THE DELUGE NOT A MYTH.
If we assume that the antiquity of man is as great, or even approximately
as great, as Sir Charles Lyell and his followers affirm, the question
naturally arises, what has he been doing during those countless ages,
prior to historic times? what evidences has he afforded of the possession
of an intelligence superior to that of the brute creation by which he has
been surrounded? what great monuments of his fancy and skill remain? or
has the sea of time engulphed any that he erected, in abysses so deep that
not even the bleached masts project from the surface, to testify to the
existence of the good craft buried below?
These questions have been only partially asked, and but slightly answered.
They will, however, assume greater proportions as the science of
archæology extends itself, and perhaps receive more definite replies when
fresh fields for investigation are thrown open in those portions of the
old world which Asiatic reserve has hitherto maintained inviolable against
scientific prospectors.
If man has existed for fifty thousand years, as some demand, or for two
hundred thousand, as others imagine, has his intelligence gone on
increasing thoughout the period? and if so, in what ratio? Are the terms
of the series which involve the unknown quantity stated with sufficient
precision to enable us to determine whether his development has been slow,
gradual, and more or less uniform, as in arithmetical, or gaining at a
rapidly increasing rate, as in geometric progression. Or, to pursue the
simile, could it be more accurately expressed by the equation to a curve
which traces an ascending and descending path, and, though controlled in
reality by an absolute law, appears to exhibit an unaccountable and
capricious variety of positive and negative phases, of _points d'arrêt_,
nodes, and cusps.
These questions cannot yet be definitely answered; they may be proposed
and argued on, but for a time the result will doubtless be a variety of
opinions, without the possibility of solution by a competent arbiter.
For example, it is a matter of opinion whether the intelligence of the
present day is or is not of a higher order than that which animated the
_savans_ of ancient Greece. It is probable that most would answer in the
affirmative, so far as the question pertains to the culture of the masses
only, but how will scholars decide, who are competent to compare the works
of our present poets, sculptors, dramatists, logicians, philosophers,
historians, and statesmen, with those of Homer, Pindar, Œschylus,
Euripides, Herodotus, Aristotle, Euclid, Phidias, Plato, Solon, and the
like? Will they, in a word, consider the champions of intellect of the
present day so much more robust than their competitors of three thousand
years ago as to render them easy victors? This would demonstrate a decided
advance in human intelligence during that period; but, if this is the
case, how is it that all the great schools and universities still cling to
the reverential study of the old masters, and have, until quite recently,
almost ignored modern arts, sciences, and languages.
We must remember that the ravages of time have put out of court many of
the witnesses for the one party to the suit, and that natural decay,
calamity, and wanton destruction[82] have obliterated the bulk of the
philosophy of past ages. With the exceptions of the application of steam,
the employment of moveable type in printing,[83] and the utilization of
electricity, there are few arts and inventions which have not descended to
us from remote antiquity, lost, many of them, for a time, some of them for
ages, and then re-discovered and paraded as being, really and truly,
something new under the sun.
Neither must we forget the oratory and poetry, the masterpieces of logical
argument, the unequalled sculptures, and the exquisitely proportioned
architecture of Greece, or the thorough acquaintance with mechanical
principles and engineering skill evinced by the Egyptians, in the
construction of the pyramids, vast temples, canals[84] and hydraulic
works.[85]
Notice, also, the high condition of civilization possessed by the Chinese
four thousand years ago, their enlightened and humane polity, their
engineering works,[86] their provision for the proper administration of
different departments of the State, and their clear and intelligent
documents.[87]
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--VASE. HAN DYNASTY, B.C. 206 _to_ A.D. 23. (_From
the Poh Ku T'u._)]
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--CYATHUS OR CUP FOR LIBATIONS. SHANG DYNASTY, B.C.
1766 _to_ B.C. 1122. (_From the Poh Ku T'u._)]
In looking back upon these, I think we can hardly distinguish any such
deficiency of intellect, in comparison with ours, on the part of these our
historical predecessors as to indicate so rapid a change of intelligence
as would, if we were able to carry our comparison back for another similar
period, inevitably land us among a lot of savages similar to those who
fringe the civilization of the present period. Intellectually measured,
the civilized men of eight or ten thousand years ago must, I think, have
been but little inferior to ourselves, and we should have to peer very far
back indeed before we reached a status or condition in which the highest
type of humanity was the congener of the cave lion, disputing with him a
miserable existence, shielded only from the elements by an overhanging
rock, or the fortuitous discovery of some convenient cavern.
If this be so, we are forced back again to the consideration of the
questions with which this section opened; where are the evidences of man's
early intellectual superiority? are they limited to those deduced from the
discovery of certain stone implements of the early rude, and later
polished ages? and, if so, can we offer any feasible explanation either of
their non-existence or disappearance?
