B B! tt 



compiler! of erclopwdia* and biographical dictionaries, 

 without look i IV,' into the matter, look up Mr. Otto story 

 a* something new and striking, not knowing lh.it it was uld 

 and had been di-pioM-1. The way in lncli it opens is 

 rnough to throw discredit on the whole, for Mr. Otto repeats 

 and believes the error that Bchem was the discoverer of all 

 the A com. When he savs that this impossibility is esta- 

 blished liy records preserved in the archives of Nuremberg, 

 m have no faith in the same kind of proofs as to the 

 American discovery. It must be mentioned, moreover, 

 that none of these records or documents preserved in the 

 archive* of Nuremberg.' with the exception of a letter aid 

 to be written by Bvhcm, bear any dale ; and thus they may 

 all have been written after the discoveries of Columbus and 

 MagalhueiH were well known, at least to the learned world. 

 . -online to one of these undated record*, Bohem, alter 

 residing twenty year* at Fayal, applied, in 1-184 (eight \ears 

 before Columbus'* expedition), to John II. of Portugal for 

 the means of making a voyage of discovery in the south- 

 west, and having procured MMM ships found out that |>:irt 

 of America which is now called Brazil, whence, sailing 

 southward, he went to the .Strait of Magalliacns, and to 

 the country of some savage tribes, whom he called Pata- 

 giwians, because the extremities of their bodies were co- 

 vered with a skin more like bears' paws than feet and 

 hands. 



Another of these Nuremberg documents, as quoted by 

 Mr. Otto, says that Bohem, traversing the Atlantic Ocean 

 for several years, examined the American islands, and dis- 

 covered the strait which bears the name of Magalhacns, 

 before cither Christopher Columbus or Mugalhucns sailed 

 jn those seas, and even mathematically delineated on a 

 chart for the king of Portugal the situation of every part of 

 that famous strait. 



With regard to the first of these assertions, which is the 

 more definite of the two, it is perfectly well known that 

 the only expedition for discovery fitted out by the Portu- 

 guese in 1 l 1 was that of Diogo Cam. who certainly never 

 went near America, and who, as we have already shown, 

 was accompanied by Martin Behcm. Indeed Mr. Otto, who 

 quotes contradictory statements to support each other, and 

 prove one and tho same thing, himself allows that Bchem 

 was with Diogo Cam in his African voyage in 1484, I. e. in 

 the v.ry vuar that he is said to have applied for a Heel to go 

 westward and to have discovered Brazil, &c., and in which 

 as we have already stated, no other expedition tha.ii 

 Diogo Cam's left Portugal. 



Mr. Otto quotes as contemporary authorities one or two 

 writers who did not live until many years after Behem's 

 death and the discoveries both of Magalhacns and Colum- 

 bus, and refers to several later authors who could be of no 

 authority whatsoever. The chronicler Hurtman Schcdl was 

 uiporary with Behem ; but, as far as he is cited by Mr. 

 Otto, who thinks the passage conclusive, he docs not prove 

 or even imply that Bchem was the discoverer of America. 

 Tho passage simply states that Mai tin Bchem went in King 

 John's ship* with Diego Cum, that they coasted along the 

 southern ocean, crossed tho equator, got into the other 

 hemisphere, where, facing to the eastward, their shadows 

 projected towards the south and right-hand ; that thus tin a 

 enterprise may bo said to have opened to us another world 

 hitherto unknown, and that having finished this cruise in 

 .--ix months they returned to Portugal with the loss 

 of many of their men. Now, as it has been seen, Diogo 

 Cam, though keeping close to the African coast, did indeed 

 cross tho equator and even reach the 22 J of southern lati- 

 tudr>. and the great extent of his discoveries on the coast of 

 Africa, occupying l'.i 30', might in those times be very well 

 called a new or unknown world, without any reference to 

 America. 



Mr. Otto sayn that Columbug, being at Madeira, mot 

 Martin Behcm, who informed him of his discoveries in the 

 western world and showed him which way to shape his 

 course. But this assertion (alls tn tho ground when we find 

 that the course actually taken by Columbus was very dif- 

 ferent lnrn the alleged one of Behom, and far to the north 

 ol the preteniKil diao\crud land marked on Behem s famous 

 globe. This globe, though a remarkable! performance, was 

 of necessity, in those tunes both defective and erroneous 

 even in rcl.iiion to the old world. It was made up from the 

 authorities of Ptolemy, Plinv, and Stralio, and still more 

 from the excellent travels of Marco Polo and the fabulous 

 travel* of Sir Juhu Mandevillc. r'rom tlus very globe it 



should npix-ar that hit gtographicul information in the east 

 did not extend I ai, nor in the west beyond the 



Cape Verde Ifhtnds : and thai all that he do!. n his 



globe beyond those islands vv as from me: ire. Of two 



islands which he set down between the Capo Vrde group 

 and America neither exists in tho place assign*. 1 i it. 

