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o mT u u f7il
Adventures o f the Canadian
ROYAL MOUNTED

T H E B I C
LITTLE BOOK
 MEN of
THE M O U N T E
by

T e d M cC a ll

W hitman P ublishing Company

R ac in e , W isconsin
_ _ C opyright 1933 Copyright 1934
Tam Toronto Evening Telegram W hitm an Publishing C o.
Toronto, O ntario Racine, W isconsin
A S B ights Reserved Printed in U . S. A .
 CHAPTER I

The Rustlers
Striking like a venomous snake,
lawlessness reared its ugly head on
the Alberta Plains—the vast stretch
of country in Western Canada which
leads to the foothills of the Rockies.
Cattle rustlers and horse thieves
swooped down on gun-cowed ranch­
ers, spreading a reign of terror in
their wake. The redskins, who in
those days were rankling under the
7
8 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

advance of the white man, allied

themselves with the outlaw bands,
plundering lonely settlements of the
range land.
Bandit gangs, masked and cruel,
ambushed mail-packed stages and
preyed on gold-laden trains that thun­
dered over desolate miles of steel.
With this lawlessness at its height,
there came into the bad lands the
Scarlet P a tro l— the men of the
Mounted—known far and wide for
their dauntless courage, their nerves
Robbing a Gold-laden Train
10 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

of steel and their loyalty of purpose.

They rode fearlessly against the
masked raiders of the prairie wastes
and the mountain wilderness. They
were the law.
A scorching sun beat down on the
western prairie as Corporal Rand
rode back to his Gull Creek post from
a weary three-day patrol.
Blaze, his horse, tirelessly loped
away the miles. Suddenly, however,
the Mountie drew his steed to an
abrupt stop, on the crest of a ridge.
Corpora! Rand Came to a Stop
12 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

Every sense was alert as the smoke

of a distant fire caught the Corpo­
ral's eye, and a couple of men were
seen kneeling over dark objects on
the ground. Even at this distance,
Corporal Rand took in the situation
clearly.
Rustlers—and the branding iron!
With a touch of the spurs, Blaze was
speeding over the plain toward that
outlaw vista of the range.
The pounding hoofs of Blaze, as he
carried Corporal Rand flying over the
 ' \ -'s

He Examined the Cattle

14 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

plain, warned the rustlers of their

danger. In an instant the men were
fleeing south, before the Mountie
could catch a glimpse of their faces.
The outlaws’ steeds easily outdis­
tanced the trail-worn Blaze.
Corporal Rand dismounted at the
fire. Four head of cattle were on the
ground, legs tied. Corporal Rand ex­
amined the trussed cattle. Two bore
the Bar 2 brand of the Evans Ranch,
but in the others the Bar 2 brand had
been changed to a Circle-X. In the
The Branding Iron
 16 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

fire, the Mountie found the branding

iron. It was neatly made—white hot
—grimly effective— an im p ortan t
clue.
To the Corporal, the iron revealed
that the rustlers were not merely
petty plunderers, but well equipped
villains of a nefarious trade.
The Redcoat had barely released
the helpless beasts when, to the west,
a cloud of dust heralded the approach
of hurried horsemen. Not knowing
. what to expect, Corporal Rand stood
A Group of Horsemen
18 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

his ground. As the riders neared, he

recognized, in the lead, Chick Evans,
one of the cattle barons of the prairies
—stern, wealthy, powerful.
The horsemen pulled to a halt with
a creaking of leather and a jingle of
spurs. Their eyes flashed with anger
at the sight of the cattle. The Bar 2
owner heard the Mountie’s story in
bitter silence. The men of this coun­
try were men of few words. But when
they spoke, their words carried a
wealth of meaning.
“W e’re Going Gunning.”
20 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

“We’re going g u n n in g ,” said

Evans. “We’ll stop this rustling if
we drive out every Indian in------
Corporal Rand interrupted. “This
wasn’t an Indian job,” he explained.
“These were whites.”
“Red or white, we’re gunning,”
was the terse retort.
“There’ll be no gun play as long as
the force is on the job,” warned Cor­
poral Rand.
“The law will stop rustling,” con­
tinued the Mountie, “and without
22 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

any help from ranchers’ bullets.”

The powerful rancher answered
With a grim laugh.
“Yes,” he said, “just like these.
When my ranchers see ru stlers
there’ll be fireworks.”
“They got away,” admitted the
Corporal, “but we’ll get them no mat­
ter where they go.”
Evans remounted and as his^hen
wheeled away, he said to the Mountie,
“When it comes to Redcoats or bul­
lets, I’m betting on bullets!”
Rand Rode into Gull Creek
 CHAPTER H

Inspector’s Orders
The cow -tow n o f Gull Creek
sprawled lazily in the heart of the
heat-baked prairie, its clapboard
stores and dance halls deserted in the
mid-day sun. But to Corporal Rand,
returning from his patrol, it was
home, sweet home. He rode slowly
through its single street to the Bar­
racks on the outskirts.
Prospects of a much-needed rest
24
He Saluted before the Inspector
26 MEN OF TEE MOUNTED

were blasted, however, as Blaze car­

ried him toward the stables. A brother
Mountie hailed him very excitedly.
It was Constable Booth, his friend,
whose nickname “Lanky” had been
gained honestly. He had been Cor­
poral Rand’s riding companion on
several adventures.
“Inspector wants to see you pron­
to,” he grinned. “And there’s fun
brewin’!” Leaving Blaze with Lanky,
the Corporal walked swiftly to the
quarters to report to his superior.
“I Have a Big Job for You."
28 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

A moment later, he saluted before

Inspector Joyce, stern-faced veteran
of the Mounted.
The Inspector’s very life-b lood
ebbed and flowed with the pulse of
the force. He had gained the esteem
and admiration of his men. “Corpo­
ral,” he said, “I have a job for you—
a big job! Cattle rustlers are on the
warpath. Every rancher rep orts
losses. Now, that means just one
thing—an organized band of cattle
raiders! Your job is to stamp it out—
Lanky Was W aiting Outside
30 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

you must bring in those rustlers!”

