CHAPTER IV.

_CHRONOLOGY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF TRADITION._

To many it may seem a fundamental objection that my theory supposes a chronology altogether out of keeping with modern discovery; and I fancy there is a somewhat general impression that modern science has an historical basis, to which not even the Septuagint chronology can be made to conform.

This really is not the case; but assuming it to be true, I must still remark, that if facts of primeval tradition have been established, the long lapse of ages will only enhance our notions of the persistency of tradition; or if the lapse of ages is disproved, this conclusion will be in recognition of a truth to which tradition testifies.

I shall now proceed to establish that the strictly historical testimony, and the direct historical evidence, is strikingly concurrent in favour of the scriptural chronology, allowing the margin of difference between the Hebrew and LXX. versions.[48]

[48] "Aucune des trois chronologies bibliques, là ou elles ne s'accordent pas entre elles, ne s'impose avec une autorite suffisante soit au fidele, soit au savant. L'Eglise catholique a laissé le choix libre entre ces chronologies et elles n'oblige pas même à en adopter une."--_"Le Monde et L'Homme Primitif selon la Bible," par Mgr. Meignan, Evêque de Chalons-sur-Marne_, 1869.

With this view I shall successively examine the chronology of the principal nations whose annals profess to go back to the commencement of things--the Aryan (including the Indian, the Persian, the Greek, and the Roman), the Babylonian, the Chinese, Phoenician, and Egyptian.

_Indian Chronology._--There was a time when the Indian (Aryan) chronology was believed to attain to the most remote antiquity of all, and this belief was sustained by the apparently irrefragable testimony of astronomical evidence. Who upholds this evidence now? On this head I must refer to Cardinal Wiseman's seventh lecture ("On Science and Revealed Religion"), where the reader will find a clear and careful _precis_ of the discussion on the subject between Bailly and Delambre, the _Edinburgh Review_ and Bentley, to which I am not aware that anything of consequence has to be added.

If, on the other hand, we turn to what I am exclusively directing my attention--the strict historical investigation--we find that the cautious inquiries of such men as Sir W. Jones and Heeren concur in placing the Aryan invasion at the antecedently very probable date, from the point of view of Scripture, of some 2000 years B.C.

At the present moment the discussion takes the form of philological inquiry, and into the antiquity (upon internal evidence) of the ancient Sanscrit literature. In so far, therefore, as it is philological, it belongs to the indirect argument, which I am now excluding. In so far as the Sanscrit literature is historical, I have discussed the testimony which it brings in the preceding chapter. Professor Rawlinson, however, in his recent "Manual of Ancient History," refuses to discuss the question, as he does not regard the Maha-Bharata and Ramayana as "trustworthy sources of history," and commences his Persian history with the accession of Cyrus, previously to which he does not consider the Aryan migration and settlement to have been completed. Apart, then, from the peculiar line of argument to which I shall presently refer, it would appear that the Indian chronology, as reconstructed from history and tradition, falls easily within the lines, not only of the LXX., but of the Hebrew version.

The Indians, it is true ("Hales' Chron.," i. 196), themselves say that their history goes back 432,000,000 years. Although Hales gives a solution which may be deemed satisfactory, I think that, if considered in connection with the Babylonian computation, it will be seen that, though inexact in their figure, they are accurate in their tradition.

_The primary figure in their (Indian) calculation_--432,000--_is arrived at through the extended multiplication_ of the Chaldean sossos, neros, and saros, _or of their own traditional figures_ corresponding to them (_vide infra_).

In the Chaldean system (_vide_ Rawlinson, "Anc. Mon.," i.), 6 and 10 were employed as alternate multipliers. Thus a "soss" = 60 years (10 × 6), a "ner" = 600 (60 × 10), a "sar" = 3600 (600 × 6); and if the multiplication be continued, the next figure would be 36,000 (3600 × 10), next 216,000 (36,000 × 6). _The Indian figure 432,000,[49] is made up of twice 216,000._

[49] 432,000 is also the figure to which Berosus extends the Assyrian chronology. Thus the Indian fabrication commences at the point where Berosus ends.

