454 
7 he Cradle of Civilisation. 
[October? 
cordingly we find mention of the “ dirty Gauls.” Germany 
is naturally a cause of dread and suspicion. Hence the 
“ Twisker ” are stigmatised in advance as “robbers.” 
England has outstripped Holland in navigation, commerce, 
and colonisation. Therefore the “ Oera Linda Book ” dole- 
fully relates how the Frisians lost Britain, once their penal 
colony, and how their rule anticipated ours in the Punjab. 
Can we imagine anything more soothing to Dutch pa- 
triotism ? 
Another remarkable and suspicious circumstance is the 
hostility to priests and priestcraft pervading the whole docu- 
ment, and appearing even in a note appended by a former 
possessor of the book. Liko, surnamed Over de Linda, in 
the year A.D. 803, is made to write as follows : — te Beloved 
successors, for the sake of our dear forefathers and of our 
dear liberty I entreat you, a thousand times, never let the 
eye of a monk look on these writings.” Now, that monks 
have destroyed many documents which would have thrown 
a priceless light on history and ethnology needs not to be 
contested. Nor is it, perhaps, altogether incredible that 
this facft should have been recognised as early as the year 
A.D. 803. But we can scarcely imagine a general and sys- 
tematic dread of priestcraft before ecclesiastical power was 
formally organised, and before its “ alethophobia ” — as a 
modern French writer terms it — had been developed, it is, 
moreover, strange that a nation whose government might be 
called a theocracy directed by priestesses should show such 
a repugnance to priests. This feature, we think, points not 
doubtfully to a very modern origin of the work. 
Dr. Ottema insists that “ there is a striking difference be- 
tween this book and the Greek myths. The Myths have 
no dates, much less any chronology, nor any internal co- 
herence of successive events. The untrammelled fancy 
develops itself in ever} T poem separately and independently. 
The mythological stories contradict each other on every 
point. ‘ Les Mythes ne se tiennent pas ’ is the only key to 
the Greek mythology. 
“ Here, on the contrary, we meet with a regular succession 
of dates starting from a fixed period — the destruction of 
Atland, 2193 before Christ. The accounts are natural and 
simple, often naive, never contradict each other, and are 
always consistent with each other in time and place. As, 
for instance, the arrival and sojourn of Ulysses with the 
Burgtmaagd Kalip at Walhallagara (Walcheren), which is 
the most mythical portion of all, is here said to be 
1005 years after the disappearance of Atland, which coin- 