Capture the cattle rustlers! Cor­
poral Rand was thrilled at the Inspec­
tor’s orders.
Here was a trail of adventure and
danger—-but where did the trail
start? Where would it end? Who
were the rustlers? Bring them in
without fail—those were the orders.
The Corporal saluted and turned
to go, but the Inspector halted him a
moment. “They’ll be a tough outfit,”
he warned kindly, “so be careful.”
 CHAPTER HI

A Mysterious Shooting
Constable Lanky Booth was wait­
ing outside. “Get yourself a horse,
boy/’ he was told by the Corporal.
“You and I are rustler hunting.”
“The Round-up,” which was Gull
Creek’s leading cabaret, was the
stamping ground of roistering cow
hands, filled by n ig h t w ith the
ranchers’ revelry.
With the dusk, Corporal Rand and
32
He Slumped at Their Feet
34 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

Lanky strode toward this nocturnal

rallying place, seeking to pick up
scraps of talk which might lead to
the rustlers.
The playing of a cheap piano and
loud laughter could be heard as the
Mounties approached.
♦

Suddenly, the music was punctured

with the sharp report of shots. The
Redcoats raced to the entrance of the
building. The doors suddenly burst
open and a man slumped in a heap at
their feet. Sheeting affairs of this
36 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

kind had been a common thing in

earlier days on the plains, but with
the coming of the Mounted, a sem­
blance of law and order had been
restored.
Corporal Rand assumed that this
shooting was not just the result of
some drunken brawl. It must be at­
tributed to some desperate outlaw, in
defiance of the law.
With a quick word to Lanky to look
after the fallen man, the Corporal
dashed into the hall. At the same mo-
Lanky Carried Him into the Room
m MEN OF THE MOUNTED

teemt, a fusillade of shots was heard.

A group of cow punchers, smoking
guns in their hands, turned from the
^windows and ran to the door. The
beat of horses’ hoofs echoed at the
same time. “He’s away!” someone
shouted. “Who’s away?” demanded
the Mountie. “The man who shot
Squint,” was the quick reply. “They’ll
never catch him now.”
Before the Mountie could question
further, Lanky carried the gun vic­
tim into the room and put him gently
“Hit, but N ot Badly.”
40 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

on the floor. “Hit, but not badly,” he

told the Corporal.
Corporal Rand id en tified the
wounded man as one of the Q ranch
hands, victim of a stranger’s gun.
But none could explain the shooting.
In a few moments, the posse of
punchers returned from the fruitless
chase for the gunman. All were ranch
men and they, too, were at a loss to
fathom the wounding.
“Squint was just talking to this
hombre,” one of their leaders said,
He Refused To Join in the Merriment
42 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

“when the man opened fire, got Squint

and hot-footed it out the window. We
took a crack at him but it was too
dark.”
The Mountie silenced him as the
figure on the floor stirred.
“Did you get him?” queried Squint.
“I saw his mask.”
A man with a mask! From the
wounded Squint, Corporal Rand
gleaned the first clue in his hunt for
the outlaw rustlers. Squint told the
whole story.
The Stranger Was N ot Friendly
44 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

A morose and moody soul was the

gunman, Squint said and one who sat
alone at a table in the corner of the
cabaret, shunning the gaiety of the
night. He was drinking alone and in
gloomy silence.
The gunman had squelched Squint’s
efforts to be friendly—had refused to
be drawn from his shell of silence.
However, when the dour stranger
had taken tobacco from his pocket, a
piece of cloth fluttered to the floor. It
spread out — it was a yellow mask!
He Drew His Six-shooter
46 MEN OF THE MOUNTED

