Fashoda.

Manawatu Herald, 23 March 1899, Page 2

Fashoda.

Egyptologists have just advanced the novel theory that the site of the Garden of Eden was not, as theolo. gians and historians have long be. lieved, in Asia Minor, but at a point muoh further south. Mr Marshall Adam-J, an English scientist, who recently visited Fashoda, says that the home prepared for our first par ents was situated in the centre of the Bihr el-Gbazal region, and he avers moreover, that the village of Fashoda is actually situated on the ground occupied by the gate of the earthly paradise. Mr Adam-*, who hutmade an exhausted survey of the country, supports his theory principally by the Biblical desoription itself. The four great rivers whicb watered Eden are not, he says, the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Khiat and he Oxus, for these do not answer to the desoription as do the Niger, the Congo, the Zambsi and tbe Nile. Che latter group account-? for the great extent of land occupied by the Eden of ihe Bible, and for the pn - dence-of gold. "The name of the firrit id Pi»un, that is it which comp tsaeth the land of Ha'vilab, when .h^re is gold," and bedeliiura und onyx etone. There are no blacks i*< Asia Minor, yet the* G- n^ais story t* 11

1 Gih.in ihat "Cjiupasseih the lund {Kb Oj_).&. S-sVeral fjreigo Egyp 1 gists tore ria in a simitar theory

i that of Mr Ad-un*, and about v aon h ago Maj >r Setun Etrr, at. explorer of Homd reput', etaitt'd foi S -nmiilaud f-r ibe purpose of determining more ex -ctlyl the 6ite of tbr Gaideu of EJea. it id nob wondetjat under the circumstances that the tfrt-nch are disposed to treat Mr * dams' theory with polite scorn. In commenting upon his brochure, a Frenoh paper sarcastically remarks : — M Perhaps it ia for some reason, if ter ati, lhat the English value Fashoda so highly 1" But neverthe.. tv-ss, the inquiry is a very interesting one. Without attaching too much literal importance to the Biblical diory* of the creation we may tairly a suine that it records a great era in uhe evolution of the world, lf scL-mnts could fix even approximately the scene it was laid tbey wonld oring the historian nearer to the solution of several perplexing pro-

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