In the first place, it may be considered as admitted by archæologists that
no exact line can be drawn between the later of the two stone-weapon
epochs, the polished Neolithic stone epoch, and the succeeding age of
bronze. They are agreed that these overlap each other, and that the rude
hunters, who contented themselves with stone implements of war and the
chase, were coeval with people existing in other places, acquainted with
the metallurgical art, and therefore of a high order of intelligence. The
former are, in fact, brought within the limit of historic times.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--INCENSE BURNER(?). CHEN DYNASTY, B.C. 1122 _to_
B.C. 255. (_From the Poh Ku T'u._)]
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--TRIPOD OF THE SHANG DYNASTY. _Probable date_,
B.C. 1649. (_From the Poh Ku T'u._)]
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--TRIPOD OF FU YIH, SHANG DYNASTY. (_From the Poh
Ku T'u._)]
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--TRIPOD OF KWAI WAN, CHEN DYNASTY, B.C. 1122 _to_
B.C. 255 (_From the Poh Ku T'u._)]
A similar inference might not unfairly be drawn with regard to those
numerous discoveries of proofs of the existence of ruder man, at still
earlier periods. The flint-headed arrow of the North American Indian, and
the stone hatchet of the Australian black-fellow exist to the present day;
and but a century or two back, would have been the sole representatives of
the constructive intelligence of humanity over nearly one half the
inhabited surface of the world. No philosopher, with these alone to reason
on, could have imagined the settled existence, busy industry, and
superior intelligence which animated the other half; and a parallel
suggestive argument may be supported by the discovery of human relics,
implements, and artistic delineations such as those of the hairy mammoth
or the cave-bear. These may possibly be the traces of an outlying savage
who co-existed with a far more highly-organized people elsewhere,[88] just
as at the present day the Esquimaux, who are by some geologists considered
as the descendants of Palæolithic man, co-exist with ourselves. They, like
their reputed ancestors, have great ability in carving on bone, &c.; and
as an example of their capacity not only to conceive in their own minds a
correct notion of the relative bearings of localities, but also to impart
the idea lucidly to others, I annex a wood-cut of a chart drawn by them,
impromptu, at the request of Sir J. Ross, who, inferentially, vouches for
its accuracy.
[Illustration: FIG. 29. (_From Sir John Ross' Second Voyage to the Arctic
Regions._)]
There is but a little step between carving the figure of a mammoth or
horse, and using them as symbols. Multiply them, and you have the early
hieroglyphic written language of the Chinese and Egyptians. It is not an
unfair presumption that at no great distance, in time or space, either
some generations later among his own descendants, or so many nations'
distance among his coevals, the initiative faculty of the Palæolithic
savage was usefully applied to the communication of ideas, just as at a
much later date the Kououen symbolic language was developed or made use of
among the early Chinese.[89]
Such is, necessarily, the first stage of any written language, and it may,
as I think, perhaps have occurred, been developed into higher stages,
culminated, and perished at many successive epochs during man's existence,
presuming it to have been so extended as the progress of geology tends to
affirm.
May not the meandering of the tide of civilization westward during the
last three thousand years, bearing on its crest fortune and empire, and
leaving in its hollow decay and oblivion, possibly be the sequel of many
successive waves which have preceded it in the past, rising, some higher,
some lower, as waves will.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--EARLY CHINESE HIEROGLYPHICS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--EARLY CHINESE HIEROGLYPHICS.]
In comparison with the vast epochs of which we treat how near to us are
Nineveh, Babylon, and Carthage! Yet the very sites of the former two have
become uncertain, and of the last we only know by the presence of the few
scattered ruins on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Tyre, the vast
entrepôt of commerce in the days of Solomon, was stated, rightly or
wrongly, by Benjamin of Tudela, to be but barely discernible (in 1173) in
ruins beneath the waves; and the glory of the world, the temple of King
Solomon, was represented at the same date by two copper columns which had
been carried off and preserved in Rome. It is needless to quote the cases
of Persia, Greece, and Rome, and of many once famous cities, which have
dissolved in ruin; except as assisting to point the moral that conquest,
which is always recurring, means to a great extent obliteration, the
victor having no sympathy with the preservation of the time-honoured
relics of the vanquished.
When decay and neglect are once initiated, the hand of man largely assists
the ravages of time. The peasant carts the marbles of an emperor's palace
to his lime-kiln,[90] or an Egyptian monarch strips the casing of a
pyramid[91] to furnish the material for a royal residence.
Nor is it beyond the limits of possibility that the arrogant caprice of
some, perhaps Mongol, invader in the future, may level the imperishable
pyramids themselves for the purpose of constructing some defensive work,
or the gratification of an inordinate vanity.
In later dates how many comfortable modern residences have been erected
from the pillage of mediæval abbey, keep, or castle? and how many fair
cities[92] must have fallen to decay, in Central and Eastern Asia, and how
many numerous populations dwindled to insignificance since the days when
Ghenghis and Timour led forth their conquering hordes, and Nadun could
raise four hundred thousand horsemen[93] to contest the victory with
Kublai Khan.
The unconscious ploughman in Britain has for centuries guided his share
above the remains of Roman villas, and the inhabitants of the later city
of Hissarlik were probably as ignorant that a series of lost and buried
cities lay below them, as they would have been incredulous that within a
thousand years their own existence would have passed from the memory of
man, and their re-discovery been due only to the tentative researches of
an enthusiastic admirer of Homer. Men live by books and bards longer than
by the works of their hands, and impalpable tradition often survives the
material vehicle which was destined to perpetuate it. The name of Priam
was still a household word when the site of his palace had been long
forgotten.
The vaster a city is, the more likely is it to be constructed upon the
site of its own grave, or, in other words, to occupy the broad valley of
some important river beneath whose gravels it is destined to be buried.
Perched on an eminence, and based on solid rock, it may escape entombment,
but more swiftly and more certainly will it be destroyed by the
elements,[94] and by the decomposition of its own material furnish the
shroud for its envelopment.[95] It is not altogether surprising then that
no older discoveries than those already quoted have yet been made, for
these would probably never have resulted if tradition had not both
stimulated and guided the fortunate explorer.
It is, therefore, no unfair inference that the remains of equally
important, but very much more ancient cities and memorials of civilization
may have hitherto entirely escaped our observation, presuming that we can
show some reasonable grounds for belief that, subsequent to their
completion, a catastrophe has occurred of sufficiently universal a
character to have obliterated entirely the annals of the past, and to have
left in the possession of its few survivors but meagre and fragmentary
recollections of all that had preceded them.