Squint weakly told Corporal Rand

that he had snatched up the mask as
the stranger stooped to pick it up
from the floor.
While Squint stared at the cloth in
amazement the other drew his six-
gun like a flash and fired, point blank.
The bullet stunned the cowboy. He
floundered away, his senses reeling,
and the gunman tore the mask from
his fingers.
The startled crowd was hushed—
motionless a moment—and in that in-
* ptle tin.
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been thoroughly well known in that country. Facts are facts. Where
among our painters are we to search for the artist who can decorate
our walls with imperishable colors? Ages after our pigmy buildings
will have crumbled into dust, and the cities enclosing them will
themselves have become shapeless heaps of brick and mortar, with
forgotten names—long after that will the halls of Karnak and Luxor
(El-Uxor) be still standing; and the gorgeous mural paintings of the
latter will doubtless be as bright and vivid 4,000 years hence, as they
were 4,000 years ago, and are to-day. “Embalming and fresco-
painting,” says our author, “was not a chance discovery with the
Egyptians, but brought out from definitions and maxims like any
induction of Faraday.”
Our modern Italians boast of their Etruscan vases and paintings;
the decorative borders found on Greek vases provoke the admiration
of the lovers of antiquity, and are ascribed to the Greeks, while in
fact “they were but copies from the Egyptian vases.” Their figures
can be found any day on the walls of a tomb of the age of Amunoph
I., a period at which Greece was not even in existence.
Where, in our age, can we point to anything comparable to the
rock-temples of Ipsambul in Lower Nubia? There may be seen sitting
figures seventy feet high, carved out of the living rock. The torso of
the statue of Rameses II., at Thebes, measures sixty feet around the
shoulders, and elsewhere in proportion. Beside such titanic sculpture
our own seems that of pigmies. Iron was known to the Egyptians at
least long before the construction of the first pyramid, which is over
20,000 years ago, according to Bunsen. The proof of this had
remained hidden for many thousands of years in the pyramid of
Cheops, until Colonel Howard Vyse found it in the shape of a piece
of iron, in one of the joints, where it had evidently been placed at the
time this pyramid was first built. Egyptologists adduce many
indications that the ancients were perfectly well acquainted with
metallurgy in prehistoric times. “To this day we can find at Sinai large
heaps of scoriæ, produced by smelting.”[812] Metallurgy and
chemistry, as practiced in those days, were known as alchemy, and
were at the bottom of prehistoric magic. Moreover, Moses proved his
knowledge of alchemical chemistry by pulverizing the golden calf,
and strewing the powder upon the water.
If now we turn to navigation, we will find ourselves able to prove,
on good authorities, that Necho II. fitted out a fleet on the Red Sea
and despatched it for exploration. The fleet was absent above two
years and instead of returning through the Straits of Babelmandel, as
was wont, sailed back through the Straits of Gibraltar. Herodotus
was not at all swift to concede to the Egyptians a maritime
achievement so vast as this. They had, he says, been spreading the
report that “returning homewards, they had the sunrise on their right
hands; a thing which to me is incredible.” “And yet,” remarks the
author of the heretofore-mentioned article, “this incredible assertion
is now proved incontestable, as may well be understood by any one
who has doubled the Cape of Good Hope. Thus it is proved that the
most ancient of these people performed a feat which was attributed
to Columbus many ages later. They say they anchored twice on their
way; sowed corn, reaped it and, sailing away, steered in triumph
through the Pillars of Hercules and eastward along the
Mediterranean. “There was a people,” he adds, “much more
deserving of the term ‘veteres’ than the Romans and Greeks. The
Greeks, young in their knowledge, sounded a trumpet before these
and called upon all the world to admire their ability. Old Egypt, grown
gray in her wisdom, was so secure of her acquirements that, she did
not invite admiration and cared no more for the opinion of the flippant
Greek than we do to-day for that of a Feejee islander.”
“O Solon, Solon,” said the oldest Egyptian priest to that sage. “You
Greeks are ever childish, having no ancient opinion, no discipline of
any long standing!” And very much surprised, indeed, was the great
Solon, when he was told by the priests of Egypt that so many gods
and goddesses of the Grecian Pantheon were but the disguised
gods of Egypt. Truly spoke Zonaras: “All these things came to us
from Chaldea to Egypt; and from thence were derived to the
Greeks.”
Sir David Brewster gives a glowing description of several
automata; and the eighteenth century takes pride in that masterpiece
of mechanical art, the “flute-player of Vaucanson.” The little we can
glean of positive information on that subject, from ancient writers,
warrants the belief that the learned mechanicians in the days of
Archimedes, and some of them much anterior to the great
Syracusan, were in no wise more ignorant or less ingenious than our
modern inventors. Archytas, a native of Tarentum, in Italy, the
instructor of Plato, a philosopher distinguished for his mathematical
achievements and wonderful discoveries in practical mechanics,
constructed a wooden dove. It must have been an extraordinarily
ingenious mechanism, as it flew, fluttered its wings, and sustained
itself for a considerable time in the air. This skilful man, who lived
400 years b.c., invented besides the wooden dove, the screw, the
crane, and various hydraulic machines.[813]
Egypt pressed her own grapes and made wine. Nothing
remarkable in that, so far, but she brewed her own beer, and in great
quantity—our Egyptologist goes on to say. The Ebers manuscript
proves now, beyond doubt, that the Egyptians used beer 2,000 years
b.c. Their beer must have been strong and excellent—like everything
they did. Glass was manufactured in all its varieties. In many of the
Egyptian sculptures we find scenes of glass-blowing and bottles;
occasionally, during archæological researches, glasses and
glassware are found, and very beautiful they seem to have been. Sir
Gardner Wilkinson says that the Egyptians cut, ground, and
engraved glass, and possessed the art of introducing gold between
the two surfaces of the substance. They imitated with glass, pearls,
emeralds, and all the precious stones to a great perfection.
Likewise, the most ancient Egyptians cultivated the musical arts,
and understood well the effect of musical harmony and its influence
on the human spirit. We can find on the oldest sculptures and
carvings scenes in which musicians play on various instruments.
Music was used in the Healing Department of the temples for the
cure of nervous disorders. We discover on many monuments men
playing in bands in concert; the leader beating time by clapping his
hands. Thus far we can prove that they understood the laws of
harmony. They had their sacred music, domestic and military. The
lyre, harp, and flute were used for the sacred concerts; for festive
occasions they had the guitar, the single and double pipes, and
castanets; for troops, and during military service, they had trumpets,
tambourines, drums, and cymbals. Various kinds of harps were
invented by them, such as the lyre, sambuc, ashur; some of these
had upward of twenty strings. The superiority of the Egyptian lyre
over the Grecian is an admitted fact. The material out of which were