Professor Rawlinson ("Anc. Mon.," i. 192) gives in detail, and endorses a remarkable _eclaircissement_ of M. Gutschmid on the mythical traditions of Assyrian chronology.

_Babylonian Chronology._--Rawlinson says--

"Assuming that the division between the earlier and later Assyrian dynasty synchronises with the celebrated era of Nabonassar (747 B.C.), which is probable, but not certain, and taking the year B.C. 538 as the admitted date of the conquest of the last Chaldæan king by Cyrus, he obtains for the seventh or second Assyrian dynasty 122 years (747 to 625). Assuming, next, that B.C. 2234, from which the Babylonians counted their stellar observations, must be a year of note in Chaldæan history, and finding that it cannot well represent the first year of the second or Median dynasty, since in that case eleven kings of the third dynasty would have reigned no more than thirty-four years, he concludes it must mark the expulsion of the Medes and accession of the third dynasty (which he regards as a native dynasty). From his previous calculations, it follows that the fourth dynasty began B.C. 1976; between which and B.C. 2234 are 258 years, a period which may be fairly assigned to eleven monarchs. This much is conjecture ... _the proof now suddenly flashes on us_. If the numbers are taken in the way assigned, and then added to the years of the first or purely mythical dynasty, we get 36,000, equal to the next term, to the sar (saros, _vide supra_), in the Babylonian system of cycles."

It will be more apparent in the following table from Rawlinson, _idem_--

|---------------------------------------------- | | Years. | B.C. | |----------------------------|-----------------| |Mythical 86 Chaldæans | 34,800 | | | { 8 Medes | 224 | 2458 | | {11 [Chaldæans] | (258) | 2234 | | {49 Chaldæans | 458 | 1976 | |Historical. { 9 Arab | 245 | 1518 | | {45 [Assyrian] | 526 | 1273 | | { 8 [Assyrian] | 122 | 747 | | { 6 Chaldæans | 87 | 625 | |----------------------------|----------|------| | | 36,000 | | |----------------------------|----------|------|

_Chinese Chronology._--The Chinese, also--though, be it observed, the Chinese of modern date, according to Klaproth ("Mem. Relatifs. à l'Asie," i. 405; Klaproth places the commencement of the uncertain history of China 2637 B.C., the certain history 782 B.C.),[50] in the first year of our era, but more systematically in the ninth century--forged a mythological history, which carried the empire back 2,276,000 years (another calculation, 3,276,000). He adds, however, that the Chinese themselves do not consider the Wai-ki, the authority for these statements, to be historical.

[50] Bunsen ("Egypt," iii. 405) says, "Systematic Chinese history and chronology hardly go back as far as the year 2000 B.C., _i.e._ to the reign of Yü (1991)." Yet upon indirect philological conclusions, he would really take their history back _beyond the_ Egyptian--iii. p. 379. "An explanation must be given why it (the Chinese history) commences at a later period (as above) than Egyptian chronology; much _later_, indeed, than is generally supposed. Search must be made in _other quarters than_ the regular extant chronology for proofs of that _vast antiquity_, which the numerous _records_ of language _compel_ us to assign to the origines of the Chinese." This vast antiquity may be measured by the fact that, _ex hypothesi_, it transcends the Egyptian, and for the Egyptian in his theory of progress and development, he requires _at least 20,000 years_ before the Christian era.

Again, if we allow ourselves to be entangled in certain astronomical disputations, the question may become complicated and confused; but the astronomical discussion must depend, in the end, upon a point which history must determine--_i.e._ whether the astronomical knowledge and observations referred to had come down in primitive tradition, or had been imported at a later date. Although it need not exclude a belief in a tradition of primitive knowledge of astronomy, yet the doubt will ever cause a fatal uncertainty in any calculations, since, if the knowledge, or the knowledge of the particular observations and facts, had at any time been imported, they might have calculated back their eclipses, as has been proved to have been done in India.