Now this is precisely what the history and traditions of all nations
affirm to have occurred. However, as a variance of opinion exists as to
the credence which should be attached to these traditions, I shall, before
expressing my own views upon the subject, briefly epitomize those
entertained by two authors of sufficient eminence to warrant their being
selected as representatives of two widely opposite schools.
These gentlemen, to whom we are indebted for exhaustive papers,[96]
embracing the pith of all the information extant upon the subject, have
tapped the same sources of information, consulted the same authorities,
ranged their information in almost identical order, argued from the same
data, and arrived at diametrically opposite conclusions.
Mr. Cheyne, following the lead of Continental mythologists, deduces that
the Deluge stories were on the whole propagated from several independent
centres, and adopts the theory of Schirrer and Gerland that they are ether
myths, without any historical foundation, which have been transferred from
the sky to the earth.
M. Lenormant, upon the other hand, eliminating from the inquiry the great
inundation of China in the reign of Yao, and some others, as purely local
events, concludes as the result of his researches that the story of the
Deluge "is a universal tradition among all branches of the human race,"
with the one exception of the black. He further argues: "Now a
recollection thus precise and concordant cannot be a myth voluntarily
invented. No religious or cosmogenic myth presents this character of
universality. It must arise from the reminiscences of a real and terrible
event, so powerfully impressing the imagination of the first ancestors of
our race, as never to have been forgotten by their descendants. This
cataclysm must have occurred near the first cradle of mankind and before
the dispersion of families from which the different races of men were to
spring."
Lord Arundel of Wardour adopts a similar view in many respects to that of
M. Lenormant, but argues for the existence of a Deluge tradition in Egypt,
and the identity of the Deluge of Yu (in China) with the general
catastrophe of which the tradition is current in other countries.
The subject is in itself so inviting, and has so direct a bearing upon the
argument of this work that I propose to re-examine the same materials and
endeavour to show from them that the possible solutions of the question
have not yet been exhausted.
We have as data:--
1. _The Biblical account._
2. _That of Josephus._
3. _The Babylonian._
4. _The Hindu._
5. _The Chinese._
6. _The traditions of all nations in the northern hemisphere, and of
certain in the southern._
It is unnecessary to travel in detail over the well-worn ground of the
myths and traditions prevalent among European nations, the presumed
identity of Noah with Saturn, Janus, and the like, or the Grecian stories
of Ogyges and Deucalion. Nor is anyone, I think, disposed to dispute the
identity of the cause originating the Deluge legends in Persia and in
India. How far these may have descended from independent sources it is now
difficult to determine, though it is more than probable that their
vitality is due to the written Semitic records. Nor is it necessary to
discuss any unimportant differences which may exist between the text of
Josephus and that of the Bible, which agree sufficiently closely, but are
mere abstracts (with the omission of many important details) in comparison
with the Chaldæan account. This may be accounted for by their having been
only derived from oral tradition through the hands of Abraham. The
Biblical narrative shows us that Abraham left Chaldæa on a nomadic
enterprise, just as a squatter leaves the settled districts of Australia
or America at the present day, and strikes out with a small following and
scanty herd to search for, discover, and occupy new country; his destiny
leading him, may be for a few hundred, may be for a thousand miles. In
such a train there is no room for heavy baggage, and the stone tablets
containing the detailed history of the Deluge would equally with all the
rest of such heavy literature be left behind.
The tradition, however reverenced and faithfully preserved at first,
would, under such circumstances, soon get mutilated and dwarfed. We may,
therefore, pass at once to the much more detailed accounts presented in
the text of Berosus, and in the more ancient Chaldæan tablets deciphered
by the late Mr. G. Smith from the collation of three separate copies.
The account by Berosus (see Appendix) was taken from the sacred books of
Babylon, and is, therefore, of less value than the last-mentioned as being
second-hand. The leading incidents in his narrative are similar to those
contained in that of Genesis, but it terminates with the vanishing of
Xisuthros (Noah) with his wife, daughter, and the pilot, after they had
descended from the vessel and sacrificed to the gods, and with the return
of his followers to Babylon. They restored it, and disinterred the
writings left (by the pious obedience of Xisuthros) in Shurippak, the city
of the Sun.
The great majority of mythologists appear to agree in assigning a much
earlier date to the Deluge, than that which has hitherto been generally
accepted as the soundest interpretation of the chronological evidence
afforded by the Bible.
I have never had the advantage of finding the arguments on which this
opinion is based, formulated in association, although, as incidentally
referred to by various authors, they appear to be mainly deduced from the
references made, both by sacred and profane writers, to large populations
and important cities existing subsequently to the Deluge, but at so early
a date, as to imply the necessity of a very long interval indeed between
the general annihilation caused by the catastrophe, and the attainment of
so high a pitch of civilization and so numerous a population as their
existence implies.
Philologists at the same time declare that a similar inference may be
drawn from the vast periods requisite for the divergence of different
languages from the parent stock,[97] while the testimony of the monuments
and sculptures of ancient Egypt assures us that race distinction of as
marked a type as occurs at the present day existed at so early a date[98]
as to preclude the possibility of the derivation of present nations from
the descendants of Noah within the limited period usually allowed.
These difficulties vanish, if we consider the Biblical and Chaldean
narratives as records of a local catastrophe, of vast extent perhaps, and
resulting in general but not total destruction, whose sphere may have
embraced the greater portion of Western Asia, and perhaps Europe; but
which, while wrecking the great centres of northern civilization, did not
extend southwards to Africa and Egypt.[99] The Deluge legends indigenous
in Mexico at the date of the Spanish conquest, combining the Biblical
incidents of the despatch of birds from a vessel with the conception of
four consecutive ages terminating in general destruction, and
corresponding with the four ages or Yugas of India, supply in themselves
the testimony of their probable origin from Asia. The cataclysm which
caused what is called the Deluge may or may not have extended to America,
probably not. In a future page I shall enumerate a few of the
resemblances between the inhabitants of the New World and of the Old
indicative of their community of origin.
