The Antediluvian World
by
Ignatius Donnelly
Part 2 out of 8
An event, which in a few hours destroyed, amid horrible convulsions, an
entire country, with all its vast population-that Population the
ancestors of the great races of both continents, and they themselves the
custodians of the civilization of their age-could not fail to impress
with terrible force the minds of men, and to project its gloomy shadow
over all human history. And hence, whether we turn to the Hebrews, the
Aryans, the Phœnicians, the Greeks, the Cushites, or the inhabitants of
America, we find everywhere traditions of the Deluge; and we shall see
that all these traditions point unmistakably to the destruction of
Atlantis.
François Lenormant says (Contemp. Rev., Nov., 1879):
"The result authorizes us to affirm the story of the Deluge to be a
universal tradition among all branches of the human race, with the one
exception, however, of the black. Now, a recollection thus precise and
concordant cannot be a myth voluntarily invented. No religious or
cosmogonic myth presents this character of universality. It must arise
from the reminiscence 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
the families from which the principal races were to spring; for it would
be at once improbable and uncritical to admit that, at as many different
points of the globe as we should have to assume in order to explain the
wide spread of these traditions, local phenomena so exactly alike should
have occurred, their memory having assumed an identical form, and
presenting circumstances that need not necessarily have occurred to the
mind in such cases.
"Let us observe, however, that probably the diluvian tradition is not
primitive, but imported in America; that it undoubtedly wears the aspect
of an importation among the rare populations of the yellow race where it
is found; and lastly, that it is doubtful among the Polynesians of
Oceania. There will still remain three great races to which it is
undoubtedly peculiar, who have not borrowed it from each other, but
among whom the tradition is primitive, and goes back to the most ancient
times, and these three races are precisely the only ones of which the
Bible speaks as being descended from Noah--those of which it gives the
ethnic filiation in the tenth chapter of Genesis. This observation.
which I hold to be undeniable, attaches a singularly historic and exact
value to the tradition as recorded by the Sacred Book, even if, on the
other hand, it may lead to giving it a more limited geographical and
ethnological significance. . . .
"But, as the case now stands, we do not hesitate to declare that, far
from being a myth, the Biblical Deluge is a real and historical fact,
having, to say the least, left its impress on the ancestors of three
races--Aryan, or Indo-European, Semitic, or Syro-Arabian, Chamitic, or
Cushite--that is to say, on the three great civilized races of the
ancient world, those which constitute the higher humanity--before the
ancestors of those races had as yet separated, and in the part of Asia
they together inhabited."
Such profound scholars and sincere Christians as M. Schwœbel (Paris,
1858), and M. Omalius d'Halloy (Bruxelles, 1866), deny the universality
of the Deluge, and claim that "it extended only to the principal centre
of humanity, to those who remained near its primitive cradle, without
reaching the scattered tribes who had already spread themselves far away
in almost desert regions. It is certain that the Bible narrative
commences by relating facts common to the whole human species, confining
itself subsequently to the annals of the race peculiarly chosen by the
designs of Providence." (Lenormant and Chevallier, "Anc. Hist. of the
East," p. 44.) This theory is supported by that eminent authority on
anthropology, M. de Quatrefages, as well as by Cuvier; the Rev. R. p.
Bellynck, S.J., admits that it has nothing expressly opposed to
orthodoxy.
Plato identifies "the great deluge of all" with the destruction of
Atlantis. The priest of Sais told Solon that before "the great deluge of
all" Athens possessed a noble race, who performed many noble deeds, the
last and greatest of which was resisting the attempts of Atlantis to
subjugate them; and after this came the destruction of Atlantis, and the
same great convulsion which overwhelmed that island destroyed a number
of the Greeks. So that the Egyptians, who possessed the memory of many
partial deluges, regarded this as "the great deluge of all."
CHAPTER II.
THE DELUGE OF THE BIBLE
We give first the Bible history of the Deluge, as found in Genesis
(chap. vi. to chap. viii.):
"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the
earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the
daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all
which they chose.
"And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that
he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.
"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when
the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare
children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of
renown.
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth,
and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man
whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and
the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I
have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
["These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in
his generations, and Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three sons,
Shem, Ham, and Japheth.]
"The earth also was corrupt before God; and the earth was filled with
violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt;
for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto
Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled
with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the
earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the
ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the
fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be
three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of
it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit
shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in
the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make
it. And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth,
to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven;
and everything that is in the earth shall die. But with thee will I
establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy
sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. And of every living
thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to
keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after
their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of
the earth after his kind; two of every sort shall come unto thee, to
keep them alive. And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and
thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for
them.
"Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.
"And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark;
for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Of every
clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female:
and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of
fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed
alive upon the face of all the earth. For yet seven days, and I will
cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every
living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of
the earth.
"And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him. And Noah
was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
"And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with
him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Of clean beasts,
and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of everything that
creepeth upon the earth, there went in two and two unto Noah into the
ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
"And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were
upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second
month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the
fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were
opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. In
the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons
of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them,
into the ark; they, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle
after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth
after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.
And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh,
wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and
female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the Lord shut him in.
"And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased,
and bare up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. And the
waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark
went Upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly
upon the earth; and all the high bills, that were under the whole
heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and
the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the
earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: all in whose nostrils
was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every
living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground,
both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the
heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained
alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed
upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.
"And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle
that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the
earth, and the waters assuaged. The fountains also of the deep and the
windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.
And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the
end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. And the ark
rested in the seventh mouth, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon
the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the
tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the mouth, were the
tops of the mountains seen.
"And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the
window of the ark which he had made: and be sent forth a raven, which
went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the
earth. Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were
abated from off the face of the ground. But the dove found no rest for
the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark; for the
waters were on the face of the whole earth. Then he put forth his hand,
and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. And he stayed yet
other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. And
the dove came in to him in the evening, and, lo, in her mouth was an
olive leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from
off the earth. And he stayed yet other seven days, and sent forth the
dove, which returned not again unto him any more.
"And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first
month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the
earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and,
behold, the face of the ground was dry. And in the second month, on the
seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.
"And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy
wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. Bring forth with thee
every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl and of
cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that
they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply
upon the earth.
"And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and big sons' wives
with him: every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and
whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of
the ark.
"And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast,
and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And
the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will
not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination
of man's heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any
more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth,
seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day
and night shall not cease."
Let us briefly consider this record.
It shows, taken in connection with the opening chapters of Genesis:
1. That the land destroyed by water was the country in which the
civilization of the human race originated. Adam was at first naked
(Gen., chap. iii., 7); then he clothed himself in leaves; then in the
skins of animals (chap. iii., 21): be was the first that tilled the
earth, having emerged from a more primitive condition in which be lived
upon the fruits of the forest (chap. ii., 16); his son Abel was the
first of those that kept flocks of sheep (chap. iv., 2); his son Cain
was the builder of the first city (chap. iv., 17); his descendant,
Tubal-cain, was the first metallurgist (chap. iv., 22); Jabal was the
first that erected tents and kept cattle (chap. iv., 20); Jubal was the
first that made musical instruments. We have here the successive steps
by which a savage race advances to civilization. We will see hereafter
that the Atlanteans passed through precisely similar stages of
development.
2. The Bible agrees with Plato in the statement that these Antediluvians
had reached great populousness and wickedness, and that it was on
account of their wickedness God resolved to destroy them.
3. In both cases the inhabitants of the doomed land were destroyed in a
great catastrophe by the agency of water; they were drowned.
4. The Bible tells us that in an earlier age, before their destruction,
mankind had dwelt in a happy, peaceful, sinless condition in a Garden of
Eden. Plato tells us the same thing of the earlier ages of the
Atlanteans.
6. In both the Bible history and Plato's story the destruction of the
people was largely caused by the intermarriage of the superior or divine
race, "the sons of God," with an inferior stock, "the children of men,"
whereby they were degraded and rendered wicked.
We will see hereafter that the Hebrews and their Flood legend are
closely connected with the Phœnicians, whose connection with Atlantis is
established in many ways.
It is now conceded by scholars that the genealogical table given in tho
Bible (Gen., chap. x.) is not intended to include the true negro races,
or the Chinese, the Japanese, the Finns or Lapps, the Australians, or
the American red men. It refers altogether to the Mediterranean races,
the Aryans, the Cushites, the Phœnicians, the Hebrews, and the
Egyptians. "The sons of Ham" were not true negroes, but the dark-brown
races. (See Winchell's "Preadamites," chap. vii.)
If these races (the Chinese, Australians, Americans, etc.) are not
descended from Noah they could not have been included in the Deluge. If
neither China, Japan, America, Northern Europe, nor Australia were
depopulated by the Deluge, the Deluge could not have been universal. But
as it is alleged that it did destroy a country, and drowned all the
people thereof except Noah and his family, the country so destroyed
could not have been Europe, Asia, Africa, America, or Australia, for
there has been no universal destruction of the people of those regions;
or, if there had been, how can we account for the existence to-day of
people on all of those continents whose descent Genesis does not trace
back to Noah, and, in fact, about whom the writer of Genesis seems to
have known nothing?
We are thus driven to one of two alternative conclusions: either the
Deluge record of the Bible is altogether fabulous, or it relates to some
land other than Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia, some land that was
destroyed by water. It is not fabulous; and the land it refers to is not
Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia--but Atlantis. No other land is known
to history or tradition that was overthrown in a great catastrophe by
the agency of water; that was civilized, populous, powerful, and given
over to wickedness.
That high and orthodox authority, François Lenormant, says ("Ancient
Hist. of the East," vol. i., p. 64), "The descendants of Shem, Ham, and
Japhet, so admirably catalogued by Moses, include one only of the races
of humanity, the white race, whose three chief divisions he gives us as
now recognized by anthropologists. The other three races--yellow, black,
and red--have no place in the Bible list of nations sprung from Noah."
As, therefore, the Deluge of the Bible destroyed only the land and
people of Noah, it could not have been universal. The religious world
does not pretend to fix the location of the Garden of Eden. The Rev.
George Leo Haydock says, "The precise situation cannot be ascertained;
bow great might be its extent we do not know;" and we will see hereafter
that the unwritten traditions of the Church pointed to a region in the
west, beyond the ocean which bounds Europe in that direction, as the
locality in which "mankind dwelt before the Deluge."
It will be more and more evident, as we proceed in the consideration. of
the Flood legends of other nations, that the Antediluvian World was none
other than Atlantis,
CHAPTER III.
THE DELUGE OF THE CHALDEANS.
We have two versions of the Chaldean story--unequally developed, indeed,
but exhibiting a remarkable agreement. The one most anciently known, and
also the shorter, is that which Berosus took from the sacred books of
Babylon, and introduced into the history that he wrote for the use of
the Greeks. After speaking of the last nine antediluvian kings, the
Chaldean priest continues thus.
