Lot 141: GORDON, Charles George, General (1833-1885). Autograph manuscript sign

GORDON, Charles George, General (1833-1885). Autograph
manuscript signed (‘C.G. Gordon’), ‘Eden, and its two sacramental
trees’, proposing a site for the Garden of Eden on the island of Praslin,
Seychelles, 26 February 1882, with two watercolour sketch maps. 10
pages in total, folio (323 x 200mm) (losses to the paper, most notably the
maps, generally at folds). Laid down. Provenance: Ray Rawlins (1917- 1979) collection.
Having identifed to the west of the Seychelles a deep basin, into
which fow the four rivers specifed in Genesis as marking the Garden
of Eden - the Euphrates, Hiddekel, Pison and Gihon - Gordon
moves on to the two ‘sacramental trees’ that identify the Seychelles
as the site of the Garden: the Coco de Mer, which he posits as the
Tree of Knowledge - a ‘curious tree in every way, unique among its
kind & among trees’, with a nut ‘like a belly with thighs’ - and the
‘life supporting tree’, the Bread Fruit Tree or Tree of Life. That the
Coco de Mer is indigenous to the island leads him to conclude ‘I
believe Praslin is the site of Garden of Eden’, before he continuing
on the subject of the Fall. An ardent Christian, Gordon’s position in
command of the Royal Engineers in Mauritius from 1881-2 allowed
him to pursue his investigation of the lost site of the Garden; just two
years after this posting, Gordon would return to the Sudan, meeting
his death in 1885.
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