I refer the reader to M. Lenormant's valuable essay[100] for his critical
notice on the dual composition of the account in Genesis, derived as it
appears to be from two documents, one of which has been called the
Elohistic and the other the Jehovistic account, and for his comparison of
it with the Chaldean narrative exhumed by the late Mr. George Smith from
the Royal Library of Nineveh, the original of which is probably of
anterior date to Moses, and nearly contemporaneous with Abraham.
I transcribe from M. Lenormant the text of the Chaldean narrative, because
there are points in it which have not yet been commented on, and which, as
it appears to me, assist in the solution of the Deluge story:--
I will reveal to thee, O Izdhubar, the history of my preservation--and
tell to thee the decision of the gods.
The town of Shurippak, a town which thou knowest, is situated on the
Euphrates. It was ancient, and in it [men did not honour] the gods. [I
alone, I was] their servant, to the great gods--[The gods took counsel
on the appeal of] Anu--[a deluge was proposed by] Bel--[and approved
by Nabon, Nergal and] Adar.
And the god [Êa,] the immutable lord,--repeated this command in a
dream.--I listened to the decree of fate that he announced, and he
said to me:--"Man of Shurippak, son of Ubaratutu--thou, build a vessel
and finish it [quickly].--By a [deluge] I will destroy substance and
life.--Cause thou to go up into the vessel the substance of all that
has life.--The vessel thou shalt build--600 cubits shall be the
measure of its length--and 60 cubits the amount of its breadth and of
its height.--[Launch it] thus on the ocean and cover it with a
roof."--I understood, and I said to Êa, my lord:--"[The vessel] that
thou commandest me to build thus,--[when] I shall do it--young and old
[shall laugh at me]."--[Êa opened his mouth and] spoke.--He said to
me, his servant:--"[If they laugh at thee] thou shalt say to them:
[Shall be punished] he who has insulted me, [for the protection of the
gods] is over me.-- .... like to caverns .... ---- .... I will
exercise my judgment on that which is on high and that which is below
.... ---- .... Close the vessel .... ---- .... At a given moment that
I shall cause thee to know,--enter into it, and draw the door of the
ship towards thee.--Within it, thy grains, thy furniture, thy
provisions,--thy riches, thy men-servants, and thy maid-servants, and
thy young people--the cattle of the field and the wild beasts of the
plain that I will assemble--and that I will send thee, shall be kept
behind thy door."--Khasisatra opened his mouth and spoke;--he said to
Êa, his lord:--"No one has made [such a] ship.--On the prow I will fix
.... --I shall see .... and the vessel .... --the vessel thou
commandest me to build [thus]--which in ....[101]
On the fifth day [the two sides of the bark] were raised.--In its
covering fourteen in all were its rafters--fourteen in all did it
count above.--I placed its roof and I covered it.--I embarked in it on
the sixth day; I divided its floors on the seventh;--I divided the
interior compartments on the eighth. I stopped up the chinks through
which the water entered in;--I visited the chinks and added what was
wanting.--I poured on the exterior three times 3,600 measures of
asphalte,--and three times 3,600 measures of asphalte within.--Three
times 3,600 men, porters, brought on their heads the chests of
provisions.--I kept 3,600 chests for the nourishment of my
family,--and the mariners divided amongst themselves twice 3,600
chests.--For [provisioning] I had oxen slain;--I instituted [rations]
for each day.--In [anticipation of the need of] drinks, of barrels and
of wine--[I collected in quantity] like to the waters of a river, [of
provisions] in quantity like to the dust of the earth.--[To arrange
them in] the chests I set my hand to.-- .... of the sun .... the
vessel was completed.-- .... strong and--I had carried above and below
the furniture of the ship.--[This lading filled the two-thirds.]
All that I possessed I gathered together; all I possessed of silver I
gathered together; all that I possessed of gold I gathered--all that I
possessed of the substance of life of every kind I gathered
together.--I made all ascend into the vessel; my servants male and
female,--the cattle of the fields, the wild beasts of the plains, and
the sons of the people, I made them all ascend.
Shamash (the sun) made the moment determined, and--he announced it in
these terms:--"In the evening I will cause it to rain abundantly from
heaven; enter into the vessel and close the door."--The fixed moment
had arrived, which he announced in these terms: "In the evening I will
cause it to rain abundantly from heaven."--When the evening of that
day arrived, I was afraid,--I entered into the vessel and shut my
door.--In shutting the vessel, to Buzurshadirabi, the pilot,--I
confided this dwelling with all that it contained.
Mu-sheri-ina-namari[102]--rose from the foundations of heaven in a
black cloud;--Ramman[103] thundered in the midst of the cloud--and
Nabon and Sharru marched before;--they marched, devastating the
mountain and the plain;--Nergal[104] the powerful, dragged
chastisements after him;--Adar[105] advanced, overthrowing before
him;--the archangels of the abyss brought destruction,--in their
terrors they agitated the earth.--The inundation of Ramman swelled up
to the sky,--and [the earth] became without lustre, was changed into a
desert.