"Obartès Elbaratutu being dead, his son Xisuthros (Khasisatra) reigned
eighteen sares (64,800 years). It was under him that the Great Deluge
took place, the history of which is told in the sacred documents as
follows: Cronos (Ea) appeared to him in his sleep, and announced that on
the fifteenth of the month of Daisios (the Assyrian month Sivan--a
little before the summer solstice) all men should perish by a flood. He
therefore commanded him to take the beginning, the middle, and the end
of whatever was consigned to writing, and to bury it in the City of the
Sun, at Sippara; then to build a vessel, and to enter it with his family
and dearest friends; to place in this vessel provisions to eat and
drink, and to cause animals, birds, and quadrupeds to enter it; lastly,
to prepare everything, for navigation. And when Xisuthros inquired in
what direction he should steer his bark, be was answered, 'toward the
gods,' and enjoined to pray that good might come of it for men.
"Xisuthros obeyed, and constructed a vessel five stadia long and five
broad; he collected all that had been prescribed to him, and embarked
his wife, his children, and his intimate friends.
"The Deluge having come, and soon going down, Xisuthros loosed some of
the birds. These, finding no food nor place to alight on, returned to
the ship. A few days later Xisuthros again let them free, but they
returned again to the vessel, their feet fall of mud. Finally, loosed
the third time, the birds came no more back. Then Xisuthros understood
that the earth was bare. He made an opening in the roof of the ship, and
saw that it had grounded on the top of a mountain. He then descended
with his wife, his daughter, and his pilot, who worshipped the earth,
raised an altar, and there sacrificed to the gods; at the same moment he
vanished with those who accompanied him.
"Meanwhile those who had remained in the vessel, not seeing Xisutbros
return, descended too, and began to seek him, calling him by his name.
They saw Xisuthros no more; but a voice from heaven was heard commanding
them piety toward the gods; that he, indeed, was receiving the reward of
his piety in being carried away to dwell thenceforth in the midst of the
gods, and that his wife, his daughter, and the pilot of the ship shared
the same honor. The voice further said that they were to return to
Babylon, and, conformably to the decrees of fate, disinter the writings
buried at Sippara in order to transmit them to men. It added that the
country in which they found themselves was Armenia. These, then, having
heard the voice, sacrificed to the gods and returned on foot to Babylon.
Of the vessel of Xisuthros, which had finally landed in Armenia, a
portion is still to be found in the Gordyan Mountains in Armenia, and
pilgrims bring thence asphalte that they have scraped from its
fragments. It is used to keep off the influence of witchcraft. As to the
companions of Xisuthros, they came to Babylon, disinterred the writings
left at Sippara, founded numerous cities, built temples, and restored
Babylon."
"By the side of this version," says Lenormant, "which, interesting
though it be, is, after all, second-hand, we are now able to place an
original Chaldeo-Babylonian edition, which the lamented George Smith was
the first to decipher on the cuneiform tablets exhumed at Nineveh, and
now in the British Museum. Here the narrative of the Deluge appears as
an episode in the eleventh tablet, or eleventh chant of the great epic
of the town of Uruk. The hero of this poem, a kind of Hercules, whose
name has not as yet been made out with certainty, being attacked by
disease (a kind of leprosy), goes, with a view to its cure, to consult
the patriarch saved from the Deluge, Khasisatra, in the distant land to
which the gods have transported him, there to enjoy eternal felicity. He
asks Khasisatra to reveal the secret of the events which led to his
obtaining the privilege of immortality, and thus the patriarch is
induced to relate the cataclysm.
"By a comparison of the three copies of the poem that the library of the
palace of Nineveh contained, it has been possible to restore the
narrative with hardly any breaks. These three copies were, by order of
the King of Assyria, Asshurbanabal, made in the eighth century B.C.,
from a very ancient specimen in the sacerdotal library of the town of
Uruk, founded by the monarchs of the first Chaldean empire. It is
difficult precisely to fix the date of the original, copied by Assyrian
scribes, but it certainly goes back to the ancient empire, seventeen
centuries at least before our era, and even probably beyond; it was
therefore much anterior to Moses, and nearly contemporaneous with
Abraham. The variations presented by the three existing copies prove
that the original was in the primitive mode of writing called the
hieratic, a character which must have already become difficult to
decipher in the eighth century B.C., as the copyists have differed as to
the interpretation to be given to certain signs, and in other cases have
simply reproduced exactly the forms of such as they did not understand.
Finally, it results from a comparison of these variations, that the
original, transcribed by order of Asshurbanabal, must itself have been a
copy of some still more ancient manuscript, it, which the original text
had already received interlinear comments. Some of the copyists have
introduced these into their text, others have omitted them. With these
preliminary observations, I proceed to give integrally the narrative
ascribed ill the poem to Khasisatra:
"'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 honor] the gods. [I
alone, I was] their servant, to the great gods--[The gods took counsel
on the appeal of] Ann--[a deluge was proposed by] Bel--[and approved by
Nabon, Nergal and] Adar.
"'And the god [Ea], 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 shall 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 Ea, my lord:--"[The vessel] that thou commandest me to
build thus--[when] I shall do it,--young and old [shall laugh at
me.]"--[Ea 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 toward
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 Ea, 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 . . ."
"'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 3600 measures of asphalte,--and three
times 3600 measures of asphalte within.--Three times 3600 men, porters,
brought on their beads the chests of provisions.--I kept 3600 chests for
the nourishment of my family,--and the mariners divided among themselves
twice 3600 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 Buzur-shadi-rabi, the pilot,--I confided this
dwelling, with all that it contained.
"'Mu-sheri-ina-namari--rose from the foundations of heaven in a black
cloud;--Ramman thundered in the midst of the cloud,--and Nabon and
Sharru marched before;--they marched, devastating the mountain and the
plain;--Nergal the powerful dragged chastisements after him;--Adar
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 water-spout, and--sought a refuge; they mounted up to the
heaven of Anu.--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 water-spout, and the
diluvian rain were in all their strength. At the approach of the seventh
day the diluvian rain grew weaker, the terrible water-spout-which had
assailed after the fashion of an earthquake--grew calm, the sea inclined
to dry up, and the wind and the water-spout 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: toward 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) toward 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,--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). 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 water-spout 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
water-spout 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 lions appear and
reduce the number of men;--instead of thy making a new deluge, let
hyenas 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 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," says Lenormant, "follows with great exactness the same
course as that, or, rather, as those of Genesis; and the analogies are,
on both sides, striking."
When we consider these two forms of the same legend, we see many points
wherein the story points directly to Atlantis.
1. In the first place, Berosus tells us that the god who gave warning of
the coming of the Deluge was Chronos. Chronos, it is well known, was the
same as Saturn. Saturn was an ancient king of Italy, who, far anterior
to the founding of Rome, introduced civilization from some other country
to the Italians. He established industry and social order, filled the
land with plenty, and created the golden age of Italy. He was suddenly
removed to the abodes of the gods. His name is connected, in the
mythological legends, with "a great Saturnian continent" in the Atlantic
Ocean, and a great kingdom which, in the remote ages, embraced Northern
Africa and the European coast of the Mediterranean as far as the
peninsula of Italy, and "certain islands in the sea;" agreeing, in this
respect, with the story of Plato as to the dominions of Atlantis. The
Romans called the Atlantic Ocean "Chronium Mare," the Sea of Chronos,
thus identifying Chronos with that ocean. The pillars of Hercules were
also called by the ancients "the pillars of Chronos."
Here, then, we have convincing testimony that the country referred to in
the Chaldean legends was the land of Chronos, or Saturn--the ocean
world, the dominion of Atlantis.
2. Hea or Ea. the god of the Nineveh tablets, was a fish-god: he was
represented in the Chaldean monuments as half man and half fish; he was
described as the god, not of the rivers and seas, but of "the abyss"--to
wit, the ocean. He it was who was said to have brought civilization and
letters to the ancestors of the Assyrians. He clearly represented an
ancient, maritime, civilized nation; he came from the ocean, and was
associated with some land and people that had been destroyed by rain and
inundations. The fact that the scene of the Deluge is located on the
Euphrates proves nothing, for we will see hereafter that almost every
nation had its especial mountain on which, according to its traditions,
the ark rested; just as every Greek tribe had its own particular
mountain of Olympos. The god Bel of the legend was the Baal of the
Phœnicians, who, as we shall show, were of Atlantean origin. Bel, or
Baal, was worshipped on the western and northern coasts of Europe, and
gave his name to the Baltic, the Great and Little Belt, Balesbaugen,
Balestranden, etc.; and to many localities, in the British Islands, as,
for instance, Belan and the Baal hills in Yorkshire.
3. In those respects wherein the Chaldean legend, evidently the older
form of the tradition, differs from the Biblical record, we see that in
each instance we approach nearer to Atlantis. The account given in
Genesis is the form of the tradition that would be natural to an inland
people. Although there is an allusion to "the breaking up of the
fountains of the great deep" (about which I shall speak more fully
hereafter), the principal destruction seems to have been accomplished by
rain; hence the greater period allowed for the Deluge, to give time
enough for the rain to fall, and subsequently drain off from the land. A
people dwelling in the midst of a continent could not conceive the
possibility of a whole world sinking beneath the sea; they therefore
supposed the destruction to have been, caused by a continuous down-pour
of rain for forty days and forty nights.
In the Chaldean legend, on the contrary, the rain lasted but seven days;
and we see that the writer had a glimpse of the fact that the
destruction occurred in the midst of or near the sea. The ark of Genesis
(têbâh) was simply a chest, a coffer, a big box, such as might be
imagined by an inland people. The ark of the Chaldeans was a veritable
ship; it had a prow, a helm, and a pilot, and men to manage it; and it
navigated "the sea."
4. The Chaldean legend represents not a mere rain-storm, but a
tremendous cataclysm. There was rain, it is true, but there was also
thunder, lightning, earthquakes, wind, a water-spout, and a devastation
of mountain and land by the war of the elements. All the dreadful forces
of nature were fighting together over the doomed land: "the archangel of
the abyss brought destruction," "the water rose to the sky," "the
brother no longer saw his brother; men no longer knew each other;" the
men "filled the sea like fishes;" the sea was filled with mud, and "the
corpses floated like sea-weed." When the storm abated the land had
totally disappeared-there was no longer "any continent." Does not all
this accord with "that dreadful day and night" described by Plato?
5. In the original it appears that Izdhubar, when he started to find the
deified Khasisatra, travelled first, for nine days' journey, to the sea;
then secured the services of a boatman, and, entering a ship, sailed for
fifteen days before finding the Chaldean Noah. This would show that
Khasisatra dwelt in a far country, one only attainable by crossing the
water; and this, too, seems like a reminiscence of the real site of
Atlantis. The sea which a sailing-vessel required fifteen days to cross
must have been a very large body of water; in fact, an ocean.
