beheld with wrath this edifice, the top of which was to reach the clouds.
Irritated at the daring attempt of Xelhua, they hurled fire [lightning?] on the pyramid. Numbers of the workmen perished; the work was discontinued.”
”Indeed, Doctor, the two traditions are similar. How is that to be understood, since certainly from the time of the Flood, until the discovery by Columbus, there was no communication between the Old and the so-called New World?”
”Wherever, in two places devoid of communication, similar occurences are recorded, they have a common inspiration. So it was in this instance. The colonists built the temple to their G.o.d whom they had wors.h.i.+pped in Mexico. The Mexicans did likewise, moved to the action by the destruction of all their places of wors.h.i.+p, because of the great inroad made by the sea, and the consequent narrowing of the land. In both instances, we can understand the desire to attain a great height, in order to have a place of safety if a second flood were to supervene. Now let me call your attention to a little coincidence. You observe in the Mexican story that seven giants were saved. This number seven has always been considered a numeral of great significance, by all the religionists of olden times. Thus the author of the book of Genesis so divided the beginning of his narration, that the creation of the world and all that occurred up to the Flood, is told in seven chapters. Depending upon legends for his facts about that period, which the Mexican story says covered forty-eight hundred years, he condenses it all into the mystic number of seven chapters.”
”From all this, then, I am to believe that the story of the Flood is true in the main? I had always supposed that it was either a myth, or an exaggeration of some local inundation?”
”Undoubtedly the great Flood occurred. But now I come to the object which I had in telling you all this. The great pyramids in Mexico, or _teocali_ as they were called, were temples, places of wors.h.i.+p consecrated to the G.o.d Tesculipoca. Would it surprise you to hear that this Mexican deity is no other than aesculapius, commonly called the father of medicine?”
”It would, indeed!”
”Yet it is true. Like many other of the mythological G.o.ds of Europe, he really existed in Mexico. The quickest manner of recognizing him, is by his name. Let us place the Mexican and the European, one under the other:
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