 One was called St. Brandon, the other Antiha, and from 

 the similarity of the latter name it has been supposed to bo 

 one of the Antilles or American islands di.sc\cn-d by l'o- 

 1 n minis. But Columbus only Rave the name of a falu. 

 island to a real one; for, l.>r._' before his tune, the denomi- 

 nation of Antilia or Antilla had been assigned to a sn;>i 

 country somewhere westward of the Azores. Amlrcu 

 Bianco, a Venetian geographer, who lived at the beginning 

 of the fifteenth century, mdu.ged precisely in the same 

 speculation. Ainoni; a collection of his charts bearing tho 

 date of 1436 (.i.e. fifty-six \cai- before Martin Bchem made 

 his globe) there is one in which he lays down a very largo 

 island at a great distance to the west of the Azores, and 

 which he calls Antilia, and marks the beginning of another 

 inland which ho calls La Muu di Satauasso, or the Devil's 

 Hand. 



Mr. Otto admits that neither Martin Behem nor the Por- 

 tuguese who employed him, and who were exceedingly 

 it of the discoveries made under the Spanish llau, ever 

 even hinted, at the time that, Columbus was indebted to 

 another for his discovery of America. Had there been the 

 shadow of a doubt on the subject the court of Lisbon would 

 have made itself heard throughout Europe, and would not 

 have left the controversy to a few literary men living long 

 after the event. Mr. Washington Imng, in his Life J 

 Columbus, has come to the now incontrovertible conclusion 

 that Martin Behcm had no sort of claim to the honours due 

 to the great Genoese. 



BEHE'MOTH, /VlBrp, is t" e pluralis majestatif, or 



majestic plural, or plural of excellence, of Reficmu/i, i.e. 

 beast, cattle, and occurs in Job xl. 15-2-1, as the name of a 

 large herbivorous animal, the description of which, accord- 

 ing to Bochart, Schcuchzcr, Herder, Gesenius, and other 

 interpreters, corresponds with the appearance and qualities 

 of the hippopotamus. Gesenins thinks that the name 

 behemoth was a Hebrew corruption of the Egyptian word 

 PtdwnMdk, irtxtpott bos marinus 6CU uqmiticus the 

 water-ox, or hippopotamus, which it described by various 

 travellers. 



Behemoth is thus described in Job xl. 15-24: 'Behold 

 now behemoth which I created as well as thyself; he eateth 

 grass as an ox. Behold now his strength in his loins, and 

 his power in the muscles of his belly. He bends his ex- 

 tremity (i. c. trunk, proboscis) like a cedar; the sinews of 

 his terrors (/. e. his terrible sinews) are interwoven (i. e. 

 twisted, or interlaced). His hollow bones arc like tubes of 

 brass; his solid bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief 

 of the works of the Almighty. His Maker gave him his 

 sword (t. e. tho weapon of his tusks). For mountains bear 

 his fodder, and all the beasts of the field play there. He 

 licth under the lotus-bushes ; in the covert of reeds and 

 inn e. The lotus-bushes cover him with their shadow ; tho 

 willows of the brook encompass him. Behold, the river 

 overlloweth, yet he llecth not. He is undismayed, although 

 Jordan rush against his mouth. With his eyes he lai, 

 (his aim), his nose pierces through snares.' This is fre- 

 quently illustrated by a reference to the elephant, who tries 

 with the extremity of his trunk whether the enclosure 

 secure. It was perhaps in allusion to the irresistibility of 

 Behemoth that Thomas Hobbcs of Malmsbury gave the 

 title Hehemolh to his history of the causes of the civil wars 

 of England, from the year 1640 to 1660. 



This description appears to answer more to the elephant 

 than to the hippopotamus ; and the opinion of the oldest com- 

 mentators, who understood it of the elephant, is confirmed 

 by the fact that the Arabs are in the hahil of adding the 

 epithet mcheninth to their name of the elephant,///!/, if lie 

 is very large (Strahlenberg, Kngli-di translation, p. 403, cited 

 in Cuvicr's Osseirr<\ /r.\;7/'.v, vol. i.) It is singular that 

 the Siberians call the elephants which have been preserved 

 in their country, mammoul, or momot, or momnth, or mam- 

 moth, or mammoul ft. 



The word behemoth occurs also as tho mere plural of 

 behttnah. cattle, in Ps. 1. 10: 'For every beast of tlie 

 forest is mine; and the cattle (behemoth) upon a thousand 

 hills. (Compare Psalm Ixxiii. 22.) Jarchi and other 