CHAPTER IV.
THE DELUGE LEGENDS OF OTHER NATIONS.
A collection of the Deluge legends of other nations will throw light
upon the Biblical and Chaldean records of that great event.
The author of the treatise "On the Syrian Goddess" acquaints us with the
diluvian tradition of the Arameans, directly derived from that of
Chaldea, as it was narrated in the celebrated Sanctuary of Hierapolis,
or Bambyce.
"The generality of people," he says, "tells us that the founder of the
temple was Deucalion Sisythes--that Deucalion in whose time the great
inundation occurred. I have also heard the account given by the Greeks
themselves of Deucalion; the myth runs thus: The actual race of men is
not the first, for there was a previous one, all the members of which
perished. We belong to a second race, descended from Deucalion, and
multiplied in the course of time. As to the former men, they are said to
have been full of insolence and pride, committing many crimes,
disregarding their oath, neglecting the rights of hospitality, unsparing
to suppliants; accordingly, they were punished by an immense disaster.
All on a sudden enormous volumes of water issued from the earth, and
rains of extraordinary abundance began to fall; the rivers left their
beds, and the sea overflowed its shores; the whole earth was covered
with water, and all men perished. Deucalion alone, because of his virtue
and piety, was preserved alive to give birth to a new race. This is how
he was saved: He placed himself, his children, and his wives in a great
coffer that he had, in which pigs, horses, lions, serpents, and all
other terrestrial animals came to seek refuge with him. He received them
all; and while they were in the coffer Zeus inspired them with
reciprocal amity, which prevented their devouring one another. In this
manner, shut up within one single coffer, they floated as long as the
waters remained in force. Such is the account given by the Greeks of
Deucalion.
"But to this, which they equally tell, the people of Hierapolis add a
marvellous narrative: That in their country a great chasm opened, into
which all the waters of the Deluge poured. Then Deucalion raised an
altar, and dedicated a temple to Hera (Atargatis) close to this very
chasm. I have seen it; it is very narrow, and situated under the temple.
Whether it was once large, and has now shrunk, I do not know; but I have
seen it, and it is quite small. In memory of the event the following is
the rite accomplished: Twice a year sea-water is brought to the temple.
This is not only done by the priests, but numerous pilgrims come from
the whole of Syria and Arabia, and even from beyond the Euphrates,
bringing water. It is poured out in the temple and goes into the cleft,
which, narrow as it is, swallows up a considerable quantity. This is
said to be in virtue of a religious law instituted by Deucalion to
preserve the memory of the catastrophe, and of the benefits that he
received from the gods. Such is the ancient tradition of the temple."
"It appears to me difficult," says Lenormant, "not to recognize an echo
of fables popular in all Semitic countries about this chasm of
Hierapolis, and the part it played in the Deluge, in the enigmatic
expressions of the Koran respecting the oven (tannur) which began to
bubble and disgorge water all around at the commencement of the Deluge.
We know that this tannur has been the occasion of most grotesque
imaginings of Mussulman commentators, who had lost the tradition of the
story to which Mohammed made allusion. And, moreover, the Koran formally
states that the waters of the Deluge were absorbed in the bosom of the
earth."
Here the Xisuthros of Berosus becomes Deucalion-Sisythes. The animals
are not collected together by Deucalion, as in the case of Noah and
Khasisatra, but they crowded into the vessel of their own accord, driven
by the terror with which the storm had inspired them; as in great
calamities the creatures of the forest have been known to seek refuge in
the houses of men.
India affords us art account of the Deluge which, by its poverty,
strikingly contrasts with that of the Bible and the Chaldeans. Its most
simple and ancient form is found in the Çatapatha Brâhmana of the
Rig-Veda. It has been translated for the first time by Max Müller.
"One morning water for washing was brought to Manu, and when he had
washed himself a fish remained in his hands, and it addressed these
words to him: 'Protect me, and I will save thee.' 'From what wilt thou
save me?' 'A deluge will sweep all creatures away; it is from that I
will save thee.' 'How shall I protect thee?' The fish replied, 'While we
are small we run great dangers, for fish swallow fish. Keep me at first
in a vase; when I become too large for it, dig a basin to put me into.
When I shall have grown still more, throw me into the ocean; then I
shall be preserved from destruction.' Soon it grew a large fish. It said
to Mann, 'The very year I shall have reached my full growth the Deluge
will happen. Then build a vessel and worship me. When the waters rise,
enter the vessel, and I will save thee.'
"After keeping him thus, Mann carried the fish to the sea. In the year
indicated Mann built a vessel and worshipped the fish. And when the
Deluge came he entered the vessel. Then the fish came swimming up to
him, and Mann fastened the cable of the ship to the horn of the fish, by
which means the latter made it pass over the Mountain of the North. The
fish said, 'I have saved thee; fasten the vessel to a tree, that the
water may not sweep it away while thou art on the mountain; and in
proportion as the waters decrease thou shalt descend.' Manu descended
with the waters, and this is what is called the descent of Manu on the
Mountain of the North. The Deluge had carried away all creatures, and
Mann remained alone."
There is another form of the Hindoo legend in the Purânas. Lenormant
says:
"We must also 'remark that in the Purânas it is no longer Manu Vaivasata
that the divine fish saves from the Deluge, but a different personage,
the King of the Dâstas--i. e., fisher--Satyravata,' the man who loves
justice and truth,' strikingly corresponding to the Chaldean Khasisatra.
Nor is the Puranic version of the Legend of the Deluge to be despised,
though it be of recent date, and full of fantastic and often puerile
details. In certain aspects it is less Aryanized than that of Brâhmana
or than the Mahâbhârata; and, above all, it gives some circumstances
omitted in these earlier versions, which must yet have belonged to the
original foundation, since they appear in the Babylonian legend; a
circumstance preserved, no doubt, by the oral tradition--popular, and
not Brahmanic--with which the Purânas are so deeply imbued. This has
already been observed by Pictet, who lays due stress on the following
passage of the Bhâgavata-Purâna: 'In seven days,' said Vishnu to
Satyravata, 'the three worlds shall be submerged.' There is nothing like
this in the Brâhmana nor the Mahâbhârata, but in Genesis the Lord says
to Noah, 'Yet seven days and I will cause it to rain upon the earth;'
and a little farther we read, 'After seven days the waters of the flood
were upon the earth.'. . . Nor must we pay less attention to the
directions given by the fish-god to Satyravata for the placing of the
sacred Scriptures in a safe place, in order to preserve them from
Hayagriva, a marine horse dwelling in the abyss. . . . We recognize in
it, under an Indian garb, the very tradition of the interment of the
sacred writings at Sippara by Khasisatra, such as we have seen it in the
fragment of Berosus."
The references to "the three worlds" and the "fish-god" in these legends
point to Atlantis. The "three worlds" probably refers to the great
empire of Atlantis, described by Plato, to wit, the western continent,
America, the eastern continent, Europe and Africa, considered as one,
and the island of Atlantis. As we have seen, Poseidon, the founder of
the civilization of Atlantis, is identical with Neptune, who is always
represented riding a dolphin, bearing a trident, or three-pronged
symbol, in his hand, emblematical probably of the triple kingdom. He is
thus a sea-god, or fish-god, and be comes to save the representative of
his country.
And we have also a new and singular form of the legend in the following.
Lenormant says:
"Among the Iranians, in the sacred books containing the fundamental
Zoroastrian doctrines, and dating very far back, we meet with a
tradition which must assuredly be looked upon as a variety of that of
the Deluge, though possessing a special character, and diverging in some
essential particulars from those we have been examining. It relates how
Yima, who, in the original and primitive conception, was the father of
the human race, was warned by Ahuramazda, the good deity, of the earth
being about to be devastated by a flood. The god ordered Yima to
construct a refuge, a square garden, vara, protected by an enclosure,
and to cause the germs of men, beasts, and plants to enter it, in order
to escape annihilation. Accordingly, when the inundation occurred, the
garden of Yima, with all that it contained, was alone spared, and the
message of safety was brought thither by the bird Karshipta, the envoy
of Ahuramazda." ("Vendûdid," vol. ii., p. 46.)
This clearly signifies that, prior to the destruction of Atlantis, a
colony had been sent out to some neighboring country. These emigrants
built a walled town, and brought to it the grains and domestic animals
of the mother country; and when the island of Atlantis sunk in the
ocean, a messenger brought the terrible tidings to them in a ship.
"The Greeks had two principal legends as to the cataclysm by which
primitive humanity was destroyed. The first was connected with the name
of Ogyges, the most ancient of the kings of Bœotia or Attica--a quite
mythical personage, lost in the night of ages, his very name seemingly
derived from one signifying deluge in Aryan idioms, in Sanscrit Angha.
It is said that in his time the whole land was covered by a flood, whose
waters reached the sky, and from which he, together with some
companions, escaped in a vessel.
"The second tradition is the Thessalian legend of Deucalion. Zeus having
worked to destroy the men of the age of bronze, with whose crimes be was
wroth, Deucalion, by the advice of Prometheus, his father, constructed a
coffer, in which he took refuge with his wife, Pyrrha. The Deluge came;
the chest, or coffer, floated at the mercy of the waves for nine days
and nine nights, and was finally stranded on Mount Parnassus. Deucalion
and Pyrrha leave it, offer sacrifice, and, according to the command of
Zeus, repeople the world by throwing behind them 'the bones of the
earth'--namely, stones, which change into men. This Deluge of Deucalion
is, in Grecian tradition, what most resembles a universal deluge. Many
authors affirm that it extended to the whole earth, and that the whole
human race perished. At Athens, in memory of the event, and to appease
the manes of its victims, a ceremony called Hydrophoria was observed,
having so close a resemblance to that in use at Hierapolis, in Syria,
that we can hardly fail to look upon it as a Syro-Phœnician importation,
and the result of an assimilation established in remote antiquity
between the Deluge of Deucalion and that of Khasisatra, as described by
the author of the treatise 'On the Syrian Goddess.' Close to the temple
of the Olympian Zeus a fissure in the soil was shown, in length but one
cubit, through which it was said the waters of the Deluge had been
swallowed up. Thus,, every year, on the third day of the festival of the
Anthestéria, a day of mourning consecrated to the dead--that is, on the
thirteenth of the month of Anthestérion, toward the beginning of
March-it was customary, as at Bambyce, to pour water into the fissure,
together with flour mixed with honey, poured also into the trench dug to
the west of the tomb, in the funeral sacrifices of the Athenians."