made such instruments was often of very costly and rare wood, and
they were beautifully carved; they imported it sometimes from very
distant countries; some were painted, inlaid with mother-of-pearl,
and ornamented with colored leather. They used catgut for strings as
we do. Pythagoras learned music in Egypt and made a regular
science of it in Italy. But the Egyptians were generally considered in
antiquity as the best music-teachers in Greece. They understood
thoroughly well how to extract harmonious sounds out of an
instrument by adding strings to it, as well as the multiplication of
notes by shortening the strings upon its neck; which knowledge
shows a great progress in the musical art. Speaking of harps, in a
tomb at Thebes, Bruce remarks that, “they overturn all the accounts
hitherto given of the earliest state of music and musical instruments
in the East, and are altogether, in their form, ornaments and
compass, an incontestable proof, stronger than a thousand Greek
quotations, that geometry, drawing, mechanics, and music were at
the greatest perfection when these instruments were made; and that
the period from which we date the invention of these arts was only
the beginning of the era of their restoration.”
On the walls of the palace of Amenoph II. at Thebes, the king is
represented as playing chess with the queen. This monarch reigned
long before the Trojan war. In India the game is known to have been
played at least 5,000 years ago.
As to their knowledge in medicine, now that one of the lost Books
of Hermes has been found and translated by Ebers, the Egyptians
can speak for themselves. That they understood about the
circulation of the blood, appears certain from the healing
manipulations of the priests, who knew how to draw blood
downward, stop its circulation for awhile, etc. A more careful study of
their bas-reliefs representing scenes taking place in the healing hall
of various temples will easily demonstrate it. They had their dentists
and oculists, and no doctor was allowed to practice more than one
specialty; which certainly warrants the belief that they lost fewer
patients in those days than our physicians do now. It is also asserted
by some authorities that the Egyptians were the first people in the
world who introduced trial by jury; although we doubt this ourselves.
But the Egyptians were not the only people of remote epochs
whose achievements place them in so commanding a position
before the view of posterity. Besides others whose history is at
present shut in behind the mists of antiquity—such as the prehistoric
races of the two Americas, of Crete, of the Troäd, of the Lacustrians,
of the submerged continent of the fabled Atlantis, now classed with
myths—the deeds of the Phœnicians stamp them with almost the
character of demi-gods.
The writer in the National Quarterly Review, previously quoted,
says that the Phœnicians were the earliest navigators of the world,
founded most of the colonies of the Mediterranean, and voyaged to
whatever other regions were inhabited. They visited the Arctic
regions, whence they brought accounts of eternal days without a
night, which Homer has preserved for us in the Odyssey. From the
British Isles they imported tin into Africa, and Spain was a favorite
site for their colonies. The description of Charybdis so completely
answers to the maëlstrom that, as this writer says: “It is difficult to
imagine it to have had any other prototype.” Their explorations, it
seems, extended in every direction, their sails whitening the Indian
Ocean, as well as the Norwegian fiords. Different writers have
accorded to them the settlement of remote localities; while the entire
southern coast of the Mediterranean was occupied by their cities. A
large portion of the African territory is asserted to have been peopled
by the races expelled by Joshua and the children of Israel. At the
time when Procopius wrote, columns stood in Mauritania Tingitana,
which bore the inscription, in Phœnician characters, “We are those
who fled before the brigand Joshua, the son of Nun or Navè.”
Some suppose these hardy navigators of Arctic and Antarctic
waters have been the progenitors of the races which built the
temples and palaces of Palenque and Uxmal, of Copan and
Arica.[814] Brasseur de Bourbourg gives us much information about
the manners and customs, architecture and arts, and especially of
the magic and magicians of the ancient Mexicans. He tells us that
Votan, their fabulous hero and the greatest of their magicians,
returning from a long voyage, visited King Solomon at the time of the
building of the temple. This Votan appears to be identical with the
dreaded Quetzo-Cohuatl who appears in all the Mexican legends;
and curiously enough these legends bear a striking resemblance,
insomuch as they relate to the voyages and exploits of the Hittim,
with the Hebrew Bible accounts of the Hivites, the descendants of
Heth, son of Chanaan. The record tells us that Votan “furnished to
Solomon the most valuable particulars as to the men, animals, and
plants, the gold and precious woods of the Occident,” but refused
point-blank to afford any clew to the route he sailed, or the manner of
reaching the mysterious continent. Solomon himself gives an
account of this interview in his History of the Wonders of the
Universe, the chief Votan figuring under the allegory of the
Navigating Serpent. Stephens, indulging in the anticipation “that a
key surer than that of the Rosetta-stone will be discovered,” by which
the American hieroglyphs may be read,[815] says that the
descendants of the Caciques and the Aztec subjects are believed to
survive still in the inaccessible fastnesses of the Cordilleras
—“wildernesses, which have never yet been penetrated by a white
man, ... living as their fathers did, erecting the same buildings ... with
ornaments of sculpture and plastered; large courts, and lofty towers
with high ranges of steps, and still carving on tablets of stone the
same mysterious hieroglyphics.” He adds, “I turn to that vast and
unknown region, untraversed by a single road, wherein fancy
pictures that mysterious city seen from the topmost range of the
Cordilleras of unconquered, unvisited, and unsought aboriginal
inhabitants.”
Apart from the fact that this mysterious city has been seen from a
great distance by daring travellers, there is no intrinsic improbability
of its existence, for who can tell what became of the primitive people
who fled before the rapacious brigands of Cortez and Pizarro? Dr.
Tschuddi, in his work on Peru, tells us of an Indian legend that a train
of 10,000 llamas, laden with gold to complete the unfortunate Inca’s
ransom, was arrested in the Andes by the tidings of his death, and
the enormous treasure was so effectually concealed that not a trace
of it has ever been found. He, as well as Prescott and other writers,
informs us that the Indians to this day preserve their ancient
traditions and sacerdotal caste, and obey implicitly the orders of
rulers chosen among themselves, while at the same time nominally
Catholics and actually subject to the Peruvian authorities. Magical
ceremonies practiced by their forefathers still prevail among them,
and magical phenomena occur. So persistent are they in their loyalty
to the past, that it seems impossible but that they should be in
relations with some central source of authority which constantly
supports and strengthens their faith, keeping it alive. May it not be
that the sources of this undying faith lie in this mysterious city, with
which they are in secret communication? Or must we think that all of
the above is again but a “curious coincidence?”
The story of this mysterious city was told to Stephens by a
Spanish Padre, in 1838-9. The priest swore to him that he had seen
