some old pictures of the previous owner, Dr. Gilbert, standing with colleagues and students in front of the first Hopkins Laboratory in 1894. All of this tickled Luke’s sense of history, and he knew the Hopkins administration would love the photographs.
But it was the large package at the bottom of the trunk that drew Luke’s greatest interest. It was neatly wrapped in brown paper and secured with string and sealing wax. When Luke pulled it from the trunk, the rotting string parted and fell away, and when he removed the wrapping paper he discovered a leather-bound print folio and a journal. Luke opened the folio and found it contained some large sheets of folded rice paper, which at first glance appeared to be something like Chinese gravestone rubbings. Next, he found some odd photographs of a flat, black stone with engraved Chinese characters, and a half dozen pictures of an object that looked something akin to a stylized giraffe, but resting on its knees like a camel. Lastly, he examined a handwritten journal with Dr. Gilbert’s name inscribed on the inside cover. Since there was no one around to monitor his activities, Luke decided to let his natural curiosity take point. He indulged himself with an early lunch break and read the journal, if only to find out what the other documents and photographs depicted.
What Luke soon discovered in the journal’s pages set his pulse racing. He couldn’t believe what he was reading. If it was true, and he had no reason to doubt Dr. Gilbert’s account as yet, then out there somewhere was solid, incontrovertible evidence that the Chinese, not the Spanish, had been the first foreigners to discover California. And if this was true, the Chinese, to judge by all the standards of European history at that time, possessed a prior claim to California, and perhaps parts of South America as well.
Luke could barely catch his breath. He had hit the mother lode, the apogee of the rummager’s art: this was a discovery that could literally change the history of the Western world, and Luke knew it. Though he felt himself to be scrupulously honest, Luke had been around university dons long enough to know that they’d do just about anything to get their hands on something like this; and of course, they would also claim the right of discovery. One of Luke’s roommates at Stanford had once joked that he could judge the level of success of a tenured professor by the number of stab wounds in his competitors’ backs. Luke was not about to reveal his discovery until he knew enough to secure those credentials for himself.
On the other hand, Luke knew that he never wanted to be accused of theft from the university archives, so removing materials from the Hopkins vault was out of the question for the moment. Instantly, Luke knew what must be done. He would have to copy all the relevant material, pack it all back in the trunk just as he found it, and then hide it again under the clutter in the back of the vault, where it would not be discovered without his notice.
As it was a Sunday, nobody was really around to ask uncomfortable questions. So Luke took the rubbings, the faded photographs, and Gilbert’s journal and left to use the office’s broad-plate copier. He duplicated everything in the folio, and then carefully returned the documents, rewrapped in the original paper, to the trunk just as he had found them. He also included the moldy string and wax seals. At first Luke regretted that he had not thought to use specimen gloves when looking through the papers, but he later determined that if provenance were required in the future, his would be the only new fingerprints on the documents, thus giving weight to his claim to prior discovery of Dr. Gilbert’s papers without opening him to charges of theft of university property.
After work Luke went home and immediately fired up his laptop. He was surprised to find quite a bit of information concerning fifteenth-century Chinese maritime history on the Internet. He discovered at least three books, one of them a bestseller, and numerous articles on the subject. He also found references to three television documentaries, and a plethora of newspaper articles from all over the world. Luke ordered the books and documentaries and downloaded all the newspaper articles he could find. Then he scanned Dr. Gilbert’s journal and, when it was practical, returned to the vault, retrieved the rubbings, and had them copied full size at a blueprint shop in Salinas. The printers also scanned the rubbings onto a disc with exceptional detail. Then he returned the material to the trunk and covered his tracks.
OVER THE NEXT TWO MONTHS Luke became more and more obsessed with his search. He remained diligent in maintaining silence on the subject to everyone, including his girlfriend. He spent every free hour scanning research on the great Chinese admiral Zheng He and his treasure fleet, and this led to finding references to one of his subordinate officers, Admiral Zhou Man, who, according to several qualified references, had sailed north along the coast of the Americas around 1422.
Luke found it impossible to believe that Zhou Man’s giant, ten-masted ships and his many hundreds of sailors never landed to refresh their water supplies, or to hunt and fish to restock their larders. It seemed to Luke that these necessary forays would have required establishing at least temporary settlements to hunt, butcher, and preserve meat, catch and dry fish, gather other available foodstuffs, and perhaps do a little trading with the native peoples. And though Luke was persuaded that incidental trade must have been established with the few indigenous tribes they encountered, historical evidence to back his supposition would not be found, since the coastal peoples lacked a written language and depended on oral tradition alone.
Without hinting at the evidence in his possession, Luke began to send e-mail inquiries to all the Chinese historical societies in California regarding artifacts that might have been left behind by Zhou Man’s fleet, but again he came up empty. And though many respondents were of the opinion that Zhou Man had indeed explored the western coast of North America, none could point to any evidence that he had left behind as a sign of his visit.
Luke discovered there were stories floating around that a few remnants of a giant sternpost and transom of an ancient ship had been discovered the previous century, buried somewhere along the banks of the Sacramento or American river. However, there was no substantial proof that the ship was even Chinese, and a few supposed experts said it looked Spanish. And since the river and the dredgers had long ago swallowed up the wreckage, it was hardly feasible that such evidence would ever be found.
One of the more interesting books Luke had ordered was authored by a retired British naval officer who made broad but well-founded claims that Zhou Man had indeed visited the West Coast of North America. The author buttressed his theory with quite a few remarkable references, and though the author admitted it was difficult to present solid physical proof that could determine the location of the landfalls with any certainty, there was a most compelling body of zoological and botanical evidence to support the premise.
Luke contacted the author through his e-mail address, and though the gentleman was glad to share all he knew, Luke still found himself strapped with more questions than answers. But even with these hampering details, he was coming to realize that there was a good chance that he was nesting on a sizable historical bombshell. If his discovery was correct, and if Dr. Gilbert’s journal, rubbings, and photographs could stand up to close scientific scrutiny, then Luke was in possession of the only existing substantiation ever found that the author’s hypothesis was correct.
But even that was not quite enough for Luke. He was slowly coming to the question, if such artifacts still existed, and had not been returned to China as Dr. Gilbert presumed they had, then where were they now? The discovery of their whereabouts, if at all possible, would set Luke’s reputation in both the scientific and historical communities. He presumed the success of a master’s or doctoral thesis on the subject would be a foregone conclusion. But for the moment Luke had come up against a blank wall. There was simply no trace anywhere of the existence of such artifacts.
As an afterthought, and without revealing his own evidence, Luke e-mailed several museums on mainland China in the hope that some Chinese scholar might shed light on the subject. In return, he was informed that articles similar to the ones he described were known of, and there were a few examples of marker stones and seals housed
