the Ark, as they add that the Deity created mankind anew.

The preceding are a few of the traditions of comparatively civilized nations, but we find them all proceeding on one common principle, and acknowledging one common fact. They all, it will be observed, embody the paradisaical state of man in his days of innocence and happiness, justly deeming it the age of gold. He was an agriculturist, was nourished by simple fruits, and was fettered by no restraints of laws or social enactments; but the scene changed, vice and violence increased to that height that a deluge swept away the apostate race, and cleared the earth. Humboldt informs us that the Tamanacks, one of those numerous tribes inhabiting the equinoctial regions of America, believe that in the great deluge a man and a woman saved themselves on a high mountain called Tamanacu, and casting behind them over their heads the fruits of the Mauritia palmtree, they saw the seeds contained in those fruits produce men and women, who repeopled the earth. This is an improvement on the beautiful mythological tale related by Ovid already noticed respecting Deucalion and Pyrrha; but it may be well asked, whence could the Tamanacks obtain a fable so analogous to what the ancients have embellished with all the charms of imagination? Humboldt informs us that a few leagues from Encamarada, a rock called Tepir-mereme, or the Painted Rock, rises in the midst of a savannah, and displays resemblances of animals and symbolic figures. "These hieroglyphic figures are often placed at great heights on the walls of rocks, that could be accessible only by constructing very lofty scaffolds. When the natives are asked how these figures could have been sculptured, they answer with a smile, as relating a fact of which a stranger-a white man only, could be ignorant, that at the period of the great waters their fathers were forced to have recourse to their boats to escape the general inundation; and this belief prevails among the tribes of the Upper Oronooko."

It is indeed not a little remarkable that the people of South and North America retained, almost universally, the knowledge of the Deluge. Acosta relates that the American Indians make "great mention of a deluge which happened in their country," and that they aver all men were drowned in this deluge. A people who are termed Mechoachans in Mexico had a tradition that a single family were preserved in an ark amid a deluge of waters that along with them a sufficient number of animals were saved to replenish the world-and that, during the time this family were shut up in the ark, several ravens were sent out, one of which brought back the branch of a tree. "The people of Mechoachan," says Humboldt, " preserved a tradition, according to which Coxcox, whom they called Tezpi, embarked in a spacious acalli with his wife, his children, several animals, and grain. When the Great Spirit, Tezeatlipoca, ordered the waters to withdraw, Tezpi sent out from his bark a vulture. This bird, which feeds on dead flesh, did not return on account of the great number of carcases with which the earth, recently dried up, was strewed. Tezpi sent out other birds, one of which, the humming-bird, alone returned, holding in its beak a branch covered with leaves. Tezpi, seeing that the fresh verdure began to clothe the soil, quitted his bark near the mountain of Colhuacan." The ancient Peruvians reported that they had received by tradition from their ancestors, that many years before the Incas or kings, when the country was very populous, there happened a great flood, the whole land being covered with water, and all the people perished. To this is added by the people of some districts, that a few persons remained in the caves of the highest mountains, who again peopled the earth. Others affirmed that only six persons were saved on a float or raft, from whom descended all the inhabitants of the country. The ancient inhabitants of Chili have distinct traditions of the event. "The Araucanians," says Molini, in his History of Chili, "have a tradition