it with his own eyes, and gave Stephens the following details, which
the traveller firmly believed to be true. “The Padre of the little village
near the ruins of Santa Cruz del Quichè, had heard of the unknown
city at the village of Chajul.... He was then young, and climbed with
much labor to the naked summit of the topmost ridge of the sierra of
the Cordillera. When arrived at a height of ten or twelve thousand
feet, he looked over an immense plain extending to Yucatan and the
Gulf of Mexico, and saw, at a great distance, a large city spread over
a great space, and with turrets white and glittering in the sun.
Tradition says that no white man has ever reached this city; that the
inhabitants speak the Maya language, know that strangers have
conquered their whole land, and murder any white man who
attempts to enter their territory.... They have no coin; no horses,
cattle, mules, or other domestic animals except fowls, and the cocks
they keep underground to prevent their crowing being heard.”
Nearly the same was given us personally about twenty years ago,
by an old native priest, whom we met in Peru, and with whom we
happened to have business relations. He had passed all his life
vainly trying to conceal his hatred toward the conquerors
—“brigands,” he termed them; and, as he confessed, kept friends
with them and the Catholic religion for the sake of his people, but he
was as truly a sun-worshipper in his heart as ever he was. He had
travelled in his capacity of a converted native missionary, and had
been at Santa Cruz and, as he solemnly affirmed, had been also to
see some of his people by a “subterranean passage” leading into the
mysterious city. We believe his account; for a man who is about to
die, will rarely stop to invent idle stories; and this one we have found
corroborated in Stephen’s Travels. Besides, we know of two other
cities utterly unknown to European travellers; not that the inhabitants
particularly desire to hide themselves; for people from Buddhistic
countries come occasionally to visit them. But their towns are not set
down on the European or Asiatic maps; and, on account of the too
zealous and enterprising Christian missionaries, and perhaps for
more mysterious reasons of their own, the few natives of other
countries who are aware of the existence of these two cities never
mention them. Nature has provided strange nooks and hiding-places
for her favorites; and unfortunately it is but far away from so-called
civilized countries that man is free to worship the Deity in the way
that his fathers did.
Even the erudite and sober Max Müller is somehow unable to get
rid of coincidences. To him they come in the shape of the most
unexpected discoveries. These Mexicans, for instance, whose
obscure origin, according to the laws of probability, has no
connection with the Aryans of India, nevertheless, like the Hindus,
represent an eclipse of the moon as “the moon being devoured by a
dragon.”[816] And though Professor Müller admits that an historical
intercourse between the two people was suspected by Alexander
von Humboldt, and he himself considers it possible, still the
occurrence of such a fact he adds, “need not be the result of any
historical intercourse. As we have stated above, the origin of the
aborigines of America is a very vexed question for those interested
in tracing out the affiliation and migrations of peoples.”
Notwithstanding the labor of Brasseur de Bourbourg, and his
elaborate translation of the famous Popol-Vuh, alleged to be written
by Ixtlilxochitl, after weighing its contents, the antiquarian remains as
much in the dark as ever. We have read the Popol-Vuh in its original
translation, and the review of the same by Max Müller, and out of the
former find shining a light of such brightness, that it is no wonder that
the matter-of-fact, skeptical scientists should be blinded by it. But so
far as an author can be judged by his writings, Professor Max Müller
is no unfair skeptic; and, moreover, very little of importance escapes
his attention. How is it then that a man of such immense and rare
erudition, accustomed as he is to embrace at one eagle glance the
traditions, religious customs, and superstitions of a people, detecting
the slightest similarity, and taking in the smallest details, failed to
give any importance or perhaps even suspect what the humble
author of the present volume, who has neither scientific training nor
erudition, to any extent, apprehended at first view? Fallacious and
unwarranted as to many may seem this remark, it appears to us that
science loses more than she gains by neglecting the ancient and
even mediæval esoteric literature, or rather what remains of it. To
one who devotes himself to such study many a coincidence is
transformed into a natural result of demonstrable antecedent causes.
We think we can see how it is that Professor Müller confesses that
“now and then ... one imagines one sees certain periods and
landmarks, but in the next page all is chaos again.”[817] May it not be
barely possible that this chaos is intensified by the fact that most of
the scientists, directing the whole of their attention to history, skip
that which they treat as “vague, contradictory, miraculous, absurd.”
Notwithstanding the feeling that there was “a groundwork of noble
conceptions which has been covered and distorted by an aftergrowth
of fantastic nonsense,” Professor Müller cannot help comparing this
nonsense to the tales of the Arabian Nights.
Far be from us the ridiculous pretension of criticising a scientist so
worthy of admiration for his learning as Max Müller. But we cannot
help saying that even among the fantastic nonsense of the Arabian
Nights’ Entertainments anything would be worthy of attention, if it
should help toward the evolving of some historical truth. Homer’s
Odyssey surpasses in fantastic nonsense all the tales of the Arabian
Nights combined; and notwithstanding that, many of his myths are
now proved to be something else besides the creation of the old
poet’s fancy. The Læstrygonians, who devoured the companions of
Ulysses, are traced to the huge cannibal[818] race, said in primitive
days to inhabit the caves of Norway. Geology verified through her
discoveries some of the assertions of Homer, supposed for so many
ages to have been but poetical hallucinations. The perpetual daylight
enjoyed by this race of Læstrygonians indicates that they were
inhabitants of the North Cape, where, during the whole summer,
there is perpetual daylight. The Norwegian fiords are perfectly
described by Homer in his Odyssey, x. 110; and the gigantic stature
of the Læstrygonians is demonstrated by human bones of unusual
size found in caves situated near this region, and which the
geologists suppose to have belonged to a race extinct long before
the Aryan immigration. Charybdis, as we have seen, has been
recognized in the maëlstrom; and the Wandering Rocks[819] in the
enormous icebergs of the Arctic seas.
If the consecutive attempts at the creation of man described in the
Quichè Cosmogony suggests no comparison with some Apocrypha,
with the Jewish sacred books, and the kabalistic theories of creation,
it is indeed strange. Even the Book of Jasher, condemned as a gross
forgery of the twelfth century, may furnish more than one clew to
trace a relation between the population of Ur of the Kasdeans, where
Magism flourished before the days of Abraham, and those of Central
and North America. The divine beings, “brought down to the level of
human nature,” perform no feats or tricks more strange or incredible
than the miraculous performances of Moses and of Pharaoh’s
magicians, while many of these are exactly similar in their nature.