Let us then, excluding the purely astronomical calculations, closely scrutinise the evidence which tradition affords; for if we can discover tradition of "appearances of rare occurrence, and which are difficult to calculate, such as many of the planetary conjunctions," they "must," as Baron Bunsen observes ("Egypt," iii. p. 389), "either be pure inventions, or contemporary notations of some extraordinary natural phenomena." Baron Bunsen proceeds to say:--"One instance that may be cited is the traditional observation of a conjunction of five planets (among which the sun and moon are mentioned), on the first day of Litshin, in the time of Tshuen-hiü, the _second successor of Hoang-ti_. Suppose this should have been the great conjunction of the three upper planets which recurs every 794 years and four months, and to which Kepler first turned his attention in reference to the year of the nativity of Christ. It took place in the following years.

The one which occurred in historical times was in November, seven years B.C.; consequently the conjunctions prior to it occurred in--

Yrs. Mos. Dys.

794 4 12 7 10 12 --------------------- 786 6 0 794 4 12 --------------------- 1580 10 12 And the conjunction in 794 4 12 --------------------- The time of Tshuen-hiü in 2375 2 24

According to the official Chinese tables, as given by Ideler, he reigned from 2513 B.C. to 2436 B.C.; but the dates vary to the extent of more than 200 years, and the year 2375 comes within the limits of these deviations."

Baron Bunsen, we may then assume, has very skilfully brought back Chinese chronology to within _two generations of Hoang-ti (supra)_. If we could further identify Hoang-ti with Noah, two patriarchal generations would bring us close to the date of the Deluge as fixed by the Septuagint, if we referred them, in the first instance, to the death of Noah.

Before proceeding to this identification, I must point to another chronological fact in Chinese tradition, which would give to this identification an antecedent probability. It was stated (Bunsen, "Egypt," iii. 383) that Hoang-ti established the _astronomical cycle of 60 years_ in the _sixty-first year_ of his _reign_.

At p. 387, Bunsen says: "The scientific problem thus offered for our solution is the following--It is admitted that the Chinese, from the _earliest times_, made use of a sexagesimal cycle for the division of the year = 6 × 60 days (360 days), and they marked the years by a cycle of 60 years, running concurrently with the cycle of days. This cycle, therefore, must have been originally instituted at a time when the first day of the daily cycle coincided with the first year of the annual cycle, _i.e._ when they commenced on the same day. Ideler thinks it impossible to ascertain this, owing to the irregularity of the old calendar." We may ask, then, what year that could be named would so exactly satisfy these conditions as the sixty-first year of the reign of Noah after the Deluge?[51] Let us, moreover, consider how traditional this cycle of sixty years has been (p. 386),--"Scaliger made the remark that the twelve yearly zodiacal cycle, which is in use among the Tartars (Mongols, Mandshus, Igurians), the inhabitants of Thibet, the Japanese and Siamese dated from _the earliest times_. Among the Tartaric populations, however, this is a cycle of sixty years (12 × 5); of the Indians we have already spoken."

[51] Martini ("Historia Sinica," p. 14, edit. Monac.) asserts that the Egyptians computed by the era of sixty years of _Hoangho_. See De Vignolle's "Miscellanea Berolinensia," I. iv. 37, on the cycle of months. Compare Ideler, App. ix., note from Bunsen, iii. 385. Humboldt ("Vues des Cordillères", p. 149; Prescott, Mex., i. 105) seems to say that, "among the Chinese, Japanese, Moghols, Mantchous, and other families of the Tartar race" (compare Mexican, do.), "their series was composed of symbols of their five elements, and the twelve zodiacal signs, making a cycle of sixty years duration." This is not incompatible with, the allegation that it is "the era of sixty years of Hoangho."

It will have already been seen that the cycle of sixty years entered into the Chaldean system--viz. cycle of 60 years = a sossos, 600 years = a saros, 3600 years = a neros.

"Now when we find (Bunsen, p. 387) that six hundred years _gives an excess of exactly one lunar month, with far greater accuracy_ than the Julian year, such a cycle must have been indispensable when that of sixty years was in use, and consequently must have been employed by the Chinese, or, at all events, have been known to those from whom they borrowed the latter. Josephus also calls six hundred years the great year, which may have been observed by the patriarch."

