eams, refreshing and
fecundating the earth. Therefore, in the myths of ancient Iran there is
mention of a celestial fountain, Arduisur, the virgin daughter of
Ormuzd, whence four all nourishing rivers roll their waves toward the
cardinal points; therefore the Thibetans believe that on the sacred
mountain Himavata grows the tree of life Zampu, from whose foot once
more flow the waters of life in four streams to the four quarters of the
world; and therefore it is that the same tale is told by the Chinese of
the mountain Kouantun, by the Brahmins of Mount Meru, and by the Parsees
of Mount Albors in the Caucasus.[85-6] Each nation called their sacred
mountain "the navel of the earth;" for not only was it the supposed
centre of the habitable world, but through it, as the foetus through
the umbilical cord, the earth drew her increase. Beyond all other spots
were they accounted fertile, scenes of joyous plaisance, of repose, and
eternal youth; there rippled the waters of health, there blossomed the
tree of life; they were fit trysting spots of gods and men. Hence came
the tales of the terrestrial paradise, the rose garden of Feridun, the
Eden gardens of the world. The name shows the origin, for paradise (in
Sanscrit, _para desa_) means literally _high land_. There, in the
unanimous opinion of the Orient, dwelt once in unalloyed delight the
first of men; thence driven by untoward fate, no more anywhere could
they find the path thither. Some thought that in the north among the
fortunate Hyperboreans, others that in the mountains of the moon where
dwelt the long lived Ethiopians, and others again that in the furthest
east, underneath the dawn, was situate the seat of pristine happiness;
but many were of opinion that somewhere in the western sea, beyond the
pillars of Hercules and the waters of the Outer Ocean, lay the garden of
the Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed, the earthly Elysion.

It is not without design that I recall this early dream of the religious
fancy. When Christopher Columbus, fired by the hope of discovering this
terrestrial paradise, broke the enchantment of the cloudy sea and found
a new world, it was but to light upon the same race of men, deluding
themselves with the same hope of earthly joys, the same fiction of a
long lost garden of their youth. They told him that still to the west,
amid the mountains of Paria, was a spot whence flowed mighty streams
over all lands, and which in sooth was the spot he so