of a great deluge, from which only a few persons were saved, who took refuge upon a high mountain called Thegtheg, or the Thundering, which had three points, and the property of moving upon water." Humboldt informs us that the Cholular Indians, who inhabited the equinoctial regions of New Spain before the Mexicans, thus narrated the Deluge-and this great traveller quotes from the MSS. of Pedro de Los Reos, who, in 1566, copied on the spot all the hieroglyphic paintings he could procure:-"Before the great inundation, which took place 4800 years after the creation of the world, the country of Anahuac was inhabited by giants. All those who did not perish were transformed into fishes save seven, who fled into caverns. When the waters subsided one of those giants, Xelhua, surnamed the Architect, went to Cholollan, where, as a memorial of the mountain Tlaloc, which had served for an asylum to himself and his six brethren, he built an artificial hill in the form of a pyramid." The Chiampanese Indians, a neighbouring race, had a similar legend. "According to the ancient traditions," says Humboldt, "collected by the Bishop F. N. de la Vega, the Wodan of the Chiampanese, one of their celebrated chiefs, was grandson of that illustrious old man who, at the time of the great Deluge in which the greater part of the human race perished, was saved on a raft, together with his family." The Mexicans in their peculiar paintings, which constituted their books and literature, preserved a representation of the catastrophe. They made four cycles of past time, and the fourth they designated the age of water, the duration of which was 4008 years :-" A great inundation destroyed mankind. This is the last of the great revolutions which the world has undergone. Men were transformed into fishes, except one man and one woman, who saved themselves on the trunk of an ahakuete, or cupressus disticha. Coxcox, the Noah of the Mexicans, and his wife, are seated on a trunk of a tree covered with leaves, and floating amid the waters."

In a translation of Herrera's History of America, we are told that "the people of Cuba knew that heaven, the earth, and other things, had been created, and said they had much information concerning the Flood, and that the world had been destroyed by water by three persons who came three several ways. Men above seventy years of age said that an old man, knowing the deluge was to come, built a great ship, and went into it with his family and abundance of animalsthat he sent out a crow, which, after staying to feed on dead bodies, returned with a green twig, adding some particulars respecting Noah and his sons-that the Indians were descended from the son who scoffed at his father, which was the reason why they had no clothes, but that the Spaniards were descended from the other sons who covered their father, because they were clothed, and possessed houses. Some tribes held that all mankind were descended from the man who built this great ship. Other Aborigines asserted that there had been a great and universal deluge, in which all mankind perished except one man and his family, who escaped in a canoe, and the earth was repeopled by them-and that the rain was sent by a great Being who governed all the celestial motions." The Guancas of the Vale of Xausea, and the natives of Chiquito, added that some persons survived in the caves of the mountains, and, according to one account, repeopled the country; but others thought that all perished except six persons, who saved themselves on a float, and renewed the population. The Brazilians preserved the tradition of the general Deluge, some of them alleging that all the inhabitants of the world perished except one man and his sister; and others, that two brothers and their wives were preserved by climbing the highest mountains, and they became the heads of two powerful nations.

The inhabitants of Castilla del Ora in Terra Firma affirmed that when the universal Deluge came, one man with his wife and children escaped in a canoe, and

by them the earth was replenished. Hennepin informs us, that the Iroquois in Canada and at the mouth of the St Lawrence relate, that when their Messou, or Otkon, was hunting one day, his dogs lost themselves in a great lake; the waters immediately flowed over the country, soon covered the earth, and overwhelmed all who were living on it. The Arrawak Indians, near the Essequibo and Mazaworry rivers, preserve traditions not only of the Deluge, which they allege was caused by the iniquities of mankind, but also of the formation of the first male and the first female. Captain Alexander, in his account of Hillhouse's expedition up these rivers in 1830, inserted in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, states that the tradition of the origin of things among these Indians is-that the Great Spirit sat on a silk cotton tree, and cut off pieces of bark, which he threw into the stream below him, and those becoming animated, took the form of the various animals-that man was last of all created that a deep sleep fell upon him and that on being touched by the Great Spirit he awoke, and found a wife by his side. The world, they further allege, became desperately wicked, and was drowned by a flood. Only one man was saved in a canoe, and he sent out a rat to discover if the waters had abated, which returned with a head of Indian

corn.

Among the tribes of North America we find some memorials of this great event. The Koliouges on the north-west coast of America believed that "to punish the crimes of the world a deluge was sent, but that all did not die in it; many saved themselves on very high mountains, in barks, and on rafts." Sir Alexander Mackenzie tells us that the Chippewyams" describe a deluge, when the water spread over the whole earth except the highest mountains, on the tops of which they preserved themselves ;" and Captain Franklin, when mentioning them and the Dog-Rib Indians, also says that they have a tradition of the Deluge." The natives of California, we are told by