They broke .... of the surface of the [earth] like .... ;--[they
destroyed] the living beings of the surface of the earth.--The
terrible [Deluge] on men swelled up to [heaven].--The brother no
longer saw his brother; men no longer knew each other. In heaven--the
gods became afraid of the waterspout, and--sought a refuge; they
mounted up to the heaven of Anu.[106]--The gods were stretched out
motionless, pressing one against another like dogs.--Ishtar wailed
like a child,--the great goddess pronounced her discourse:--"Here is
humanity returned into mud, and--this is the misfortune that I have
announced in the presence of the gods. So I announced the misfortune
in the presence of the gods,--for the evil I announced the terrible
[chastisement] of men who are mine.--I am the mother who gave birth to
men, and--like to the race of fishes, there they are filling the
sea;--and the gods by reason of that--which the archangels of the
abyss are doing, weep with me."--The gods on their seats were seated
in tears,--and they held their lips closed, [revolving] future things.
Six days and as many nights passed; the wind, the waterspout, and the
diluvian rain were in all their strength. At the approach of the
seventh day the diluvian rain grew weaker, the terrible
waterspout--which had assailed after the fashion of an
earthquake--grew calm, the sea inclined to dry up, and the wind and
the waterspout came to an end. I looked at the sea, attentively
observing--and the whole of humanity had returned to mud; like unto
sea-weeds the corpses floated. I opened the window, and the light
smote on my face. I was seized with sadness; I sat down and I
wept;--and my tears came over my face.
I looked at the regions bounding the sea; towards the twelve points of
the horizon; not any continent.--The vessel was borne above the land
of Nizir,--the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not
permit it to pass over.--A day and a second day the mountain of Nizir
arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over;--the third
and fourth day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not
permit it to pass over;--the fifth and sixth day the mountain of Nizir
arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over.--At the
approach of the seventh day, I sent out and loosed a dove. The dove
went, turned, and--found no place to light on, and it came back. I
sent out and loosed a swallow; the swallow went, turned, and--found no
place to light on, and it came back. I sent out and loosed a raven;
the raven went, and saw the corpses on the waters; it ate, rested,
turned, and came not back.
I then sent out (what was in the vessel) towards the four winds, and I
offered a sacrifice. I raised the pile of my burnt-offering on the
peak of the mountain; seven by seven I disposed the measured
vases,[107]--and beneath I spread rushes, cedar, and juniper wood. The
gods were seized with the desire of it,--the gods were seized with a
benevolent desire of it;--and the gods assembled like flies above the
master of the sacrifice. From afar, in approaching, the great goddess
raised the great zones that Anu has made for their glory (the
gods').[108] These gods, luminous crystal before me, I will never
leave them; in that day I prayed that I might never leave them. "Let
the gods come to my sacrificial pile!--but never may Bel come to my
sacrificial pile! for he did not master himself, and he has made the
waterspout for the Deluge, and he has numbered my men for the pit."
From far, in drawing near, Bel--saw the vessel, and Bel stopped;--he
was filled with anger against the gods and the celestial
archangels:--"No one shall come out alive! No man shall be preserved
from the abyss!"--Adar opened his mouth and said; he said to the
warrior Bel:--"What other than Ea should have formed this
resolution?--for Ea possesses knowledge and [he foresees] all."--Ea
opened his mouth and spake; he said to the warrior Bel:--"O thou,
herald of the gods, warrior,--as thou didst not master thyself, thou
hast made the waterspout of the deluge.--Let the sinner carry the
weight of his sins, the blasphemer the weight of his
blasphemy.--Please thyself with this good pleasure, and it shall never
be infringed; faith in it never [shall be violated].--Instead of thy
making a new deluge, let hyænas appear and reduce the number of men;
instead of thy making a new deluge, let there be famine, and let the
earth be [devastated];--instead of thy making a new deluge, let
Dibbara[109] appear, and let men be [mown down].--I have not revealed
the decision of the great gods;--it is Khasisatra who interpreted a
dream and comprehended what the gods had decided."
Then, when his resolve was arrested, Bel entered into the vessel.--He
took my hand and made me rise.--He made my wife rise, and made her
place herself at my side.--He turned around us and stopped short; he
approached our group.--"Until now Khasisatra has made part of
perishable humanity;--but lo, now, Khasisatra and his wife are going
to be carried away to live like the gods,--and Khasisatra will reside
afar at the mouth of the rivers."--They carried me away and
established me in a remote place at the mouth of the streams.
This narrative agrees with the Biblical one in ascribing the inundation to
a deluge of rain; but adds further details which connect it with intense
atmospheric disturbance, similar to that which would be produced by a
series of cyclones, or typhoons, of unusual severity and duration.
The intense gloom, the deluge of rain, terrific violence of wind, and the
havoc both on sea and land, which accompany the normal cyclones occurring
annually on the eastern coast of China, and elsewhere, and lasting but a
few hours in any one locality, can hardly be credited, except by those who
have experienced them. They are, however, sufficient to render explicable
the general devastation and loss of life which would result from the
duration of typhoons, or analogous tempests, of abnormal intensity, for
even the limited period of six days and nights allotted in the text above,
and much more so for that of one hundred and fifty days assigned to it in
the Biblical account.
As illustrating this I may refer to a few calamities of recent date,
which, though of trivial importance in comparison with the stupendous
event under our consideration, bring home to us the terribly devastating
power latent in the elements.
In Bengal, a cyclone on October 31, 1876, laid under water three thousand
and ninety-three square miles, and destroyed two hundred and fifteen
thousand lives.
A typhoon which raged in Canton, Hongkong, and Macao on September 22,
1874, besides much other destruction, destroyed several thousand people in
Macao and the adjacent villages, the number of corpses in the town being
so numerous that they had to be gathered in heaps and burnt with
kerosene, the population, without the Chinese who refused to lend
assistance, being insufficient to bury them.