And when, moreover, in addition to this latter fact, we find so great a
resemblance between certain kabalistic terms common to both
hemispheres, there must be something else than mere accident to
account for the circumstance. Many of such feats have clearly a
common parentage. The story of the two brothers of Central
America, who, before starting on their journey to Xibalba, “plant each
a cane in the middle of their grandmother’s house, that she may
know by its flourishing or withering whether they are alive or
dead,”[820] finds its analogy in the beliefs of many other countries. In
the Popular Tales and Traditions, by Sacharoff (Russia), one can find
a similar narrative, and trace this belief in various other legends. And
yet these fairy tales were current in Russia many centuries before
America was discovered.
In recognizing in the gods of Stonehenge the divinities of Delphos
and Babylon, one need feel little surprised. Bel and the Dragon,
Apollo and Python, Osiris and Typhon, are all one under many
names, and have travelled far and wide. The Both-al of Ireland
points directly to its first parent, the Batylos of the Greeks and the
Beth-el of Chanaan. “History,” says H. de la Villemarque, “which took
no notes at those distant ages, can plead ignorance, but the science
of languages affirms. Philology, with a daily-increasing probability,
has again linked together the chain hardly broken between the
Orient and the Occident.”[821]
No more remarkable is the discovery of a like resemblance
between the Oriental myths and ancient Russian tales and traditions,
for it is entirely natural to look for a similarity between the beliefs of
the Semitic and Aryan families. But when we discover an almost
perfect identity between the character of Zarevna Militrissa, with a
moon in her forehead, who is in constant danger of being devoured
by Zmeÿ Gorenetch (the Serpent or Dragon), who plays such a
prominent part in all popular Russian tales, and similar characters in
the Mexican legends—extending to the minutest details—we may
well pause and ask ourselves whether there be not here more than a
simple coincidence.
This tradition of the Dragon and the Sun—occasionally replaced
by the Moon—has awakened echoes in the remotest parts of the
world. It may be accounted for with perfect readiness by the once
universal heliolatrous religion. There was a time when Asia, Europe,
Africa, and America were covered with the temples sacred to the sun
and the dragons. The priests assumed the names of their deities,
and thus the tradition of these spread like a net-work all over the
globe: “Bel and the Dragon being uniformly coupled together, and
the priest of the Ophite religion as uniformly assuming the name of
his god.”[822] But still, “if the original conception is natural and
intelligible ... and its occurrence need not be the result of any
historical intercourse,” as Professor Müller tells us, the details are so
strikingly similar that we cannot feel satisfied that the riddle is entirely
solved. The origin of this universal symbolical worship being
concealed in the night of time, we would have far more chance to
arrive at the truth by tracing these traditions to their very source. And
where is this source? Kircher places the origin of the Ophite and
heliolatrous worship, the shape of conical monuments and the
obelisks, with the Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus.[823] Where, then,
except in Hermetic books, are we to seek for the desired
information? Is it likely that modern authors can know more, or as
much, of ancient myths and cults as the men who taught them to
their contemporaries? Clearly two things are necessary: first, to find
the missing books of Hermes; and second, the key by which to
understand them, for reading is not sufficient. Failing in this, our
savants are abandoned to unfruitful speculations, as for a like reason
geographers waste their energies in a vain quest of the sources of
the Nile. Truly the land of Egypt is another abode of mystery!
Without stopping to discuss whether Hermes was the “Prince of
postdiluvian magic,” as des Mousseaux calls him, or the
antediluvian, which is much more likely, one thing is certain: The
authenticity, reliability, and usefulness of the Books of Hermes—or
rather of what remains of the thirty-six works attributed to the
Egyptian magician—are fully recognized by Champollion, junior, and
corroborated by Champollion-Figeac, who mentions it. Now, if by
carefully looking over the kabalistical works, which are all derived
from that universal storehouse of esoteric knowledge, we find the
fac-similes of many so-called miracles wrought by magical art,
equally reproduced by the Quichès; and if even in the fragments left
of the original Popol-Vuh, there is sufficient evidence that the
religious customs of the Mexicans, Peruvians, and other American
races are nearly identical with those of the ancient Phœnicians,
Babylonians, and Egyptians; and if, moreover, we discover that
many of their religious terms have etymologically the same origin;
how are we to avoid believing that they are the descendants of those
whose forefathers “fled before the brigand, Joshua, the son of Nun?”
“Nuñez de la Vega says that Nin, or Imos, of the Tzendales, was the
Ninus of the Babylonians.”[824]
It is possible that, so far, it may be a coincidence; as the
identification of one with the other rests but upon a poor argument.
“But it is known,” adds de Bourbourg, “that this prince, and according
to others, his father, Bel, or Baal, received, like the Nin of the
Tzendales, the homages of his subjects under the shape of a
serpent.” The latter assertion, besides being fantastic, is nowhere
corroborated in the Babylonian records. It is very true that the
Phœnicians represented the sun under the image of a dragon; but
so did all the other people who symbolized their sun-gods. Belus, the
first king of the Assyrian dynasty was, according to Castor, and
Eusebius who quotes him, deified, i. e., he was ranked among the
gods “after his death” only. Thus, neither himself nor his son, Ninus,
or Nin, could have received their subjects under the shape of a
serpent, whatever the Tzendales did. Bel, according to Christians, is
Baal; and Baal is the Devil, since the Bible prophets began so
designating every deity of their neighbors; therefore Belus, Ninus,
and the Mexican Nin are serpents and devils; and, as the Devil, or
father of evil, is one under many forms, therefore, under whatever
name the serpent appears, it is the Devil. Strange logic! Why not say
that Ninus the Assyrian, represented as husband and victim of the
ambitious Semiramis, was high priest as well as king of his country?
That as such he wore on his tiara the sacred emblems of the dragon
and the sun? Moreover, as the priest generally assumed the name of
his god, Ninus was said to receive his subject as the representative
of this serpent-god. The idea is preëminently Roman Catholic, and
amounts to very little, as all their inventions do. If Nuñez de la Vega
was so anxious to establish an affiliation between the Mexicans and
the biblical sun-and serpent-worshippers, why did he not show
another and a better similarity between them without tracing in the
Ninevites and the Tzendales the hoof and horn of the Christian
Devil?
And to begin with, he might have pointed to the Chronicles of
Fuentes, of the kingdom of Guatemala, and to the Manuscript of Don
Juan Torres, the grandson of the last king of the Quichès. This
document, which is said to have been in the possession of the
lieutenant-general appointed by Pedro de Alvarado, states that the
Toltecas themselves descended from the house of Israel, who were