In this legend, also, there are passages which point to Atlantis. We
will see hereafter that the Greek god Zeus was one of the kings of
Atlantis. "The men of the age of bronze" indicates the civilization of
the doomed people; they were the great metallurgists of their day, who,
as we will see, were probably the source of the great number of
implements and weapons of bronze found all over Europe. Here, also,
while no length of time is assigned to the duration of the storm, we
find that the ark floated but nine days and nights. Noah was one year
and ten days in the ark, Khasisatra was not half that time, while
Deucalion was afloat only nine days.
At Megara, in Greece, it was the eponym of the city, Megaros, son of
Zeus and one of the nymphs, Sithnides, who, warned by the cry of cranes
of the imminence of the danger of the coming flood, took refuge on Mount
Geranien. Again, there was the Thessalian Cerambos, who was said to have
escaped the flood by rising into the air on wings given him by the
nymphs; and it was Perirrhoos, son of Eolus, that Zeus Naios had
preserved at Dodona. For the inhabitants of the Isle of Cos the hero of
the Deluge was Merops, son of Hyas, who there assembled under his rule
the remnant of humanity preserved with him. The traditions of Rhodes
only supposed the Telchines, those of Crete Sasion, to have escaped the
cataclysm. In Samothracia the same character was attributed to Saon,
said to be the son of Zeus or of Hermes.
It will be observed that in all these legends the name of Zeus, King of
Atlantis, reappears. It would appear probable that many parties had
escaped from the catastrophe, and had landed at the different points
named in the traditions; or else that colonies had already been
established by the Atlanteans at those places. It would appear
impossible that a maritime people could be totally destroyed; doubtless
many were on shipboard in the harbors, and others going and coming on
distant voyages.
"The invasion of the East," says Baldwin ('Prehistoric Nations,' p.
396), "to which the story of Atlantis refers, seems to have given rise
to the Panathenæ, the oldest, greatest, and most splendid festivals in
honor of Athena celebrated in Attica. These festivals are said to have
been established by Erichthonis in the most ancient times remembered by
the historical traditions of Athens. Boeckh says of them, in his
'Commentary on Plato:'
"'In the greater Panathenæ there was carried in procession a peplum of
Minerva, representing the war with the giants and the victory of the
gods of Olympus. In the lesser Panathenæ they carried another peplum
(covered with symbolic devices), which showed how the Athenians,
supported by Minerva, had the advantage in the war with the Atlantes.' A
scholia quoted from Proclus by Humboldt and Boeckh says: 'The historians
who speak of the islands of the exterior sea tell us that in their time
there were seven islands consecrated, to Proserpine, and three others of
immense extent, of which the first was consecrated to Pluto, the second
to Ammon, and the third to Neptune. The inhabitants of the latter had
preserved a recollection (transmitted to them by their ancestors) of the
island of Atlantis, which was extremely large, and for a long time held
sway over all the islands of the Atlantic Ocean. Atlantis was also
consecrated to Neptune."' (See Humboldt's "Histoire de la Géographie du
Nouveau Continent," vol. i.)
No one can read these legends and doubt that the Flood watt an
historical reality. It is impossible that in two different places in the
Old World, remote from each other, religious ceremonies should have been
established and perpetuated from age to age in memory of an event which
never occurred. We have seen that at Athens and at Hierapolis, in Syria,
pilgrims came from a distance to appease the god of the earthquake, by
pouring offerings into fissures of the earth said to have been made at
the time Atlantis was destroyed.
More than this, we know from Plato's history that the Athenians long
preserved in their books the memory of a victory won over the Atlanteans
in the early ages, and celebrated it by national festivals, with
processions and religious ceremonies.
It is too much to ask us to believe that Biblical history, Chaldean,
Iranian, and Greek legends signify nothing, and that even religious
pilgrimages and national festivities were based upon a myth.
I would call attention to the farther fact that in the Deluge legend of
the Isle of Cos the hero of the affair was Merops. Now we have seen
that, according to Theopompus, one of the names of the people of
Atlantis was "Meropes."
But we have not reached the end of our Flood legends. The Persian Magi
possessed a tradition in which the waters issued from the oven of an old
woman. Mohammed borrowed this story, and in the Koran he refers to the
Deluge as coming from an oven. "All men were drowned save Noah and his
family; and then God said, 'O earth, swallow up thy waters; and thou, O
heaven, withhold thy rain;' and immediately the waters abated."
In the bardic poems of Wales we have a tradition of the Deluge which,
although recent, under the concise forms of the triads, is still
deserving of attention. As usual, the legend is localized in the
country, and the Deluge counts among three terrible catastrophes of the
island of Prydian, or Britain, the other two consisting of devastation
by fire and by drought.
"The first of these events," it is said, "was the eruption of
Llyn-llion, or 'the lake of waves,' and the inundation (bawdd) of the
whole country, by which all mankind was drowned with the exception of
Dwyfam and Dwyfach, who saved themselves in a vessel without rigging,
and it was by them that the island of Prydian was repeopled."
Pictet here observes:
"Although the triads in their actual form hardly date farther than the
thirteenth or fourteenth century, some of them are undoubtedly connected
with very ancient traditions, and nothing here points to a borrowing
from Genesis.
"But it is not so, perhaps, with another triad, speaking of the vessel
Nefyddnaf-Neifion, which at the time of the overflow of Llyon-llion,
bore a pair of all living creatures, and rather too much resembles the
ark of Noah. The very name of the patriarch may have suggested this
triple epithet, obscure as to its meaning, but evidently formed on the
principle of Cymric alliteration. In the same triad we have the
enigmatic story of the horned oxen (ychain banog) of Hu the mighty, who
drew out of Llyon-llion the avanc (beaver or crocodile?), in order that
the lake should not overflow. The meaning of these enigmas could only be
hoped from deciphering the chaos of barbaric monuments of the Welsh
middle age; but meanwhile we cannot doubt that the Cymri possessed an
indigenous tradition of the Deluge."
We also find a vestige of the same tradition in the Scandinavian Ealda.
Here the story is combined with a cosmogonic myth. The three sons of
Borr--Othin, Wili, and We--grandsons of Buri, the first man, slay Ymir,
the father of the Hrimthursar, or ice giants, and his body serves them
for the construction of the world. Blood flows from his wounds in such
abundance that all the race of giants is drowned in it except Bergelmir,
who saves himself, with his wife, in a boat, and reproduces the race.
In the Edda of Sœmund, "The Vala's Prophecy" (stz. 48-56, p. 9), we seem
to catch traditional glimpses of a terrible catastrophe, which reminds
us of the Chaldean legend:
"Then trembles Yggdrasil's ash yet standing, groans that ancient tree,
and the Jötun Loki is loosed. The shadows groan on the ways of Hel (the
goddess of death), until the fire of Surt has consumed the tree. Hyrm
steers from the east, the waters rise, the mundane snake is coiled in
jötun-rage. The worm beats the water and the eagle screams; the pale of
beak tears carcasses; (the ship) Naglfar is loosed. Surt from the south
comes with flickering flame; shines from his sword the Valgod's sun. The
stony hills are dashed together, the giantesses totter; men tread the
path of Hel, and heaven is cloven. The sun darkens, earth in ocean
sinks, fall from heaven the bright stars, fire's breath assails the
all-nourishing, towering fire plays against heaven itself."
Egypt does not contain a single allusion to the Flood. Lenormant says:
"While the tradition of the Deluge holds so considerable a place in the
legendary memories of all branches of the Aryan race, the monuments and
original texts of Egypt, with their many cosmogonic speculations, have
not afforded one, even distant, allusion to this cataclysm. When the
Greeks told the Egyptian priests of the Deluge of Deucalion, their reply
was that they had been preserved from it as well as from the
conflagration produced by Phaëthon; they even added that the Hellenes
were childish in attaching so much importance to that event, as there
had been several other local catastrophes resembling it. According to a
passage in Manetho, much suspected, however, of being an interpolation,
Thoth, or Hermes Trismegistus, had himself, before the cataclysm,
inscribed on stelæ, in hieroglyphical and sacred language, the
principles of all knowledge. After it the second Thoth translated into
the vulgar tongue the contents of these stelæ. This would be the only
Egyptian mention of the Deluge, the same Manetho not speaking of it in
what remains to us of his 'Dynasties,' his only complete authentic work.
The silence of all other myths of the Pharaonic religion on this head
render it very likely that the above is merely a foreign tradition,
recently introduced, and no doubt of Asiatic and Chaldean origin."
To my mind the explanation of this singular omission is very plain. The
Egyptians had preserved in their annals the precise history of the
destruction of Atlantis, out of which the Flood legends grew; and, as
they told the Greeks, there had been no universal flood, but only local
catastrophes. Possessing the real history of the local catastrophe which
destroyed Atlantis, they did not indulge in any myths about a universal
deluge covering the mountain-tops of all the world. They had no Ararat
in their neighborhood.
The traditions of the early Christian ages touching the Deluge pointed
to the quarter of the world in which Atlantis was situated.
There was a quaint old monk named Cosmos, who, about one thousand years
ago, published a book, "Topographia Christiana," accompanied by a map,
in which he gives his view of the world as it was then understood. It
was a body surrounded by water, and resting on nothing. "The earth,"
says Cosmos, "presses downward, but the igneous parts tend upward," and
between the conflicting forces the earth hangs suspended, like
Mohammed's coffin in the old story. The accompanying illustration (page
95) represents the earth surrounded by the ocean, and beyond this ocean
was "the land where men dwelt before the Deluge."
He then gives us a more accurate map, in detail, of the known world of
his day.
I copy this map, not to show how much more we know than poor Cosmos, but
because be taught that all around this habitable world there was yet
another world, adhering closely on all sides to the circumscribing walls
of heaven. "Upon the eastern side of this transmarine land he judges man
was created; and that there the paradise of gladness was located, such
as here on the eastern edge is described, where it received our first
parents, driven out of Paradise to that extreme point of land on the
sea-shore. Hence, upon the coming of the Deluge, Noah and his sons were
borne by the ark to the earth we now inhabit. The four rivers he
supposes to be gushing up the spouts of Paradise." They are depicted on
the above map: O is the Mediterranean Sea; P, the Arabian Gulf; L, the
Caspian Sea; Q, the Tigris; M, the river Pison; "and J, the land where
men dwelt before the Flood."
It will be observed that, while he locates Paradise in the east, he
places the scene of the Deluge in the west; and he supposes that Noah
came from the scene of the Deluge to Europe.
This shows that the traditions in the time of Cosmos looked to the west
as the place of the Deluge, and that after the Deluge Noah came to the
shores of the Mediterranean. The fact, too, that there was land in the
west beyond the ocean is recognized by Cosmos, and is probably a dim
echo from Atlantean times.
MAP OF EUROPE, AFTER COSMOS
The following rude cut, from Cosmos, represents the high mountain in the
north behind which the sun hid himself at night, thus producing the
alternations of day and night. His solar majesty is just getting behind
the mountain, while Luna looks calmly on at the operation. The mountain
is as crooked as Culhuacan, the crooked mountain of Atzlan described by
the Aztecs.