A tornado in Canton, on April 11, 1878, destroyed, in the course of a few
minutes, two thousand houses and ten thousand lives.
In view of these few historical facts, which might be greatly
supplemented, there appears to my mind to be no difficulty in believing
that the continuance, during even only six days and six nights, of
extraordinarily violent circular storms over a given area, would,
especially if accompanied by so-called tidal or earthquake waves, be
sufficient to wreck all sea-going and coasting craft, all river boats,
inundate every country embraced within it to a very great extent, submerge
each metropolis, city, or village, situate either in the deltas of rivers,
or higher up their course, sap, unroof, batter down, and destroy all
dwellings on the highlands, level forests, destroy all domestic animals,
sweep away all cultivated soil, or bury it beneath an enormous thickness
of _débris_, tear away the soil from the declivities of hills and
mountains, destroy all shelter, and hence, by exposure, most of those
wretched human beings who might have escaped drowning on the lower levels.
The few survivors would with difficulty escape starvation, or death from
subsequent exposure to the deadly malaria which would be liberated by the
rooting up of the accumulated _débris_ of centuries. This latter
supposition appears to me to be directly indicated by the passage towards
the end of the extract referring to famine, and to the devastation of the
earth by Dibbara (the god of epidemics).
It is noticeable that in this account there is no suggestion of complete
immersion, Khasisatra simply says there is not any continent (_i.e._ all
the hill ranges within sight would stand out from the inundation like
islands), while he speaks of his vessel being arrested by the mountain of
Nizir, which must consequently have been above the surface of the water.
Neither is there any such close limitation of the number of persons
preserved, as in the Biblical story, for Khasisatra took with him his
men-servants, maid-servants, and his young people, while the version
transmitted by Berosus (see Appendix to this Chapter), states that
Xisuthros embarked his wife, children, and his intimate friends, and that
these latter subsequently founded numerous cities, built temples, and
restored Babylon.
We have thus a fair nucleus for starting a fresh population in the
Euphrates valley, which may have received accessions from the gradual
concentration of scattered survivors, and from the enterprise of maritime
adventurers from the African coast and elsewhere, possibly also nomads
from the north, east, and west may have swelled the numbers, and a
polyglot community have been established, which subsequently, through race
distinctions, jealousies, and incompatibility of language, became again
dismembered, as recorded in the history of the attempted erection of the
Tower of Babel.
Confining our attention for the moment to this one locality, we may
imagine that the young population would not be deterred by any
apprehension of physical danger from reinhabiting such of the old cities
as remained recognizable; since we see that men do not hesitate to
recommence the building of cities overthrown by earthquake shocks almost
before the last tremblings are over; or, as in the case of Herculaneum and
Pompeii, within the range of volcanoes which may have already repeatedly
vomited destroying floods of lava. Yet, in this instance, they would
probably invest the calamity with a supernatural horror, and regard it, as
the text expresses it, as a chastisement from the gods for their impiety.
If this were so, the very memory of such cities would soon be lost, and
with it all the treasures of art and literature which they
contained.[110]
The Hindu account is taken from the _S'atapatha-Brâhmana_, a work of
considerable antiquity, being one of a series which Professor Max Müller
believes to have been written eight hundred years before Christ. A literal
translation of the legend, as given in this venerable work, is as
follows:--
"To Manu in the morning they brought water for washing, just as they bring
it for washing the hands. As he was using the water, a fish came into his
hand. This (fish) said to him, 'Preserve me, and I will save thee.' (Manu
said), 'From what wilt thou preserve me?' (The fish replied), 'A flood
will carry away all these creatures; from that I will preserve thee.'
(Manu said), 'How is thy preservation (to be effected)?' (The fish
replied), 'As long as we are small, there is great danger of our
destruction; fish even devours fish: at first preserve me in a jar. When I
grow too big for that, cut a trench, and preserve me in that. When I
outgrow that, carry me to the sea; then I shall be beyond (the reach of)
danger.' Soon it became a great fish; it increased greatly. (The fish
said), 'In so many years the flood will come; make a ship and worship me.
On the rising of the flood enter the ship, then I will preserve thee.'
Having preserved the fish he brought it to the sea. In the same year
indicated by the fish (Manu) made a ship and worshipped the fish. When the
flood rose he entered the ship; the fish swam near him: he attached the
cable of the ship to his (the fish's) horn. By this means the fish carried
him over the northern mountain (Himalayas). (The fish said), 'I have
preserved thee: fasten the ship to a tree. But lest the water cut thee off
whilst thou art on the mountain, as fast as the water subsides thou wilt
descend with it.' Accordingly he descended (with the water); hence this
became 'Manu's Descent' from the northern mountain. The flood had carried
away all those creatures, Manu alone was left. He being desirous of
offspring performed a sacred rite; there also he offered a
_pâka_-sacrifice. With clarified butter, coagulated milk, whey, and curds,
he made an offering to the waters. In a year a female was produced; and
she arose unctuous from the moisture, with clarified butter under her
feet. Mitra and Varuna came to her; and said to her, 'Who art thou?' (She
said), 'The daughter of Manu.' (They said), 'Say (thou art) our
(daughter).' 'No,' she replied, 'I am verily (the daughter) of him who
begot me.' They desired a share in her; she agreed and did not agree. She
went on and came to Manu. Manu said to her, 'Who art thou?' 'Thy
daughter,' she replied. 'How, revered one, art thou my daughter?' (She
replied), 'The offerings which thou hast cast upon the waters,--clarified
butter, coagulated milk, whey, and curds,--from them thou hast generated
me. I am a blessing. Do thou introduce me into the sacrifice. If thou wilt
introduce me into the sacrifice, thou wilt be (blessed) with abundance of
offspring and cattle. Whatever blessing thou shalt ask through me, will
all be given to thee.' Thus he introduced her in the middle of the
sacrifice; for the middle of the sacrifice is that which comes between the
final and the introductory prayers. He, desirous of offspring, meditating
and toiling, went with her. By her he begot this (offspring), which is
(called) 'The offspring of Manu.'"