And at p. 407, in summing up the general chronological result, he says:--

"_a._ ... The earliest Chinese chronology rests upon a conventional basis peculiar to itself, that of limiting the lunar year by a cycle of six hundred years, which is common to the whole of North Asia and the Chaldeans; and probably (as it is also met with in India) to the Bactrians also: this basis is _historical_." "_b._ The communication took place before the Chaldees invented the cycle of six hundred years."

From our point of view, believing that the Chaldees never invented the cycle but held to it traditionally, the above conclusion must be construed to mean that the "communication," or diffusion of the knowledge, must have taken place before the lapse of the first six hundred years after the Deluge, which will be further confirmed by conclusion _c._

"_c._ The Chinese observation is based upon the Babylonian gnomon,"

which appears to me tantamount to the admission that it took place, in the plains of Mesopotamia, previous to the Dispersion.

In arriving, then, at the sixty-first year of the reign of Hoang-ti, we are led up to such close proximity to the epoch of the Deluge, that the presumption that Hoang-ti was Noah would be strong, even if no other evidence was at hand to corroborate it.

It is with this supplementary evidence that I now propose to deal.

Although the tradition of the Chinese is remarkably accurate, up to a certain point, yet in the period beyond that point, where the confusion is manifest, there is no reason why we should not expect to find the same reduplications and amalgamations of ante and post diluvian traditions, which we have already found in the history of other nations.

Without attempting to unravel all complications, let us turn again to Bunsen (iii. 382), and setting aside Pu-an-ku, the primeval man who came out of the mundane egg and lived eighteen thousand years, and who has resemblances with the Assyrian Ra and Ana, and the Egyptian Ra, the son of Ptha (to whom thirty thousand are allotted, _vide infra_, p. 97-100), and Sui-shin, "who discovered fire," and who is the counterpart of Prometheus (_vide_ p. 180). Regarding Pu-an-ku, the cosmical, and Sui-shin, as the mythical tradition of Adam, we come to the historical tradition in the person of Fohi.

"I. Fohi the great, the brilliant (Tai-hao) cultivator of astronomy and religion, as well as writing. He reigned one hundred and ten years. Then came fifteen reigns. II. Shin-nong (divine husbandman); institution of agriculture; the knowledge of simples applied as the art of medicine." [Compare pp. 210-214, Saturn, Bacchus, Æsculapius.] "III. Hoang-ti (great ruler) came to the throne in consequence of an armed insurrection (new dynasty), and was obliged to put down a revolt. _In his reign_ the magnetic needle was discovered; _the smelting of copper for making weapons_;[52] vases of high art, and money; improvement in the written character, said to be borrowed from the lines on the tortoise-shell. It consists of five hundred hieroglyphics, of which two hundred can still be pointed out. He established fixed habitations throughout his dominions, and the astronomical cycle of sixty years _in the sixty-first year of his reign_ (_vide supra_, 61); musical instruments. It was in his time also that the fabulous bird Sin appeared. The empire was considerably extended to the _southward_."--_Bunsen_, 382.

[52] This tradition would seem to confirm Bryant's ("Mythology," iii. 584) conjecture that Hoang-ti was Ham. But Hoang-ti as Ham, may absorb and incorporate, as we have seen in other instances, the history of his progenitors; and, moreover, whether he is Noah or Ham, would scarcely affect the chronological argument.

If we take Fohi as Adam, the fifteen reigns which follow will bear analogy with "the fifteen generations of the Cynic cycle" (_vide_ Palmer i. p. 8, 23-37; also _vide infra_), and will correspond to the thirteen generations, viz. the ten antediluvian, and the three survivors (excluding Noah) of the Deluge in the Egyptian chronology (_vide infra_). Shin-nong, "the divine husbandman," will be Noah, and Hoang-ti, Shem or Ham, or else the two will be reduplicate traditions of Noah. Compare the attributions of Hoang-ti with those of Hoa in the Assyrian tradition, p. 239. Certain statements regarding him--_e.g._ that he suppressed an insurrection, accord more nearly with epithets applied to Nin, the fish-god, whom I have considered a duplicate of Hoa (p. 201), _e.g._ "the destroyer of enemies,"--"the reducer of the disobedient,"--"the exterminator of rebels." Compare with the Phoenician tradition, p. 211, of Saturn causing the destruction of his son Sadid by the Deluge. The appearance of the fabulous bird Sin, seems a reminiscence of the birds sent out of the ark, which is so frequent in tradition. Compare the mystery bird (the dove) in the Mandan ceremonies,--the worship of the pigeon in Cashmere,[53] &c. Other coincidences might be pointed if space allowed.