THE MOUNTAIN THE SUN GOES BEHIND AT NIGHT
CHAPTER V
THE DELUGE LEGENDS OF AMERICA.
"It is a very remarkable fact," says Alfred Maury, "that we find in
America traditions of the Deluge coming infinitely nearer to that of the
Bible and the Chaldean religion than among any people of the Old World.
It is difficult to suppose that the emigration that certainly took place
from Asia into North America by the Kourile and Aleutian Islands, and
still does so in our day, should have brought in these memories, since
no trace is found of them among those Mongol or Siberian populations
which were fused with the natives of the New World. . . . The attempts
that have been made to trace the origin of Mexican civilization to Asia
have not as vet led to any sufficiently conclusive facts. Besides, had
Buddhism, which we doubt, made its way into America, it could not have
introduced a myth not found in its own scriptures. The cause of these
similarities between the diluvian traditions of the nations of the New
World and that of the Bible remains therefore unexplained."
The cause of these similarities can be easily explained: the legends of
the Flood did not pass into America by way of the Aleutian Islands, or
through the Buddhists of Asia, but were derived from an actual knowledge
of Atlantis possessed by the people of America.
Atlantis and the western continent had from an immemorial age held
intercourse with each other: the great nations of America were simply
colonies from Atlantis, sharing in its civilization, language, religion,
and blood. From Mexico to the peninsula of Yucatan, from the shores of
Brazil to the heights of Bolivia and Peru, from the Gulf of Mexico to
the head-waters of the Mississippi River, the colonies of Atlantis
extended; and therefore it is not strange to find, as Alfred Maury says,
American traditions of the Deluge coming nearer to that of the Bible and
the Chaldean record than those of any people of the Old World.
"The most important among the American traditions are the Mexican, for
they appear to have been definitively fixed by symbolic and mnemonic
paintings before any contact with Europeans. According to these
documents, the Noah of the Mexican cataclysm was Coxcox, called by
certain peoples Teocipactli or Tezpi. He had saved himself, together
with his wife Xochiquetzal, in a bark, or, according to other
traditions, on a raft made of cypress-wood (Cupressus disticha).
Paintings retracing the deluge of Coxcox have been discovered among the
Aztecs, Miztecs, Zapotecs, Tlascaltecs, and Mechoacaneses. The tradition
of the latter is still more strikingly in conformity with the story as
we have it in Genesis, and in Chaldean sources. It tells how Tezpi
embarked in a spacious vessel with his wife, his children, and several
animals, and grain, whose preservation was essential to the subsistence
of the human race. When the great god Tezcatlipoca decreed that the
waters should retire, Tezpi sent a vulture from the bark. The bird,
feeding on the carcasses with which the earth was laden, did not return.
Tezpi sent out other birds, of which the humming-bird only came back
with a leafy branch in its beak. Then Tezpi, seeing that the country
began to vegetate, left his bark on the mountain of Colhuacan.
"The document, however, that gives the most valuable information," says
Lenormant, "as to the cosmogony of the Mexicans is one known as 'Codex
Vaticanus,' from the library where it is preserved. It consists of four
symbolic pictures, representing the four ages of the world preceding the
actual one. They were copied at Chobula from a manuscript anterior to
the conquest, and accompanied by the explanatory commentary of Pedro de
los Rios, a Dominican monk, who, in 1566, less than fifty years after
the arrival of Cortez, devoted himself to the research of indigenous
traditions as being necessary to his missionary work."
There were, according to this document, four ages of the world. The
first was an age of giants (the great mammalia?) who were destroyed by
famine; the second age ended in a conflagration; the third age was an
age of monkeys.
"Then comes the fourth age, Atonatiuh, 'Sun of Water,' whose number is
10 X 400 + 8, or 4008. It ends by a great inundation, a veritable
deluge. All mankind are changed into fish, with the exception of one man
and his wife, who save themselves in a bark made of the trunk of a
cypress-tree. The picture represents Matlalcueye, goddess of waters, and
consort of Tlaloc, god of rain, as darting down toward earth. Coxcox and
Xochiquetzal, the two human beings preserved, are seen seated on a
tree-trunk and floating in the midst of the waters. This flood is
represented as the last cataclysm that devastates the earth."
The learned Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg translates from the Aztec
language of the "Codex Chimalpopoca" the following Flood legend:
"This is the sun called Nahui-atl, '4 water.' Now the water was tranquil
for forty years, plus twelve, and men lived for the third and fourth
times. When the sun Nahui-atl came there had passed away four hundred
years, plus two ages, plus seventy-six years. Then all mankind was lost
and drowned, and found themselves changed into fish. The sky came nearer
the water. In a single day all was lost, and the day Nahui-xochitl, '4
flower,' destroyed all our flesh.
"And that year was that of cé-calli, '1 house,' and the day Nahui-atl
all was lost. Even the mountains sunk into the water, and the water
remained tranquil for fifty-two springs.
"Now at the end of the year the god Titlacahuan had warned Nata and his
spouse Nena, saying, 'Make no more wine of Agave, but begin to hollow
out a great cypress, and you will enter into it when in the month
Tozontli the water approaches the sky.'
"Then they entered in, and when the god had closed the door, he said,
'Thou shalt eat but one ear of maize, and thy wife one also.'
"But as soon as they had finished they went out, and the water remained
calm, for the wood no longer moved, and, on opening it, they began to
see fish.
"Then they lit a fire, by rubbing together pieces of wood, and they
roasted fish.
"The gods Citlallinicué and Citlalatonac, instantly looking down said:
'Divine Lord, what is that fire that is making there? Why do they thus
smoke the sky?' At once Titlacahuan-Tezcatlipoca descended. He began to
chide, saying, 'Who has made this fire here?' And, seizing hold of the
fish, he shaped their loins and heads, and they were transformed into
dogs (chichime)."
Here we note a remarkable approximation to Plato's account of the
destruction of Atlantis. "In one day and one fatal night," says Plato,
"there came mighty earthquakes and inundations that ingulfed that
warlike people." "In a single day all was lost," says the Aztec legend.
And, instead of a rainfall of forty days and forty nights, as
represented in the Bible, here we see "in a single day. . . even the
mountains sunk into the water;" not only the land on which the people
dwelt who were turned into fish, but the very mountains of that land
sunk into the water. Does not this describe the fate of Atlantis? In the
Chaldean legend "the great goddess Ishtar wailed like a child," saying,
"I am the mother who gave birth to men, and, like to the race of fishes,
they are filling the sea."
In the account in Genesis, Noah "builded an altar unto the Lord, and
took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt
offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savor; and the Lord
said in his heart, 'I will not again curse the ground any more for man's
sake.'" In the Chaldean legend we are told that Khasisatra also offered
a sacrifice, a burnt offering, "and the gods assembled like flies above
the master of the sacrifice." But Bel came in a high state of
indignation, just as the Aztec god did, and was about to finish the work
of the Deluge, when the great god Ea took ''pity in his heart and
interfered to save the remnant of mankind.
These resemblances cannot be accidental; neither can they be the
interpolations of Christian missionaries, for it will be observed the
Aztec legends differ from the Bible in points where they resemble on the
one hand Plato's record, and on the other the Chaldean legend.
The name of the hero of the Aztec story, Nata, pronounced with the broad
sound of the a, is not far from the name of Noah or Noe. The Deluge of
Genesis is a Phœnician, Semitic, or Hebraic legend, and yet, strange to
say, the name of Noah, which occurs in it, bears no appropriate meaning
in those tongues, but is derived from Aryan sources; its fundamental
root is Na, to which in all the Aryan language is attached the meaning
of water--{Greek} na'ein, to flow; {Greek} na~ma, water; Nympha,
Neptunus, water deities. (Lenormant and Chevallier, "Anc. Hist. of the
East," vol. i., p. 15.) We find the root Na repeated in the name of this
Central American Noah, Na-ta, and probably in the word "Na-hui-atl"--the
age of water.
But still more striking analogies exist between the Chaldean legend and
the story of the Deluge as told in the "Popul Vuh" (the Sacred Book) of
the Central Americans:
"Then the waters were agitated by the will of the Heart of Heaven
(Hurakan), and a great inundation came upon the heads of these
creatures. . . . They were ingulfed, and a resinous thickness descended
from heaven; . . . the face of the earth was obscured, and a heavy
darkening rain commenced-rain by day and rain by night. . . . There was
beard a great noise above their heads, as if produced by fire. Then were
men seen running, pushing each other, filled with despair; they wished
to climb upon their houses, and the houses, tumbling down, fell to the
ground; they wished to climb upon the trees, and the trees shook them
off; they wished to enter into the grottoes (eaves), and the grottoes
closed themselves before them. . . . Water and fire contributed to the
universal ruin at the time of the last great cataclysm which preceded
the fourth creation."
Observe the similarities here to the Chaldean legend. There is the same
graphic description of a terrible event. The "black cloud" is referred
to in both instances; also the dreadful noises. the rising water, the
earthquake rocking the trees, overthrowing the houses, and crushing even
the mountain caverns; "the men running and pushing each other, filled
with despair," says the "Popul Vuh;" "the brother no longer saw his
brother," says the Assyrian legend.
And here I may note that this word hurakan--the spirit of the abyss, the
god of storm, the hurricane--is very suggestive, and testifies to an
early intercourse between the opposite shores of the Atlantic. We find
in Spanish the word huracan; in Portuguese, furacan; in French, ouragan;
in German, Danish, and Swedish, orcan--all of them signifying a storm;
while in Latin furo, or furio, means to rage. And are not the old
Swedish hurra, to be driven along; our own word hurried; the Icelandic
word hurra, to be rattled over frozen ground, all derived from the same
root from which the god of the abyss, Hurakan, obtained his name? The
last thing a people forgets is the name of their god; we retain to this
day, in the names of the days of the week, the designations of four
Scandinavian gods and one Roman deity.
It seems to me certain the above are simply two versions of the same
event; that while ships from Atlantis carried terrified passengers to
tell the story of the dreadful catastrophe to the people of the
Mediterranean shores, other ships, flying from the tempest, bore similar
awful tidings to the civilized races around the Gulf of Mexico.
The native Mexican historian, Ixtlilxochitl, gave this as the Toltec
legend of the Flood:
It is found in the histories of the Toltecs that this age and first
world, as they call it, lasted 1716 years; that men were destroyed by
tremendous rains and lightning from the sky, and even all the land,
without the exception of anything, and the highest mountains, were
covered up and submerged in water fifteen cubits (caxtolmolatli); and
here they added other fables of how men came to multiply from the few
who escaped from this destruction in a "toptlipetlocali;" that this word
nearly signifies a close chest; and how, after men had multiplied, they
erected a very high "zacuali," which is to-day a tower of great height,
in order to take refuge in it should the second world (age) be
destroyed. Presently their languages were confused, and, not being able
to understand each other, they went to different parts of the earth.
