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CHAPTER XVI.

MAN'S FIRST PLACE.

Ir is, perhaps, a curious rather than an important question as to where man was first located. Taking man as we find him, it is evident that, as regards locality and habitat, man, unlike any other creature, is to be found in every habitable region of the earth. Wherever there is life he lives. While other living beings are, by the necessities of their constitution, limited in their range, man ranges everywhere. Of the 200 species of monkeys, for instance, and we quote them as nearest to man in bodily structure, scarcely any live naturally beyond the tropics. Moreover, the different species of monkey never mingle, but man multiplies in all climes, and there is no variety of the human race so far constitutionally at variance as to be debarred, as far as we know, from fruitfully commingling with any other to produce a new variety. Even extremes of race are known to mingle; but the natural admixture is not between extremes but approximates. Thus, Africans blend with Africans from the Cape to the Mediterranean coast. But doubtless an Esquimaux with a Negro would be a mixture that would have a hard

struggle for existence. While these facts afford strong evidence of the unity of mankind, they also show us that, as far as man's power of living in any climate is concerned, he might have been created in any part of the earth. But certain localities are more congenial to man's full enjoyment of life than others; and, as we suppose man in his perfection was not left to struggle for life as soon as he was made, we reasonably infer that he must have had an appropriate and most accommodating place prepared for him. Where, then, was it? The streams of races, of languages, of tradition, point to a centre in the East as the earliest seat of man as at present existing on the earth. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that, whatever changes may have taken place on the surface of the earth, the first parents of mankind dwelt somewhere in that direction. We have seen that Oken, as a mere philosophical speculator, assumed that the neighbourhood of the Himalayas was probably the region of the veritable aborigines whom he makes in imagination out of sea-mucus, with very savage propensities—probably derived from a long line of beastly antecedents. Probably he would not object to a more western locality, and might even adopt the Caucasian mountains-as others, on scientific principles, have done as equally adapted to fulfil the demands of the theory which seeks an appropriate climate for the spontaneous production of man from mucus. We, however, do not require conditions suitable for the production of man out of a stray spawn, so we shall not look for them. We think the production of man sufficiently provided

for in the Will of his Maker. We only want to find a locality best suited to meet the necessities of man, constituted as he is. It is rather remarkable that the very philosophers who suppose man by degrees developed into, or at best created, a savage, also suppose man first produced somewhere in the neighbourhood of NorthWestern India, because we still find there the highest type of man- -men and women of the finest mould. How the two ideas-the lowest savages and the highest style of man-comport, it is for the said philosophers to determine.

As to man, it is easier to imagine self-degradation than self-elevation. What is high, when left to its own forces, soon falls lower; but that which is low never becomes higher of its own accord. Humanity is never exalted but by an extraneous power. It is always either drawn up or driven. We readily acknowledge that comfort and abundance foster the development of man. If his passions are not too strongly at war with him, the finest specimen of man will be found in the land that most favours his growth; but we cannot determine where that is, nor how far his bad habits of mind and body might counteract the fostering influences of nature.

The locality indicated, however, will very well answer the purpose now in view-to find a place adapted to the convenience of new-made man. The study of climatology conducts us to this region, as uniting in itself all the conditions most favourable to the proper supply of man's wants, to the exercise of his faculties, to the cultivation of the ground, and the production of whatever

man can make subservient to use and to enjoyment. We seek a paradise, and here we find it ready made, though, indeed, a Miltonic imagination will require a better for pure man.

The centre of the diverging migrations of man is probably, then, in or near the beautiful Cashmere of which the poets sing so rapturously.

All the great features of nature are there found in their greatest contrasts of beauty and sublimity. In drawing a circle with a radius of five hundred miles around this centre, we include all the climates of the world. In its mountains, table-lands, lakes, and valleys, with rivers roaming amidst grandeur and loveliness and descending through wide sloping terraces, clothed with every form of verdure, of bloom and fruitfulness, and affording easy access to the ocean, we find almost all that makes the earth rich, grand, and glorious. Indian tradition, or rather what assumes the form of history, as expressed in the Vedas, probably written about 1600 B.C., actually fixes on Mount Meru, on the borders of Tibet and Cashmere, as the first abode of

From the above date, according to received chronology and traditions, less than a thousand years had elapsed from the Deluge; and in the mere fairy tales of the English, the Germans, the Welsh, and the Armoricans, many of them of the same Eastern origin, we have proof that the story of the most trifling events may outlive a thousand years.

* See Sir William Jones, Ritter, and Colebrook.

Nearly every variety of plant and animal cultivated by man in Europe and Asia is found wild in the region indicated. Four rivers-the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Indus, and another that flows into Tibet, arise from Mount Meru.

Michaelis translated Genesis ii. 10 thus: Four rivers flowed out of Eden, and they separated continually more and more widely from each other.' Moses says that man's first abode was in the East (Gen. ii. 8). Armenia is in the north from Palestine, so that Armenia could not have been supposed the seat of Eden by the writer of Genesis, if he wrote in Palestine. The Indian tradition, then, so far agrees with the Hebrew account. But perhaps Meru is the real Ararat, a name that simply means a mountainous region.

It is quite possible that the exact spot which may be called the cradle of mankind is in that fruitful region known as Keind, which the Iranian (or Aryan) nations call Behesh or Paradise. It is said that extremely ancient remains of the most impressive splendour, primeval ruins of arched avenues, colossal statues and temples are found there, which cannot be traced to any known people. These remains may be the oldest on the earth, and may possibly have been erected by the earliest of men, in memory of the first parent as nearly as might be to the spot consecrated by his creation. We know but little of that region, and ought to know more. Though lying northward of the plateau of Pamure, near Cashgar, it was certainly the highway of communication