[53] On the worship of the pigeon in Cashmere, _vide_ "Travels in Kashmir," by G. G. Vigne, Esq., F.G.S., ii. p. 11, 13. 1844.

But analogous to the double tradition of the Deluge in Assyria in the persons of Hoa and Nin; and, again, by a distinct channel of tradition in Xisuthrus (_vide_ pp. 208, 209), as in China, there seems to have been a similar reduplication in China in their kings Hoang-ti and Yao or Yu.[54]

[54] The reduplication may have occurred in this way. Hoang-ti being Noah, Yao or Yu may have been his descendant under whom they settled in China at the termination of their migration. This is confirmed by Bunsen's view, iii. 405 (iv. and v.) In which case it would not be at all unnatural to suppose that the traditions appertaining to the remote progenitor, would in time settle down upon the head of the actual founder. Chevalier de Paravey (_vide_ Gainet, i. 93), "a trouvé un hieroglyphe chinois qui nomme la femme de Hoang-ti 'Adamon' terre jaune, et si non signifie celle qui entraîne les autres dans son propre mal." This would merely be the confusion between Noah and Adam which we have seen to occur in almost every instance. Is not the Japanese god Amida = Adima, or perhaps to Adamon--_i.e._, confused in relationship to Hoang-ti or Noah? what confirms the impression is, that Adima's son is Canon. Query, Chanaan.

Now under this Yao or Yu, according to Chinese tradition (preserved, moreover, in the inscription of Yu), there happened the Deluge, or a Deluge. But as there is a confusion between Hoang-ti and Yao, so there is between Yao and Yu. Bunsen, however, admits these latter to be identical.

But although Bunsen asserts the authenticity of the inscription (as also does Klaproth), he utterly scouts the idea that it is a tradition of the Deluge, and maintains that it is itself evidence of a local inundation. Let us see.

"All the confusion or ignorance," says Bunsen (398), "of the missionaries [in this matter], arises from their believing that this event referred to the Flood of Noah, which never reached this country." And (p. 406), he says the inundation in the reign of Yao had just as much to do with Noah's flood as the dams he created, and the canals he dug, had to do with the ark. This is said with reference to the "short Chinese account of it published by Klaproth," viz.--

"In the sixty-first year of the reign of the Emperor Yao, serious mischief was caused by inundations. The emperor took counsel with the great men of the empire, who advised him to employ Kuen to drain off the water. Kuen was engaged upon it for nine years without success, and was condemned to be imprisoned for life. His son Yu was appointed in his stead. At the end of nineteen years he succeeded in stopping the inundation, and made a report to the emperor upon the subject."

Let us turn, however, from this later gloss to the inscription itself, translated by Bunsen, p. 399--

"The Emperor said, 'Oh thou Governor of the four mountains of the Empire! The swelling flood is producing mischief; It spreads itself far and wide; It surrounds the hills, it overflows the dams; Rushing impetuously along it rises up to Heaven: The common people complain and sigh.'" --_Vide supra_, p. 396.

"The venerable Emperor exclaimed with a sigh, 'Ho assistant Counsellor! the islands great and small up to the _mountain's top_; The door of _the birds_ and of beasts, all is overflowed together-- Is swamped: be it thy care to open the way, to let off the water.'"

He then says:--

"My task is completed; my _sacrifice_ I have offered in the second month, trouble is at an end, the dark destiny is changed; the _streams_ of the south flow down to the sea; garments are prepared; food is provided; _all the nations_ have rest; the people enjoy themselves with gambols and dancing."--(Compare Commemorative Festivals, _infra_, p. 249).