"The Toltecs, consisting of seven friends, with their wives, who
understood the same language, came to these parts, having first passed
great land and seas, having lived in caves, and having endured great
hardships in order to reach this land; . . . they wandered 104 years
through different parts of the world before they reached Hue Hue
Tlapalan, which was in Ce Tecpatl, 520 years after the Flood."
("Ixtlilxochitl Relaciones," in Kingsborough's "Mex. Ant.," vol. ix.,
pp. 321, 322.)
It will of course be said that this account, in those particulars where
it agrees with the Bible, was derived from the teachings of the Spanish
priests; but it must be remembered that Ixtlilxochitl was an Indian, a
native of Tezeuco, a son of the queen, and that his "Relaciones" were
drawn from the archives of his family and the ancient writings of his
nation: he had no motive to falsify documents that were probably in the
hands of hundreds at that time.
Here we see that the depth of the water over the earth, "fifteen
cubits," given in the Toltec legend, is precisely the same as that named
in the Bible: "fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail." (Gen.,
chap. vii., 20.)
In the two curious picture-histories of the Aztecs preserved in the
Boturini collection, and published by Gamelli Careri and others, there
is a record of their migrations from their original location through
various parts of the North American continent until their arrival in
Mexico. In both cases their starting-point is an island, from which they
pass in a boat; and the island contains in one case a mountain, and in
the other a high temple in the midst thereof. These things seem to be
reminiscences of their origin in Atlantis.
In each case we see the crooked mountain of the Aztec legends, the
Calhuacan, looking not unlike the bent mountain of the monk, Cosmos.
In the legends of the Chibchas of Bogota we seem to have distinct
reminiscences of Atlantis. Bochica was their leading divinity. During
two thousand years he employed himself in elevating his subjects. He
lived in the sun, while his wife Chia occupied the moon. This would
appear to be an allusion to the worship of the sun and moon. Beneath
Bochica in their mythology was Chibchacum. In an angry mood he brought a
deluge on the people of the table-land. Bochica punished him for this
act, and obliged him ever after, like Atlas, to bear the burden of the
earth on his back. Occasionally be shifts the earth from one shoulder to
another, and this causes earthquakes!
Here we have allusions to an ancient people who, during thousands of
years, were elevated in the scale of civilization, and were destroyed by
a deluge; and with this is associated an Atlantean god bearing the world
on his back. We find even the rainbow appearing in connection with this
legend. When Bochica appeared in answer to prayer to quell the deluge he
is seated on a rainbow. He opened a breach in the earth at Tequendama,
through which the waters of the flood escaped, precisely as we have seen
them disappearing through the crevice in the earth near Bambyce, in
Greece.
The Toltecs traced their migrations back to a starting-point called
"Aztlan," or "Atlan." This could be no other than, Atlantis. (Bancroft's
"Native Races," vol. v., p. 221.) "The original home of the Nahuatlacas
was Aztlan, the location of which has been the subject of much
discussion. The causes that led to their exodus from that country can
only be conjectured; but they may be supposed to have been driven out by
their enemies, for Aztlan is described as a land too fair and beautiful
to be left willingly in the mere hope of finding a better." (Bancroft's
"Native Races," vol. v., p. .306.) The Aztecs also claimed to have come
originally from Aztlan. (Ibid., p. 321.) Their very name, Aztecs, was
derived from Aztlan. (Ibid., vol. ii., p. 125). They were Atlanteans.
The "Popul Vuh" tells us that after the migration from Aztlan three sons
of the King of the Quiches, upon the death of their father, "determined
to go as their fathers had ordered to the East, on the shores of the sea
whence their fathers had come, to receive the royalty, 'bidding adieu to
their brothers and friends, and promising to return.' Doubtless they
passed over the sea when they went to the East to receive the royalty.
Now this is the name of the lord, of the monarch of the people of the
East where they went. And when they arrived before the lord Nacxit, the
name of the great lord, the only judge, whose power was without limit,
behold he granted them the sign of royalty and all that represents it .
. . and the insignia of royalty . . . all the things, in fact, which
they brought on their return, and which they went to receive from the
other side of the sea--the art of painting from Tulan, a system of
writing, they said, for the things recorded in their histories."
(Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. v., p. 553 "Popul Vuh," p. 294.)
This legend not only points to the East as the place of origin of these
races, but also proves that this land of the East, this Aztlan, this
Atlantis, exercised dominion over the colonies in Central America, and
furnished them with the essentials of civilization. How completely does
this agree with the statement of Plato that the kings of Atlantis held
dominion over parts of "the great opposite continent!"
Professor Valentini ("Maya Archæol.," p. 23) describes an Aztec picture
in the work of Gemelli ("Il giro del mondo," vol. vi.) of the migration
of the Aztecs from Aztlan:
"Out of a sheet of water there projects the peak of a mountain; on it
stands a tree, and on the tree a bird spreads its .wings. At the foot of
the mountain-peak there comes out of the water the heads of a man and a
woman. The one wears on his head the symbol of his name, Coxcox, a
pheasant. The other head bears that of a hand with a bouquet (xochitl, a
flower, and quetzal, shining in green gold). In the foreground is a
boat, out of which a naked man stretches out his hand imploringly to
heaven. Now turn to the sculpture in the Flood tablet (on the great
Calendar stone). There you will find represented the Flood, and with
great emphasis, by the accumulation of all those symbols with which the
ancient Mexicans conveyed the idea of water: a tub of standing water,
drops springing out--not two, as heretofore in the symbol for Atl,
water--but four drops; the picture for moisture, a snail; above, a
crocodile, the king of the rivers. In the midst of these symbols you
notice the profile of a man with a fillet, and a smaller one of a woman.
There can be doubt these are the Mexican Noah, Coxcox, and his wife,
Xochiquetzal; and at the same time it is evident (the Calendar stone, we
know, was made in A.D., 1478) that the story of them, and the pictures
representing the story, have not been invented by the Catholic clergy,
but really existed among these nations long before the Conquest."
The above figure represents the Flood tablet on the great Calendar stone.
When we turn to the uncivilized Indians of America, while we still find
legends referring to the Deluge, they are, with one exception, in such
garbled and uncouth forms that we can only see glimpses of the truth
shining through a mass of fable.
The following tradition was current among the Indians of the Great Lakes:
"In former times the father of the Indian tribes dwelt toward the rising
sun. Having been warned in a dream that a deluge was coming upon the
earth, be built a raft, on which be saved himself, with his family and
all the animals. He floated thus for several months. The animals, who at
that time spoke, loudly complained and murmured against him. At last a
new earth appeared, on which he landed with all the animals, who from
that time lost the power of speech, as a punishment for their murmurs
against their deliverer."
According to Father Charlevoix, the tribes of Canada and the valley of
the Mississippi relate in their rude legends that all mankind was
destroyed by a flood, and that the Good Spirit, to repeople the earth,
had changed animals into men. It is to J. S. Kohl we owe our
acquaintance with the version of the Chippeways--full of grotesque and
perplexing touches--in which the man saved from the Deluge is called
Menaboshu. To know if the earth be drying, he sends a bird, the diver,
out of his bark; then becomes the restorer of the human race and the
founder of existing society.
A clergyman who visited the Indians north-west of the Ohio in 1764 met,
at a treaty, a party of Indians from the west of the Mississippi.
"They informed him that one of their most ancient traditions was that, a
great while ago, they had a common father, who lived toward the rising
of the sun, and governed the whole world; that all the white people's
heads were under his feet; that he had twelve sons, by whom he
administered the government; that the twelve sons behaved very bad, and
tyrannized over the people, abusing their power; that the Great Spirit,
being thus angry with them, suffered the white people to introduce
spirituous liquors among them, made them drunk, stole the special gift
of the Great Spirit from them, and by this means usurped power over
them; and ever since the Indians' heads were under the white people's
feet." (Boudinot's "Star in the West," p. 111.)
Here we note that they looked "toward the rising sun"--toward
Atlantis--for the original home of their race; that this region governed
"the whole world;" that it contained white people, who were at first a
subject race, but who subsequently rebelled, and acquired dominion over
the darker races. We will see reason hereafter to conclude that Atlantis
had a composite population, and that the rebellion of the Titans in
Greek mythology was the rising up of a subject population.
In 1836 C. S. Rafinesque published in Philadelphia, Pa., a work called
"The American Nations," in which he gives the historical songs or chants
of the Lenni-Lenapi, or Delaware Indians, the tribe that originally
dwelt along, the Delaware River. After describing a time "when there was
nothing but sea-water on top of the land," and the creation of sun,
moon, stars, earth, and man, the legend depicts the Golden Age and the
Fall in these words: "All were willingly pleased, all were
easy-thinking, and all were well-happified. But after a while a
snake-priest, Powako, brings on earth secretly the snake-worship
(Initako) of the god of the snakes, Wakon. And there came wickedness,
crime, and unhappiness. And bad weather was coming, distemper was
coming, with death was coming. All this happened very long ago, at the
first land, Netamaki, beyond the great ocean Kitahikau." Then follows
the Song of the Flood:
"There was, long ago, a powerful snake, Maskanako, when the men had
become bad beings, Makowini. This strong snake had become the foe of the
Jins, and they became troubled, hating each other. Both were fighting,
both were, spoiling, both were never peaceful. And they were fighting,
least man Mattapewi with dead-keeper Nihaulowit. And the strong snake
readily resolved to destroy or fight the beings or the men. The dark
snake he brought, the monster (Amanyam) he brought, snake-rushing water
he brought (it). Much water is rushing, much go to hills, much
penetrate, much destroying. Meanwhile at Tula (this is the same Tula
referred to in the Central American legends), at THAT ISLAND, Nana-Bush
(the great hare Nana) becomes the ancestor of beings and men. Being born
creeping, he is ready to move and dwell at Tula. The beings and men all
go forth from the flood creeping in shallow water or swimming afloat,
asking which is the way to the turtle-back, Tula-pin. But there are many
monsters in the way, and some men were devoured by them. But the
daughter of a spirit helped them in a boat, saying, 'Come, come;' they
were coming and were helped. The name of the boat or raft is Mokol. . .
. Water running off, it is drying; in the plains and the mountains, at
the path of the cave, elsewhere went the powerful action or motion."