The correspondence of this legend with the Biblical and the other accounts
is remarkable. We have the announcement of the Deluge, the construction of
a ship, the preservation therein of a representative man, the settlement
of the vessel on a mountain, the gradual subsidence of the water, and the
subsequent re-peopling of the world by the man thus preserved. The very
scene of the cataclysm is in singular agreement with the other accounts;
for the flood is said to carry Manu "over the northern mountain." This
places the scene of the Deluge in Central Asia, beyond the Himalaya
mountains, and it proves that the legend embodies a genuine tradition
brought by the progenitors of the Hindus from their primæval home, whence
also radiated the Semitic and Sinitic branches of mankind.
* * * * *
There has been much discussion as to whether the great inundation which
occurred in China during the reign of Yao is identical with that of
Genesis or not. The close proximity of date lends a strong support to the
assumption, and the supposition that the scene of the Biblical Deluge was
local in its origin, but possibly widespread in its results, further
favours the view.
As the rise of the Nile at Cairo is the only intimation which the
inhabitants of Lower Egypt have of the tropical rains of Central Africa,
so the inundation of the countries adjacent to the head waters of the
great rivers of China may alone have informed the inhabitants of that
country of serious elemental disturbances, only reaching, and in a
modified form, their western frontier; and it may well have been that the
deluge which caused a national annihilation in Western Asia was only a
national calamity in the eastern portion of it.
This view is strengthened if we consider that Chinese history has no
record of any deluge prior to this, which could hardly have been the case
had the Chinese migrated from their parent stock subsequent to an event of
such importance; assuming that it had occurred, as there seems valid
reason to suppose, within the limits of written history. The anachronism
between the two dates assigned by Chinese authors (2297 B.C.) and the
Jewish historian's calculation (2104 B.C.) is only one hundred and
ninety-three years, and this is not so great but that we may anticipate
its being explained at some future date. Strauchius' computation of 2293
B.C. for the date of the Biblical deluge is within four years, and
Ussher's (2349-2348) within fifty-one of the Chinese one. The reason for
supposing the deluge of Yao to be historically true, will be inferred from
the arguments borrowed from Mr. Legge on the subject of the _Shu-king_, in
another portion of this volume. It is detailed in the great Chinese work
on history, the _T‘ung-këen-kang-muh_, by Choo He, of which De Mailla's
_History of China_ professes to be a translation.
This states that the inundation happened in the sixty-first year of the
reign of Yao (2297 B.C.), and that the waters of the Yellow River mingled
with those of the Ho-hi-ho and the Yangtsze, ruining all the agricultural
country, which was converted into one vast sea.
But neither in the Bamboo Books nor in the _Shu-king_ do we find that any
local phenomena of importance occurred, with the exception of the
inundation. In fact, the first work is singularly silent on the subject,
and simply says that in his sixty-first year Yao ordered K‘wan of Ts‘ung
to regulate the Ho, and degraded him in his sixty-ninth for being unable
to effect it, as we learn elsewhere.
The _Shu_ is more explicit. The Emperor, consulting one of his chief
officials on the calamity, says: "O chief of the four mountains,
destructive in their overflow are the waters of the inundation. In their
vast extent they embrace the mountains and overtop the hills, threatening
the heavens with their floods, so that the inferior people groan and
murmur."
According to De Mailla's translation, K‘wan laboured uselessly for nine
years, the whole country was overrun with briars and brushwood, the people
had almost forgotten the art of cultivating the ground--they were without
the necessary seeds--and wild animals and birds destroyed all their
attempts at agriculture.
In this extremity Yao consulted Shun, his subsequent successor, who
recommended the appointment of Yu, the son of K‘wan, in his father's
place.
Yu was more successful, and describes his labours as follows:--
"The inundating waters seemed to assail the heavens, and in their vast
extent embraced the mountains and over-topped the hills, so that people
were bewildered and overwhelmed. I mounted my four conveyances,[111] and
all along the hills hewed down the woods, at the same time, along with
Yih, showing the multitudes how to get flesh to eat.
"I also opened passages for the streams throughout the nine provinces, and
conducted them to the sea. I deepened, moreover, the channels and canals,
and conducted them to the streams, at the same time, along with Tseih,
sowing _grain_, and showing the multitudes how to procure the food of toil
_in addition_ to flesh meat."
Yu's success is simply chronicled in the Bamboo Books as, "In his
seventy-fifth year Yu, the Superintendent of Works, regulated the Ho."
There was a legend extant in China in the times of Pinto, which he gives
in his book, of the original Chinese having migrated from a region in the
West, and, following the course of the Ho in boats, finally settling in
the country adjacent to Pekin. That some such event took place is not
unlikely. Its acceptance would explain much that is difficult.
The pioneers, pushing through a country infested with hostile aborigines,
who would immediately after their passage close up the road of
communication behind them--pioneers who may have been fugitives from their
kindred through political commotions, or expelled by successful
enemies--would have a further barrier against return, even were they
disposed to attempt it, in the strong opposing current which had borne
them safely to their new homes.