I should have thought that all these phrases pointed much more to a universal Deluge than to a local inundation. But Bunsen says (398)--

"The fact is fully proved both by the inscription and the work of Yu itself. The inscription was on the _top_ of the mountain, Yu-lu-fun, in the district of Shen-shu-lu. Owing to its having become illegible in early times, it was removed to _the top_ of an adjoining mountain." ... "The former _locality_ tallies exactly with the very interesting description of the empire in the time of Yu, which we find at the opening of the second book of the Shuking." And Bunsen concludes, "It may be presumed after this verification, that in future nobody will seriously doubt the strictly epic description of the Shuking in the Canon of Yu," as above.

So far from being impressed by the discovery of the monument on the top of the local mountain, as evidence of the local deluge, I can see in it only a memorial of the universal Deluge localised; and I cannot help considering it in connection with the worship of the tops of mountains, of which we shall find traces elsewhere (p. 244-46). Surely Baron Bunsen proves too much, and describes to us a deluge which must have been on the scale of the universal Deluge for all countries below the level of the mountain Yu-lu-fun. But, let it be said, that this description, so accordant with the description of the flood, was merely Chinese exaggeration. I here wish to point out two curious coincidences. What if we shall find works similar of those to Yao or Yu, ascribed to the original founders in Egypt and Cashmere? As in the first instance, I shall have to quote from Baron Bunsen himself, I am surprised that the coincidence should have escaped his observation.

"This is the account given of Menes [the first king of Egypt] by Herodotus--Menes, the first king of Egypt, as the priests informed me, protected Memphis by a dam against the river which ran towards the sandy chain of the Libyan Mountains. About 100 stadia above Memphis, he made an embankment against the bend of the river, which is on the south side. The effect of this was to dry up its ancient bed, as well as to force the stream between the two chains of mountains. This bend of the Nile, which is confined within the embankment walls, was very carefully attended to by the Persians, and repaired every year. For, if the river were to burst through its banks and overflow at this point, all Memphis would be in danger of being swamped. Menes, _the oldest of their kings_, having thus drained the tract of land by means of the dyke, built upon it the city now called Memphis, which lies in the mountain valley of Egypt. To the west and north he dug a lake round it, which communicates with the river--on the east it is bounded by the Nile--and afterwards erected in it a temple to Vulcan, a splendid edifice, deserving of especial notice" (ii. 48).

Bunsen fully endorses this account--"Herodotus, therefore, has recorded the following fact, that before the time of Menes the Nile overflowed the tract of country which he fixed upon as the site of his new metropolis" (p. 49 and p. 51). "There is no foundation whatever for Andriossy's hypothesis that the story originated in the fact of the Nile having once run westward from the Pyramid mountains to Bahr Bela Ma (stream without water) and the Natron and Mareotic Lakes. Herodotus mentions an historical fact, and describes the work of an historical king. Andriossy's hypothesis, if well founded, would belong to geology." A sagacious and well-founded remark on the part of Baron Bunsen, but, as I submit, equally applicable to the work of Yao or Yu.

Merely noting that, if the above work was really carried out by Menes, and it would have been, from the point of view of Genesis, so carried out at a period contemporary with that of Yao or Yu--and, moreover, conceding to it in any case (I mean the work of Menes) a certain historical basis--let us dispassionately compare both with the passage from Klaproth, which I shall now extract. It is taken from the Sanscrit History of Cashmere.[55]

[55] Klaproth says:--"The only Sanscrit history deserving the name of the chronicle of the kings of Kashmir, Radja Paringin'i, translated by W. H. Wilson."--_Klaproth, Mem. Relatif à L'Asie_.