Then follows Song 3, describing the condition of mankind after the
Flood. Like the Aryans, they moved into a cold country: "It freezes was
there; it snows was there; it is cold was there." They move to a milder
region to hunt cattle; they divided their forces into tillers and
hunters. "The good and the holy were the hunters;" they spread
themselves north, south, east, and west." Meantime all the snakes were
afraid in their huts, and the Snake-priest Nakopowa said to all, 'Let us
go.' Eastwardly they go forth at Snakeland (Akhokink), and they went
away earnestly grieving." Afterward the fathers of the Delawares, who
"were always boating and navigating," find that the Snake-people have
taken possession of a fine country; and they collect together the people
from north, south, east, and west, and attempt "to pass over the waters
of the frozen sea to possess that land." They seem to travel in the dark
of an Arctic winter until they come to a gap of open sea. They can go no
farther; but some tarry at Firland, while the rest return to where they
started from, "the old turtle land."
Here we find that the land that was destroyed was the "first land;" that
it was an island "beyond the great ocean." In all early age the people
were happy and peaceful; they became wicked; "snake worship" was
introduced, and was associated, as in Genesis, with the "fall of man;"
Nana-Bush became the ancestor of the new race; his name reminds us of
the Toltec Nata and the Hebrew Noah. After the flood came a dispersing
of the people, and a separation into hunters and tillers of the soil.
Among the Mandan Indians we not only find flood legends, but, more
remarkable still, we find an image of the ark preserved from generation
to generation, and a religious ceremony performed which refers plainly
to the destruction of Atlantis, and to the arrival of one of those who
escaped from the Flood, bringing the dreadful tidings of the disaster.
It must be remembered, as we will show hereafter, that many of these
Mandan Indians were white men, with hazel, gray, and blue eyes, and all
shades of color of the hair from black to pure white; that they dwelt in
houses in fortified towns, and manufactured earthen-ware pots in which
they could boil water--an art unknown to the ordinary Indians, who
boiled water by putting heated stones into it.
I quote the very interesting account of George Catlin, who visited the
Mandans nearly fifty years ago, lately republished in London in the
"North American Indians," a very curious and valuable work. He says
(vol. i., p. 88):
"In the centre of the village is an open space, or public square, 150
feet in diameter and circular in form, which is used for all public
games and festivals, shows and exhibitions. The lodges around this open
space front in, with their doors toward. the centre; and in the middle
of this stands an object of great religious veneration, on account of
the importance it has in connection with the annual religious
ceremonies. This object is in the form of a large hogshead, some eight
or ten feet high, made of planks and hoops, containing within it some of
their choicest mysteries or medicines. They call it the 'Big Canoe.'"
This is a representation of the ark; the ancient Jews venerated a
similar image, and some of the ancient Greek States followed in
processions a model of the ark of Deucalion. But it is indeed surprising
to find this practice perpetuated, even to our own times, by a race of
Indians in the heart of America. On page 158 of the first volume of the
same work Catlin describes the great annual mysteries and religious
ceremonials of which this image of the ark was the centre. He says:
"On the day set apart for the commencement of the ceremonies a solitary
figure is seen approaching the village.
"During the deafening din and confusion within the pickets of the
village the figure discovered on the prairie continued to approach with
a dignified step, and in a right line toward the village; all eyes were
upon him, and he at length made his appearance within the pickets, and
proceeded toward the centre of the village, where all the chiefs and
braves stood ready to receive him, which they did in a cordial manner by
shaking hands, recognizing him as an old acquaintance, and pronouncing
his name, Nu-mohk-muck-a-nah (the first or only man). The body of this
strange personage, which was chiefly naked, was painted with white clay,
so as to resemble at a distance a white man. He enters the medicine
lodge, and goes through certain mysterious ceremonies.
"During the whole of this day Nu-mohk-muck-a-nah (the first or only man)
travelled through the village, stopping in front of each man's lodge,
and crying until the owner of the lodge came out and asked who he was,
and what was the matter? To which be replied by narrating the sad
catastrophe which had happened on the earth's surface by the overflowing
of the waters, saying that 'he was the only person saved from the
universal calamity; that he landed his big canoe on a high mountain in
the west, where he now resides; that be has come to open the medicine
lodge, which must needs receive a present of an edged tool from the
owner of every wigwam, that it may be sacrificed to the water; for,' he
says, 'if this is not done there will be another flood, and no one will
be saved, as it was with such tools that the big canoe was made.'
"Having visited every lodge in the village during the day, and having
received such a present from each as a hatchet, a knife, etc. (which is
undoubtedly always prepared ready for the occasion), be places them in
the medicine lodge; and, on the last day of the ceremony, they are
thrown into a deep place in the river--'sacrificed to the Spirit of the
Waters."'
Among the sacred articles kept in the great medicine lodge are four
sacks of water, called Eeh-teeh-ka, sewed together, each of them in the
form of a tortoise lying on its back, with a bunch of eagle feathers
attached to its tail. "These four tortoises," they told me, "contained
the waters from the four quarters of the world--that those waters had
been contained therein ever since the settling down of the waters," "I
did not," says Catlin, who knew nothing of an Atlantis theory, "think it
best to advance anything against such a ridiculous belief." Catlin tried
to purchase one of these water-sacks, but could not obtain it for any
price; he was told they were "a society property."
He then describes a dance by twelve men around the ark: "They arrange
themselves according to the four cardinal points; two are painted
perfectly black, two are vermilion color, some were painted partially
white. They dance a dance called Bel-lohck-na-pie,'" with horns on their
heads, like those used in Europe as symbolical of Bel, or Baal.
Could anything be more evident than the connection of these ceremonies
with the destruction of Atlantis? Here we have the image of the ark;
here we have a white man coming with the news that "the waters had
overflowed the land," and that all the people were destroyed except
himself; here we have the sacrifice to appease the spirit that caused
the Flood, just as we find the Flood terminating, in the Hebrew,
Chaldean, and Central American legends, with a sacrifice. Here, too, we
have the image of the tortoise, which we find in other flood legends of
the Indians, and which is a very natural symbol for an island. As one of
our own poets has expressed it,
"Very fair and full of promise
Lay the island of St. Thomas;
Like a great green turtle slumbered
On the sea which it encumbered."
Here we have, too, the four quarters of Atlantis, divided by its four
rivers, as we shall see a little farther on, represented in a dance,
where the dancers arrange themselves according to the four cardinal
points of the compass; the dancers are painted to represent the black
and red races, while "the first and only man" represents the white race;
and the name of the dance is a reminiscence of Baal, the ancient god of
the races derived from Atlantis.
But this is not all. The Mandans were evidently of the race of Atlantis.
They have another singular legend, which we find in the account of Lewis
and Clarke:
"Their belief in a future state is connected with this theory of their
origin: The whole nation resided in one large village, underground, near
a subterranean lake. A grape-vine extended its roots down to their
habitation, and gave them a view of the light. Some of the most
adventurous climbed up the vine, and were delighted with the sight of
the earth, which they found covered with buffalo, and rich with every
kind of fruit. Returning with the grapes they had gathered, their
countrymen were so pleased with the taste of them that the whole nation
resolved to leave their dull residence for the charms of the upper
region. Men, women, and children ascended by means of the vine, but,
when about half the nation had reached the surface of the earth, a
corpulent woman, who was clambering up the vine, broke it with her
weight, and closed upon herself and the rest of the nation the light of
the sun."
This curious tradition means. that the present nation dwelt in a large
settlement underground, that is, beyond the land, in the sea; the sea
being represented by "the subterranean lake." At one time the people had
free intercourse between this "large village" and the American
continent, and they founded extensive colonies on this continent;
whereupon some mishap cut them off from the mother country. This
explanation is confirmed by the fact that in the legends of the Iowa
Indians, who were a branch of the Dakotas, or Sioux Indians, and
relatives of the Mandans (according to Major James W. Lynd), "all the
tribes of Indians were formerly one, and all dwelt together on an
island, or at least across a large water toward the east or sunrise.
They crossed this water in skin canoes, or by swimming; but they know
not how long they were in crossing, or whether the water was salt or
fresh." While the Dakotas, according to Major Lynd, who lived among them
for nine years, possessed legends of "huge skiffs, in which the Dakotas
of old floated for weeks, finally gaining dry land"--a reminiscence of
ships and long sea-voyages.
The Mandans celebrated their great religious festival above described in
the season when the willow is first in leaf, and a dove is mixed up in
the ceremonies; and they further relate a legend that "the world was
once a great tortoise, borne on the waters, and covered with earth, and
that when one day, in digging the soil, a tribe of white men, who had
made holes in the earth to a great depth digging for badgers, at length
pierced the shell of the tortoise, it sank, and the water covering it
drowned all men with the exception of one, who saved himself in a boat;
and when the earth re-emerged, sent out a dove, who returned with a
branch of willow in its beak."
The holes dug to find badgers were a savage's recollection of mining
operations; and when the great disaster came, and the island sunk in the
sea amid volcanic convulsions, doubtless men said it was due to the deep
mines, which had opened the way to the central fires. But the recurrence
of "white men" as the miners, and of a white man as "the last and only
man," and the presence of white blood in the veins of the people, all
point to the same conclusion--that the Mandans were colonists from
Atlantis.
And here I might add that Catlin found the following singular
resemblances between the Mandan tongue and the Welsh:
+----------------------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| English. | Mandan. | Welsh. | Pronounced. |
+----------------------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| I | Me. | Mi. | Me. |
+----------------------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| You. | Ne. | Chwi. | Chwe. |
+----------------------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| He. | E. | A. | A. |
+----------------------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| She. | Ea. | E. | A. |
+----------------------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| It. | Ount. | Hwynt. | Hooynt. |
+----------------------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| We. | Noo. | Ni. | Ne. |
+----------------------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| They. | Eonah. | Hona, fem. | Hona. |
+----------------------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| No; or there is not. | Megosh. | Nagoes. | Nagosh. |
+----------------------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| No. | | Na. | |
+----------------------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| Head. | Pan. | Pen. | Pan. |
+----------------------+--------------+------------+-------------+
| The Great Spirit. | Maho Peneta. | Mawr | Mosoor |
| | | Penæthir. | Panæther. |
+----------------------+--------------+------------+-------------+
Major Lynd found the following resemblances between the Dakota tongue
and the languages of the Old World:
COMPARISON OF DAKOTA, OR SIOUX, WITH OTHER LANGUAGES.
