EPOCH THE FIRST.

Book the Second.

THE TYRIAN ERA;

OR,

THE FOUNDING OF ANCIENT AMERICA,

CONTINUED.

AND

HISTORICALLY ESTABLISHED,

AS BEING IN THE YEAR 332 BEFORE CHRIST.

Horatio.

O DAY AND NIGHT,—BUT THIS IS WOND'ROUS STRANGE!

Hamlet.

AND, THEREFORE, AS A STRANGER, GIVE IT WELCOME.

THERE ARE MORE THINGS IN HEAVEN AND EARTH, HORATIO, THAN ARE DREAMT OF IN OUR PHILOSOPHY !

Shakspeare.

Book the Second.

THE SCRIPTURAL, POLITICAL, AND COMMERCIAL HISTORY OF THE PHOENICIAN NATIONS,-BUT ESPECIALLY OF THE KINGDOM OF TYRUS, AND THE MIGRATION TO THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE.

CHAPTER I.

(2349-1600 B. C.)

THE NATIONS OF PHOENICIA.

2349 BEFORE CHRIST.] IN reviewing the history of the great Phoenician family, an interest of a strong and peculiar character is now given to it from the new and apparent fact, that the Nations of that family were not annihilated—in its literal sense-by the Babylonian, Macedonian, or the Roman, at the great capitals, Sidon, Tyrus, and Carthage.

The Phoenicians as a people, will now possess an interest in the mind of the English and American reader (and of all Europe) of no common character:-for “all time" forward the History of Tyrus (and of Israel) must be regarded as being blended with that of the Western Hemisphere; and as a consequence, with the Anglo

Saxon race: whose colossal tread, ere a century shall have passed, will obliterate every minor footprint on the Western Continent,-for the Institutions of Alfred and of Washington-freedom-founded-tower, like sheltering Palm-trees, over the desert sands of the pre

vious Nations.

The Phoenicians claim with absolute certainty the most remote antiquity for the foundation of their "house;" for as the history of Nations requires no date antecedent to that of the Deluge,-that of Phoenicia is traceable to that event-[2349 B. C.]—and as a consequence, the first Book of MOSES is the fountain from which all the channels of certain and early knowledge are derived.

From the Sacred Volume we learn that the three and only Sons of Noah "were Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan." Japheth was the eldest, and from him is supposed to have descended the family of Europe. To Shem, the second son, is traceable the House of Israel, and to that august family was granted by THE ALMIGHTY, the Sacred Covenant, the Holy-laws, and the Nativity of the Blessed SAVIOUR.

The family of the youngest Son-Ham-is traceable with the same certainty as that of his next elder brother: while that of Japheth, the firstborn, is left in comparative obscurity.

The branch of our History now before the reader, contemplates the fate and family of the last Son of Noah, and to those points only will attention now be directed; and at the conclusion the reader will not fail

the youngest

to observe, that Noah's malediction upon offspring of his last child, was not uttered by the insulted Patriarch in vain. The cause of that curse is familiar to every reader, but for the argument to follow, it is necessary to bring it forward in this place.

2218 B. C.]" And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: and he drank of the wine and was drunken: and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father: and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him: and he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the LORD GOD of Shem ;-and Canaan shall be his servant. GOD shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant." [Gen. ix. 20-27.]

The Prophetical part of the above, and its accomplishment, will be proved in the last Chapter of this Volume, and in support of the present Theory:—the Malediction will here be especially noticed as belonging to this history. It is singular that Noah's curse is not cast upon the Son (Ham) who foully wronged his person, but upon that Son's youngest male child,-viz.,