Klaproth says:--

"The _Hindoo_ history of Kashmir assures us that the beautiful valley which forms this kingdom was originally a vast lake, called Satisaras. This account is also agreeable to the _local traditions_ of this country. It was Kasy'apa, _a holy person_ who, according to the Hindoo historians, caused the waters which covered this valley to escape. He was the son of _Marichi_, the son of Brahma. The Mahometan writers call him Kachef or Kacheb, and many of them pretend that he was a god, or a genius, and servant of Soliman, _under whose orders he effected_ the drying up of Kashmir. To execute _this task_ he made, near Baramanleh, _a passage across the mountains_, through which the water passed.... The territory, recovered in this way by Kasy'apa, _was also peopled_ by this holy man, with the assistance of the superior gods, whom he brought for this purpose from heaven, _at the commencement_ of the seventh manwantara, or that in which we are now." Klaproth adds:--"We must therefore suppose that Kashmir has been subjected to the same periodical revolutions as the other parts of the world, if we would reconcile this date with the ordinary chronology."[56]

[56] Compare the following account of existing customs in Cashmir with the above extract from Klaproth and ch. xi., with commemorative festivals of the Deluge. Mr G. G. Vigne ("Travels in Kashmir," ii. 93) says:--"What has been poetically termed the feast of roses, has of late years been rather the feast of signaras or _water_-nuts. It is held, I believe, about the 1st May, when plum-trees and roses are in full bloom, and is called the Shakergal, from the Persian shakergan, to blow a blossom [the Mandan ceremony took place when the willow flowered.--Catlin, p. 6]. The richer classes come in _boats_ to the foot of the Tukt, ascend it, and have a feast upon _the summit_, eating more particularly of signaras (_water_-nuts). The feast of the No-warh (new place) takes place at the vernal equinox [compare Noah, Taurus], at _which period_ the _valley is said to have been drained_. It is held chiefly at the _But_ or idol stone on Hari par_but_." Query--Can this be "the ark or big canoe" in the Mandan celebration? Considering the prominence of boats in all these mysteries, and considering the resemblance of but to boat, and the like analogies in so many languages (Sanskrit, pota = boat) (_vide_ Vicomte d'Anselme, _infra_, p. 196), may we be permitted the conjecture until corrected. Compare also p. 268, Ogilby's "Japan," Cook. &c., p. 271.

It must, I think, be conceded that we have now before us three very similar accounts of works undertaken with reference to the reclamation of inundated land. All are undertaken by the first founders of their respective kingdoms--kingdoms widely separated and inhabited by people of diverse race--and all, more or less, contemporaneously. The Egyptians and Kashmerian have points in common as to their mode of reclamation, whilst the Chinese and Kashmerian have still more in common with the narrative in Genesis.[57]

[57] I have since found this identical tradition (_vide_ p. 325) among the Mozca Indians. "Boshicha," it is said, "taught them _to build and to sow_, formed them _into communities_, GAVE AN OUTLET TO THE WATERS OF THE GREAT LAKE, &c." This seems demonstratively to prove, either that the Mozca Indians (South America) came from China, India, or Egypt--which I have contended for at p. 266--or else, which makes the argument I have in hand stronger, they have transmitted an identical tradition by a different channel.

Four solutions occur to me as possible. Either they were obscure or perverted traditions of the Deluge, or their works were traditions of similar works effected by Noah after the Deluge; or these works were actually carried out upon the precedent and model of similar works effected by Noah; or they were fortuitous coincidences.

Upon either of the three former conclusions, it will be shown that traditions of the Deluge, direct or indirect, exist both in Egypt and China, where it has been so confidently asserted that no tradition is to be found; and in the latter case, what is more especially to my purpose, a tradition which brings Yao into relation with Noah and Hoang-ti.

In conclusion, I must remark that when it is urged that there is no tradition, or but slight tradition, of the flood in Egypt, we have a right to reply that there is no country where we should have so little reason to expect it. If there is any country where we should think it likely that the reminiscences of the Deluge would be effaced, it would be in a country periodically subject to inundations, where the people are annually made familiar with its incidents, and where its recurrence is not to them a cause of alarm, but a matter of expectation and joy.[58]

[58] "The Chinese _who migrated before the Deluge (sic)_ have no reminiscences, any more than the Egyptians, of the great catastrophe which we know by the name of the Flood of Noah" (Bunsen's "Egypt," iii. 397). Palmer ("Egypt. Chron.," i. p. 38) says, with reference to a certain date--"This is only for such as know the true date of the flood, the end of the old world--an epoch by no means to be named, nor even directly alluded to, by any Egyptian."