released by Moses, and who, after crossing the Red Sea, fell into
idolatry. After that, having separated themselves from their
companions, and under the guidance of a chief named Tanub, they
set out wandering, and from one continent to another they came to a
place named the Seven Caverns, in the Kingdom of Mexico, where
they founded the famous town of Tula, etc.[825]
If this statement has never obtained more credit than it has, it is
simply due to the fact that it passed through the hands of Father
Francis Vasques, historian of the Order of San Francis, and this
circumstance, to use the expression employed by des Mousseaux in
connection with the work of the poor, unfrocked Abbé Huc, “is not
calculated to strengthen our confidence.” But there is another point
as important, if not more so, as it seems to have escaped
falsification by the zealous Catholic padres, and rests chiefly on
Indian tradition. A famous Toltecan king, whose name is mixed up in
the weird legends of Utatlan, the ruined capital of the great Indian
kingdom, bore the biblical appellation of Balam Acan; the first name
being preëminently Chaldean, and reminding one immediately of
Balaam and his human-voiced ass. Besides the statement of Lord
Kingsborough, who found such a striking similarity between the
language of the Aztecs (the mother tongue) and the Hebrew, many
of the figures on the bas-reliefs of Palenque and idols in terra cotta,
exhumed in Santa Cruz del Quichè, have on their heads bandelets
with a square protuberance on them, in front of the forehead, very
similar to the phylacteries worn by the Hebrew Pharisees of old,
while at prayers, and even by devotees of the present day,
particularly the Jews of Poland and Russia. But as this may be but a
fancy of ours, after all, we will not insist on the details.
Upon the testimony of the ancients, corroborated by modern
discoveries, we know that there were numerous catacombs in Egypt
and Chaldea, some of them of a very vast extent. The most
renowned of them were the subterranean crypts of Thebes and
Memphis. The former, beginning on the western side of the Nile,
extended toward the Libyan desert, and were known as the
Serpent’s catacombs, or passages. It was there that were performed
the sacred mysteries of the kúklos ànágkés, the “Unavoidable
Cycle,” more generally known as the “circle of necessity;” the
inexorable doom imposed upon every soul after the bodily death,
and when it had been judged in the Amenthian region.
In de Bourbourg’s book, Votan, the Mexican demi god, in narrating
his expedition, describes a subterranean passage, which ran
underground, and terminated at the root of the heavens, adding that
this passage was a snake’s hole, “un ahugero de colubra;” and that
he was admitted to it because he was himself “a son of the snakes,”
or a serpent.[826]
This is, indeed, very suggestive; for his description of the snake’s
hole is that of the ancient Egyptian crypt, as above mentioned. The
hierophants, moreover, of Egypt, as of Babylon, generally styled
themselves the “Sons of the Serpent-god,” or “Sons of the Dragon;”
not because—as des Mousseaux would have his readers believe—
they were the progeny of Satan-incubus, the old serpent of Eden, but
because, in the Mysteries, the serpent was the symbol of wisdom
and immortality. “The Assyrian priest bore always the name of his
god,” says Movers.[827] The Druids of the Celto-Britannic regions
also called themselves snakes. “I am a Serpent, I am a Druid!” they
exclaimed. The Egyptian Karnak is twin-brother to the Carnac of
Bretagné, the latter Carnac meaning the serpent’s mount. The
Dracontia once covered the surface of the globe, and these temples
were sacred to the dragon, only because it was the symbol of the
sun, which, in its turn, was the symbol of the highest god—the
Phœnician Elon or Elion, whom Abraham recognized as El
Elion.[828] Besides the surname of serpents, they were called the
“builders,” the “architects;” for the immense grandeur of their temples
and monuments was such, that even now the pulverized remains of
them “frighten the mathematical calculations of our modern
engineers,” says Taliesin.[829]
 De Bourbourg hints that the chiefs of the name of Votan, the
Quetzo-Cohuatl, or serpent deity of the Mexicans, are the
descendants of Ham and Canaan. “I am Hivim,” they say. “Being a
Hivim, I am of the great race of the Dragon (snake). I am a snake
myself, for I am a Hivim.”[830] And des Mousseaux, rejoicing
because he believes himself fairly on the serpent’s, or rather, devil’s
trail, hurries to explain: “According to the most learned
commentators of our sacred books, the Chivim or Hivim, or Hevites,
descend from Heth, son of Canaan, son of Ham ... the
accursed!”[831]
But modern research has demonstrated, on unimpeachable
evidence, that the whole genealogical table of the tenth chapter of
Genesis refers to imaginary heroes, and that the closing verses of
the ninth are little better than a bit of Chaldean allegory of Sisuthrus
and the mythical flood, compiled and arranged to fit the Noachian
frame. But, suppose the descendants of these Canaanites, “the
accursed,” were to resent for once the unmerited outrage? It would
be an easy matter for them to reverse the tables, and answer to this
fling, based on a fable, by a fact proved by archæologists and
symbologists—namely, that Seth, Adam’s third son, and the
forefather of all Israel, the ancestor of Noah, and the progenitor of
the “chosen people,” is but Hermes, the god of wisdom, called also
Thoth, Tat, Seth, Set, and Sat-an; and that he was, furthermore,
when viewed under his bad aspect, Typhon, the Egyptian Satan,
who was also Set. For the Jewish people, whose well-educated men,
no more than Philo, or Josephus, the historian, regard their Mosaic
books as otherwise than an allegory, such a discovery amounts to
but little. But for Christians, who, like des Mousseaux, very unwisely
accept the Bible narratives as literal history, the case stands very
different.
As far as affiliation goes, we agree with this pious writer; and we
feel every day as certain that some of the peoples of Central
America will be traced back to the Phœnicians and the Mosaic
Israelites, as we do that the latter will be proved to have as
persistently stuck to the same idolatry—if idolatry there is—of the
sun and serpent-worship, as the Mexicans. There is evidence—
biblical evidence—that two of Jacob’s sons, Levi and Dan, as well as
Judah, married Canaanite women, and followed the worship of their
wives. Of course, every Christian will protest, but the proof may be
found even in the translated Bible, pruned as it now stands. The
dying Jacob thus describes his sons: “Dan,” says he, “shall be a
serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse-heels,
so that his rider shall fall backward.... I have waited for thy salvation,
O Lord!” Of Simeon and Levi, the patriarch (or Israel) remarks that
they “ ... are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.
O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly.”[832]
Now, in the original, the words “their secret,” read—their Sod.[833]
And Sod was the name for the great Mysteries of Baal, Adonis, and
Bacchus who were all sun-gods and had serpents for symbols. The
kabalists explain the allegory of the fiery serpents by saying, that this
was the name given to the tribe of Levi, to all the Levites in short,
and that Moses was the chief of the Sodales.[834] And here is the
moment to prove our statements.
Moses is mentioned by several old historians as an Egyptian
priest; Manetho says he was a hierophant of Hieropolis, and a priest
of the sun-god Osiris, and that his name was Osarsiph. Those
moderns, who accept it as a fact that he “was learned in all the