It is probable that such a journey would form an entirely new departure
for their history, and that a few generations later it would resemble a
nebulous chronological zone, on the far side of which could be dimly seen
myths of persons and events representing in reality the history of the not
very remote ancestors from whom they had become separated. The early
arrivals would have been too much occupied with establishing themselves in
their new dominions to be able to give much attention to keeping records
or preserving other than the most utilitarian branches of knowledge which
they had brought with them. The volumes of their ancestors were probably,
like the clay tablets of the royal library of Babylon, not of a portable
nature, at all events to fugitives, whose knowledge would, therefore, be
rather of a practical than of a cultivated nature, and this would soon
become limited for a while to their chiefs and religious instructors, the
exigencies of a colony menaced with danger prohibiting any general
acquisition or extension of learning.
In this way we can account for the community of the fables relating to the
remote antiquity of the Chinese with those of Chaldean and Indian
mythology, and with the highly civilized administration and astrological
knowledge possessed by Yao and Shun as herediton of Fuh Hi, &c.
We can account for their possession of accurate delineations of the
dragon, which would form an important decoration of the standards and
robes of ceremony which were companions of their flight, while their
descriptions of the animal and its qualities would have already entered
into the realms of fanciful exaggeration and myth.
The dragon of Yao and Shun's time, and of Yu's time was, in my opinion, an
aquatic creature, an alligator; but the dragon of their ancestors was a
land lizard, which may even have existed down to the time of the great
cataclysm which we call the Deluge, and the memory of which is best
preserved in the Chinese drawings which have been handed down from remote
antiquity, and have travelled from the great Central Asian centre, which
was once alike its habitat and that of their ancestors. Its history may
perhaps become evolved when the great store of book knowledge contained in
the cuneiform tablets, representing the culture of the other branch of
their great ethnological family, has been more extensively explored.
Geologists of the present day have a great objection to the bringing in of
cataclysms to account for any considerable natural changes, but this one I
conceive to have been of so stupendous a nature as to have been quite
capable of both extinguishing a species and confusing the recollection of
it. The mere fact of the story of the dragon having survived such a period
argues greatly, in my mind, for the reality of its previous existence.
Extending our consideration, we are brought face to face with another very
important fact, namely, that a large proportion of the human race content
themselves with ephemeral structures. Thus, for example, the Chinese
neither have now, nor at any time have had, any great architectural works.
"The finest building in China is a reproduction, on a large scale, of the
tent; and the wooden construction is always imitated where the materials
are stone or marble. The supports, often magnificent logs, brought, at
great expense, specially from the Straits, represent tent-poles; and the
roof has always the peaked ends and the curves that recall the drooping
canvas of the marquee. Architecture evidently died early; it never had
life enough to assimilate the new material which it found when it migrated
into China Proper. The yamen is a slightly glorified cottage; the temple
is an improved yamen. Sculpture is equally neglected in this
(æsthetically) benighted country. The human form is as dignified and
sightly, to Chinese eyes at least, in China as in the West; but it never
seems to have occurred, throughout so many hundreds of years, to any
Chinaman to perpetuate it in marble or bronze, or to beautify a city with
statues of its deities or great men."[112]
What holds good of the Chinese now, probably holds good of their ancestors
and the race from which they parted company in Central Asia five thousand
years ago, when they pierced their way eastwards through the savage
aborigines of Thibet and Mongolia, pushing aside tribes which closed in
again behind them, so as to intercept their return or communication with
their mother country--a country which may have been equally careless of
elaborating stupendous and permanent works of architecture such as other
nations glory in possessing, and which, like the pyramids of Egypt and of
Central America, stand forth for thousands of years as landmarks of the
past.
We must, therefore, not be surprised if we do not immediately discover the
vestiges of the people of ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand years ago. With
an ephemeral architecture (which, as we have seen, is all that a highly
populous and long civilized race actually possess), the sites of vast
cities may have become entirely lost to recollection in a few thousands of
years from natural decay, and how much more so would this be the case if,
as we may reasonably argue, minor cataclysms have intervened, such as
local inundations, earthquakes, deposition of volcanic ashes from even
distant sources, the spread of sandy deserts, destruction of life by
exceptionally deadly pestilence, by miasma, or by the outpour of
sulphurous fumes.
We have shown in another chapter how the process of extinction of species
continues to the present day, and from the nature of this process we may
deduce that the number of species which became extinct during the four or
five thousand years preceding the era of exact history must have been
considerable.
The less remarkable of these would expire unnoticed; and only those
distinguished by their size, ferocity, and dangerous qualities, or by some
striking peculiarity, would leave their impress on the mythology of their
habitat. Their exact history would be lost as the cities of their epoch
crumbled away, and during the passage through dark ages of the people of
their period and their descendants, and by conquest or catastrophes such
as we have referred to elsewhere; while the slow dispersion which appears
to have obtained among all nations would render the record of their
qualities the more confused as the myth which embalmed it spread in
circling waves farther and farther from its original centre.
Amongst the most fell destroyer both of species and of their history must
have been the widespread, although not universal, inundation known as the
Biblical Deluge; a deluge which we think the evidence given in the
foregoing pages, and gathered from divers nations, justifies us in
believing to have really taken place, and not to be, as mythologists
claim, a mere ether myth. As to its date, allowance being made for
trifling errors, there is no reason for disputing the computation of
Jewish chronology, especially as that is closely confirmed by the entirely
independent testimony of Chinese history.
This interposes a vast barrier between us and the knowledge of the past, a
barrier round which we pass for a short distance at either end when we
study the history of the two great streams of nations which have diverged
from a common centre, the Chinese towards the East, the Accadian Chaldæans
and Semites towards the West; a barrier which we may hope to surmount when
we are able to discover and explore the lost cities of that common centre,
with the treasures of art and literature which they must undoubtedly
possess.