Captain Beechey, preserve also their own peculiar tradition. Dr Richardson, in Frankland's Journal to the Polar Seas, speaking of the Cree Indians, says, “The Crees all spoke of an universal deluge caused by an attempt of a fish to drown Wesack-ootchacht, a kind of demi-god with whom they had quarrelled. Having constructed a raft, he embarked with his family and all kinds of birds and beasts. After the flood had continued for some time he ordered waterfowl to dive to the bottom. They were all drowned, but a musk rat having been despatched on the same errand, returned with a mouthful of mud, out of which Wasack-ootchacht formed a new earth." Mr West, who was in the same expedition, heard a similar tradition from the natives of the Red River, who informed him that an universal deluge was commonly believed by all the Indians. "When the flood came and destroyed the world, a very great man called Wasac-koochak made a large raft, and embarked with otters, beavers, deer, and other kinds of animals. After it had floated for some time he put out an otter, which dived very deep without finding any bottom, and then a beaver; both were drowned. At last a musk rat brought up a little mud in its mouth, which he made into a new earth. There appears to be a general belief of a flood among all the tribes of this vast continent." The natives of New Caledonia preserve a vague tradition of the Deluge, with the extraordinary legend that the human race were destroyed by fire. Mr Harmon, who visited them, thus narrates the tradition in his Journal of Travels in the Interior of North America:-" They believe that the earth was once entirely covered with water, and everything destroyed but a musk rat, which, diving to the bottom, brought up some mud, that increased and grew to the shape of the present world. They say a fire spread over the whole, and destroyed every human being, with the exception of one man and one woman, who saved themselves by retiring into a deep cave in

the mountains until the flames were extinguished."

Making every allowance for some of the preceding traditions, which are doubt. less mingled with the information those tribes have more recently obtained by their intercourse with Europeans, it cannot be denied that they all establish the great fact clearly and emphatically recorded by the sacred writer. But let us now turn our attention to the South Sea Islands, the population of which had no connexion, so far as we know, with the North American Indians; and yet traditions of the Deluge exist among those interesting tribes from the earliest periods of their history; "and the striking analogy," says Mr Ellis, in his Polynesian Researches, "between those religiously preserved by all the inhabitants of the Pacific and the Mosaic account would seem to indicate a degree of high antiquity belonging to this isolated people." The principal facts preserve the same features in the traditions prevailing among the inhabitants of the different groups, merely differing in minor details. At Hawaii, Mr Ellis was informed that it had been taught the islanders by their fathers that "all the land had once been overflowed by the sea, except a small peak on the top of Mouna Kea, where two human beings were preserved from the destruction which overtook the rest." In Matheson's Account of Brazil and the Sandwich Islands we are told that "many thousand moons ago a man fishing in the sea dragged up the Spirit of the waters on his hook, who in his anger declared that he would cause a general deluge, but would allow him to escape, and his wife, to the summit of the mountain Mouna-roah, where he remained until the waters subsided." In Otaheite the Deluge was ascribed to the wrath of the Deity at the wickedness of man. "In ancient times," says Mr Ellis, "Taaroa, the principal god (according to their mythology the creator of the world), being angry with men on account of their disobedience to his will, overturned the world into the sea, when the earth

sank in the waters, excepting a few aurus or projecting points, which remaining above its surface, constituted the present cluster of islands. The memorial preserved by the inhabitants of Eimeo states that after the inundation of the land, when the water subsided, a man landed from a canoe near Tiataepua in their island, and erected an altar or marae in honour of his god.-The tradition which prevails in the Leeward Islands is intimately connected with the Island of Raiatea. According to this, very soon after the first peopling of the world by the descendants of Taata, Ruahatu, the Neptune of the South Sea Islanders, was reposing among the coralline groves in the depths of the ocean, on a spot that, as his resort, was sacred. A fisherman, either through forgetfulness or disregard of the tabu, and sacredness of the place, paddled his canoe upon the forbidden waters, and lowered his hooks among the branching corals at the bottom. The hooks became entangled in the hair of the sleeping god. After remaining some time, the fisherman endeavoured to pull up his hooks, but was for a long period unable to move them. At length they were suddenly disentangled, and he began to draw them towards the surface. In an instant, however, the god, whom he had. aroused from his slumbers, appeared at the surface of the water, and, after upbraiding him for his impiety, declared that the land was criminal, or convicted of guilt, and should be destroyed. The affrighted fisherman prostrated himself before the god of the sea, confessed his sorrow for what he had done, and implored his forgiveness, beseeching him that the judgment denounced might be averted, or that he might escape. Ruahatu, moved by his penitence and importunity, directed him to return home for his wife and child, and then proceed to a small island called Toamarama, which is situated within the`reefs on the eastern side of Raiatea. Here he was promised security amid the destruction of the surrounding islands. The man hastened to his residence, and proceeded with his wife