wisdom” of the Egyptians, must also submit to the right interpretation
of the word wisdom, which was throughout the world known as a
synonym of initiation into the secret mysteries of the Magi. Did the
idea never strike the reader of the Bible, that an alien born and
brought up in a foreign country could not and would not possibly
have been admitted—we will not say to the final initiation, the
grandest mystery of all, but even to share the knowledge of the
minor priesthood, those who belonged to the lesser mysteries? In
Genesis xliii. 32, we read, that no Egyptian could seat himself to eat
bread with the brothers of Joseph, “for that is an abomination unto
the Egyptians.” But that the Egyptians ate “with him (Joseph) by
themselves.” The above proves two things: 1, that Joseph, whatever
he was in his heart, had, in appearance at least, changed his
religion, married the daughter of a priest of the “idolatrous” nation,
and become himself an Egyptian; otherwise, the natives would not
have eaten bread with him. And 2, that subsequently Moses, if not
an Egyptian by birth, became one through being admitted into the
priesthood, and thus was a Sodale. As an induction, the narrative of
the “brazen serpent” (the Caduceus of Mercury or Asclepios, the son
of the sun-god Apollo-Python) becomes logical and natural. We must
bear in mind that Pharaoh’s daughter, who saved Moses and
adopted him, is called by Josephus Thermuthis; and the latter,
according to Wilkinson, is the name of the asp sacred to Isis;[835]
moreover, Moses is said to descend from the tribe of Levi. We will
explain the kabalistic ideas as to the books of Moses and the great
prophet himself more fully in Volume II.
If Brasseur de Bourbourg and the Chevalier des Mousseaux, had
so much at heart to trace the identity of the Mexicans with the
Canaanites, they might have found far better and weightier proofs
than by showing both the “accursed” descendants of Ham. For
instance, they might have pointed to the Nargal, the Chaldean and
Assyrian chief of the Magi (Rab-Mag) and the Nagal, the chief
sorcerer of the Mexican Indians. Both derive their names from
Nergal-Sarezer, the Assyrian god, and both have the same faculties,
or powers to have an attendant dæmon with whom they identify
themselves completely. The Chaldean and Assyrian Nargal kept his
dæmon, in the shape of some animal considered sacred, inside the
temple; the Indian Nagal keeps his wherever he can—in the
neighboring lake, or wood, or in the house, under the shape of a
household animal.[836]
We find the Catholic World, newspaper, in a recent number,
bitterly complaining that the old Pagan element of the aboriginal
inhabitants of America does not seem to be utterly dead in the
United States. Even where tribes have been for long years under the
care of Christian teachers, heathen rites are practiced in secret, and
crypto-paganism, or nagualism, flourishes now, as in the days of
Montezuma. It says: “Nagualism and voodoo-worship” as it calls
these two strange sects—“are direct devil-worship. A report
addressed to the Cortes in 1812, by Don Pedro Baptista Pino, says:
‘All the pueblos have their artufas—so the natives call subterranean
rooms with only a single door, where they assemble to perform their
feasts, and hold meetings. These are impenetrable temples ... and
the doors are always closed on the Spaniards.
“‘All these pueblos, in spite of the sway which religion has had
over them, cannot forget a part of the beliefs which have been
transmitted to them, and which they are careful to transmit to their
descendants. Hence come the adoration they render the sun and
moon, and other heavenly bodies, the respect they entertain for fire,
etc.
“‘The pueblo chiefs seem to be at the same time priests; they
perform various simple rites, by which the power of the sun and of
Montezuma is recognized, as well as the power (according to some
accounts) of the Great Snake, to whom, by order of Montezuma,
they are to look for life. They also officiate in certain ceremonies with
which they pray for rain. There are painted representations of the
Great Snake, together with that of a misshapen, red-haired man,
declared to stand for Montezuma. Of this last there was also, in the
year 1845, in the pueblo of Laguna, a rude effigy or idol, intended,
apparently, to represent only the head of the deity.’”[837]
The perfect identity of the rites, ceremonies, traditions, and even
the names of the deities, among the Mexicans and ancient
Babylonians and Egyptians, are a sufficient proof of South America
being peopled by a colony which mysteriously found its way across
the Atlantic. When? at what period? History is silent on that point; but
those who consider that there is no tradition, sanctified by ages,
without a certain sediment of truth at the bottom of it, believe in the
Atlantis-legend. There are, scattered throughout the world, a handful
of thoughtful and solitary students, who pass their lives in obscurity,
far from the rumors of the world, studying the great problems of the
physical and spiritual universes. They have their secret records in
which are preserved the fruits of the scholastic labors of the long line
of recluses whose successors they are. The knowledge of their early
ancestors, the sages of India, Babylonia, Nineveh, and the imperial
Thebes; the legends and traditions commented upon by the masters
of Solon, Pythagoras, and Plato, in the marble halls of Heliopolis and
Saïs; traditions which, in their days, already seemed to hardly
glimmer from behind the foggy curtain of the past;—all this, and
much more, is recorded on indestructible parchment, and passed
with jealous care from one adept to another. These men believe the
story of the Atlantis to be no fable, but maintain that at different
epochs of the past huge islands, and even continents, existed where
now there is but a wild waste of waters. In those submerged temples
and libraries the archæologist would find, could he but explore them,
the materials for filling all the gaps that now exist in what we imagine
is history. They say that at a remote epoch a traveller could traverse
what is now the Atlantic Ocean, almost the entire distance by land,
crossing in boats from one island to another, where narrow straits
then existed.
Our suspicion as to the relationship of the cis-Atlantic and trans-
Atlantic races is strengthened upon reading about the wonders
wrought by Quetzo-Cohuatl, the Mexican magician. His wand must
be closely-related to the traditional sapphire-stick of Moses, the stick
which bloomed in the garden of Raguel-Jethro, his father-in-law, and
upon which was engraved the ineffable name. The “four men”
described as the real four ancestors of the human race, “who were
neither begotten by the gods, nor born of woman,” but whose
“creation was a wonder wrought by the Creator,” and who were
made after three attempts at manufacturing men had failed, equally
present some striking points of similarity with the esoteric
explanations of the Hermetists;[838] they also undeniably recall the
four sons of God of the Egyptian theogony. Moreover, as any one
may infer, the resemblance of this myth to the narrative related in
Genesis, will be apparent to even a superficial observer. These four
ancestors “could reason and speak, their sight was unlimited, and
they knew all things at once.”[839] When “they had rendered thanks
to their Creator for their existence, the gods were frightened, and
they breathed a cloud over the eyes of men that they might see a
certain distance only, and not be like the gods themselves.” This
bears directly upon the sentence in Genesis, “Behold, the man is
become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put