and child to the place appointed. Some say he took with him a friend who was residing under his roof, with a dog, a pig, and a pair of fowls, so that the party consisted of four individuals, besides the only domesticated animals known in the islands. They reached the refuge appointed before the close of the day; and as the sun approached the horizon, the waters of the ocean began to rise, the inhabitants of the adjacent shore left their dwellings on the beach, and fled to the mountains. The waters continued to rise during the night, and the next morning the tops of the mountains only appeared above the wide spread sea. These were afterwards covered, and all the inhabitants of the land perished. The waters subsequently retired, the fisherman and his companions left their retreat, took up their abode on the main land, and became the progenitors of the present inhabitants."

We take another illustration of Mr Ellis as a curious specimen of the reveries of those untutored barbarians. "The most circumstantial tradition preserved among the Windward Islands of this remarkable event is one for the original of which I am indebted to Mr Orsmond: the following is a literal translation:— 'Destroyed was Tahiti by the sea; no man, nor hog, nor fowl, nor dog, remained. The groves of trees and the stones were carried away by the wind. They were destroyed, and the deep was over the land. But these two persons, the husband and the wife (when it came in), the wife took up her young chicken; the husband took up his young pig; the wife took up her young dog and the kitten; the husband took up that. [These were all the animals formerly known to the people, and the term fanaua, young, is both singular and plural, so that it may apply to one, or to more than one chicken, &c.] They were going forth, and looking at Orofena (the high mountain in Tahiti), the husband said, 'Up, both of us, to yonder mountain.' The wife replied, 'No, let us not go thither.' The husband said, It is a high or long rock, and will not be reached by the sea:' but the wife replied.

'Reached will be it by the sea yonder, we two on the mountain round as a breast, O Pito-hito; it will not be reached by the sea.' They two arrived there. Orofena was overwhelmed by the sea; that mountain, Pito-hiti (alone), remained; that was their abode. There they watched nights ten (the native mode of reckoning time is by nights instead of days), the sea ebbed, and they two saw the little heads of the mountains in their elevation. When the sea dried or retired, the land remained without produce, without man, and the fish were putrid in the caves and holes of the rocks. They said, 'Dig a hole for the fish in the sea.' The wind also was becoming feeble, and when it was dead or calm, the stones and the trees began to fall from the heavens: thither they had been carried by the wind. All trees of the land had been torn up, and carried high by the wind. They two looked about, and the woman said, 'Safe are we two from the sea, but death, or hurt, comes now in these stones that are falling. Where shall we abide?' Torn by the roots up had been all the trees, and carried above the pathway of the rain in the heavens. Dig a hole for us two, a dwelling-place.' The hole was dug, covered with grass the bottom of the hole or cave; stones were spread on the top of the hole, and these covered over with earth. While these two were sitting within, they heard with terror the loud voice of the falling stones. Now they fell more thinly, then one little stone at a time fell, and afterwards ceased entirely. The woman said, 'Arise you, and advance without, and see if the stones fall.' The man replied, 'I go not out, I shall die.' He waited till night and till day, and then said, The wind is truly dead, and the stones and the trunks of trees cease to fall, neither is there the sound of the stones.' They went out, and like a small mountain was the heap or collection of the stones and the wood. The earth and the rocks remained of the land; the shrubs were destroyed by the sea. They descended, and gazed with astonishment: There were no houses, nor cocoa-nuts, nor palm-trees,