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Latin. | English. | Saxon | Sanscrit. | German. | Danish. | Sioux. | Other | Primary |
| | | | | | | | Languages. | Signification. |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | See, | Seon | | Sehen | Sigt | Sin | | Appearing, |
| | seen | | | | | | | visible. |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Pinso | Pound | Punian | | | | Pau | W., | Beating |
| | | | | | | | Pwynian | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Vado | Went | Wendan | | | | Winta | | Passage. |
| | Wend | | | | | | | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Town | Tun | | Zaun | Tun | Tonwe | Gaelic, | |
| | | | | | | | Dun | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Qui | Who | Hwa | Kwas | Wir | | Tuwe | | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Weapon | Wepn | | Wapen | Vaapen | Wipe | | Sioux dimin. |
| | | | | | | | | Wipena |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Ego | I | Ic | Agam | Ich | Jeg | Mish | | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Cor | Core | | | | | Co | Gr., Kear | Centre, heart |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Eight | Achta | Aute | Acht | Otte | Shaktogan | Gr., Okto | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Canna | Cane | | | | | Can | Heb., Can | Reed, weed, |
| | | | | | | | W., Cawn | wood. |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Pock | Pock | Poc | | Pocke | Pukkel | Poka | Dutch, | Swelling. |
| | | | | | | | Poca | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | With | With | | Wider | | Wita | Goth., | |
| | | | | | | | Gewithan. | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Doughty | Dohtig | | Taugen | Digtig | Dita | | Hot, brave, |
| | | | | | | Ditaya | | daring. |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Tight | Tian | | Dicht | Digt | Titan | | Strain. |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Tango | Touch | Taecan | | Ticken | Tekkan | Tan | | Touch, take. |
| Tactus | Take | | | | | Htaka | | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Child | Cild | | Kind | Kuld | Cin | | Progeny. |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Work | Wercan | | | | Woccas | Dutch, | Labor, motion. |
| | | | | | | Hecon | Werk | |
| | | | | | | | Span., | |
| | | | | | | | Hecho | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| | Shackle | Seoacul | | | | Shka | Ar., | to bind (a |
| | | | | | | | Schakala, | link). |
| | | | | | | | Dutch, | |
| | | | | | | | Schakel | |
| | | | | | | | Teton, | |
| | | | | | | | Shakalan | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Query | | | | | | Kuiva | | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
| Shabby | | | | Schabig | Schabbig | Shabya | | |
+--------+----------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+-----------+------------+----------------+
According to Major Lynd, the Dakotas, or Sioux, belonged to the same
race as the Mandans; hence the interest which attaches to these verbal
similarities.
"Among the Iroquois there is a tradition that the sea and waters
infringed upon the land, so that all human life was destroyed. The
Chickasaws assert that the world was once destroyed by water, but that
one family was saved, and two animals of every kind. The Sioux say there
was a time when there was no dry land, and all men had disappeared from
existence." (See Lynd's "MS. History of the Dakotas," Library of
Historical Society of Minnesota.)
"The Okanagaus have a god, Skyappe, and also one called Chacha, who
appear to be endowed with omniscience; but their principal divinity is
their great mythical ruler and heroine, Scomalt. Long ago, when the sun
was no bigger than a star, this strong medicine-woman ruled over what
appears to have now become a lost island. At last the peace of the
island was destroyed by war, and the noise of battle was heard, with
which Scomalt was exceeding wroth, whereupon she rose up in her might
and drove her rebellious subjects to one end of the island, and broke
off the piece of land on which they were huddled and pushed it out to
sea, to drift whither it would. This floating island was tossed to and
fro and buffeted by the winds till all but two died. A man and woman
escaped in a canoe, and arrived on the main-land; and from these the
Okanagaus are descended." (Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii., p. 149.)
Here we have the Flood legend clearly connected with a lost island.
The Nicaraguans believed "that ages ago the world was destroyed by a
flood, in which the most part of mankind perished. Afterward the teotes,
or gods, restored the earth as at the beginning." (Ibid., p. 75.) The
wild Apaches, "wild from their natal hour," have a legend that "the
first days of the world were happy and peaceful days;" then came a great
flood, from which Montezuma and the coyote alone escaped. Montezuma
became then very wicked, and attempted to build a house that would reach
to heaven, but the Great Spirit destroyed it with thunderbolts.
(Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii., p. 76.)
The Pimas, an Indian tribe allied to the Papagos, have a peculiar flood
legend. The son of the Creator was called Szeu-kha (Ze-us?). An eagle
prophesied the deluge to the prophet of the people three times in
succession, but his warning was despised; "then in the twinkling of an
eye there came a peal of thunder and an awful crash, and a green mound
of water reared itself over the plain. It seemed to stand upright for a
second, then, cut incessantly by the lightning, goaded on like a great
beast, it flung itself upon the prophet's hut. When the morning broke
there was nothing to be seen alive but one man--if indeed be were a man;
Szeu-kha, the son of the Creator, had saved himself by floating on a
ball of gum or resin." This instantaneous catastrophe reminds one
forcibly of the destruction of Atlantis. Szeu-kha killed the eagle,
restored its victims to life, and repeopled the earth with them, as
Deucalion repeopled the earth with the stones.
CHAPTER VI.
SOME CONSIDERATION OF THE DELUGE LEGENDS.
The Fountains of the Great Deep.--As Atlantis perished in a volcanic
convulsion, it must have possessed volcanoes. This is rendered the more
probable when we remember that the ridge of land of which it was a part,
stretching from north to south, from Iceland to St. Helena, contains
even now great volcanoes--as in Iceland, the Azores, the Canaries,
etc.--and that the very sea-bed along the line of its original axis is,
to this day, as we have shown, the scene of great volcanic disturbances.
If, then, the mountains of Atlantis contained volcanoes, of which the
peaks of the Azores are the surviving representatives, it is not
improbable that the convulsion which drowned it in the sea was
accompanied by great discharges of water. We have seen that such
discharges occurred in the island of Java, when four thousand people
perished. "Immense columns of hot water and boiling mud were thrown out"
of the volcano of Galung Gung; the water was projected from the mountain
"like a water-spout." When a volcanic island was created near Sicily in
1831, it was accompanied by "a waterspout sixty feet high."
In the island of Dominica, one of the islands constituting the Leeward
group of the West Indies, and nearest to the site of Atlantis, on the
4th of January, 1880, occurred a series of convulsions which reminds us
forcibly of the destruction of Plato's island; and the similarity
extends to another particular: Dominica contains, like Atlantis, we are
told, numerous hot and sulphur springs. I abridge the account given by
the New York Herald of January 28th, 1880:
"A little after 11 o'clock A.M., soon after high-mass in the Roman
Catholic cathedral, and while divine service was still going on in the
Anglican and Wesleyan chapels, all the indications of an approaching
thunder-storm suddenly showed themselves; the atmosphere, which just
previously had been cool and pleasant--slight showers falling since
early morning--became at once nearly stifling hot; the rumbling of
distant thunder was heard, and the light-blue and fleecy white of the
sky turned into a heavy and lowering black. Soon the thunder-peals came
near and loud, the lightning flashes, of a blue and red color, more
frequent and vivid; and the rain, first with a few heavy drops,
commenced to pour as if the floodgates of heaven were open. In a moment
it darkened, as if night had come; a strong, nearly overpowering smell
of sulphur announced itself; and people who happened to be out in the
streets felt the rain-drops failing on their heads, backs, and shoulders
like showers of hailstones. The cause of this was to be noted by looking
at the spouts, from which the water was rushing like so many cataracts
of molten lead, while the gutters below ran swollen streams of thick
gray mud, looking like nothing ever seen in them before. In the mean
time the Roseau River had worked itself into a state of mad fury,
overflowing its banks, carrying down rocks and large trees, and
threatening destruction to the bridges over it and the houses in its
neighborhood. When the storm ceased--it lasted till twelve, mid-day--the
roofs and walls of the buildings in town, the street pavement, the
door-steps and back-yards were found covered with a deposit of volcanic
débris, holding together like clay, dark-gray in color, and in some
places more than an inch thick, with small, shining metallic particles
on the surface, which could be easily identified as iron pyrites.
Scraping up some of the stuff, it required only a slight examination to
determine its main constituents--sandstone and magnesia, the pyrites
being slightly mixed, and silver showing itself in even smaller
quantity. This is, in fact, the composition of the volcanic mud thrown
up by the soufrières at Watton Waven and in the Boiling Lake country,
and it is found in solution as well in the lake water. The Devil's
Billiard-table, within half a mile of the Boiling Lake, is composed
wholly of this substance, which there assumes the character of stone in
formation. Inquiries instituted on Monday morning revealed the fact
that, except on the south-east, the mud shower had not extended beyond
the limits of the town. On the north-west, in the direction of Fond Colo
and Morne Daniel, nothing but pure rain-water had fallen, and neither
Loubière nor Pointe Michel had seen any signs of volcanic disturbance. .
. .
"But what happened at Pointe Mulâtre enables us to spot the locale of
the eruption. Pointe Mulâtre lies at the foot of the range of mountains
on the top of which the Boiling Lake frets and seethes. The only outlet
of the lake is a cascade which falls into one of the branches of the
Pointe Mulâtre River, the color and temperature of which, at one time
and another, shows the existence or otherwise of volcanic activity in
the lake-country. We may observe, en passant, that the fall of the water
from the lake is similar in appearance to the falls on the sides of
Roairama, in the interior of British Guiana; there, is no continuous
stream, but the water overleaps its basin. like a kettle boiling over,
and comes down in detached cascades from the top. May there not be a
boiling lake on the unapproachable summit of Roairama? The phenomena
noted at Pointe Mulâtre on Sunday were similar to what we witnessed in
Roseau, but with every feature more strongly marked. The fall of mud was
heavier, covering all the fields; the atmospheric disturbance was
greater, and the change in the appearance of the running water about the
place more surprising. The Pointe Mulâtre River suddenly began to run
volcanic mud and water; then the mud predominated, and almost buried the
stream under its weight, and the odor of sulphur in the air became
positively oppressive. Soon the fish in the water--brochet, camoo, meye,
crocro, mullet, down to the eel, the crawfish, the loche, the tétar, and
the dormer--died, and were thrown on the banks. The mud carried down by
the river has formed a bank at the month which nearly dams up the
stream, and threatens to throw it back over the low-lying lands of the
Pointe Mulâtre estate. The reports from the Laudat section of the
Boiling Lake district are curious. The Bachelor and Admiral rivers, and
the numerous mineral springs which arise in that part of the island, are
all running a thick white flood, like cream milk. The face of the entire
country, from the Admiral River to the Solfatera Plain, has undergone
some portentous change, which the frightened peasants who bring the news
to Roseau seem unable clearly and connectedly to describe, and the
volcanic activity still continues."
From this account it appears that the rain of water and mud came from a
boiling lake on the mountains; it must have risen to a great height,
"like a water-spout," and then fallen in showers over the face of the
country. We are reminded, in this Boiling Lake of Dominica, of the Welsh
legend of the eruption of the Llyn-llion, "the Lake of Waves," which
"inundated the whole country." On the top of a mountain in the county of
Kerry, Ireland, called Mangerton, there is a deep lake known as
Poulle-i-feron, which signifies Hell-hole; it frequently overflows, and
rolls down the mountain in frightful torrents. On Slieve-donart, in the
territory of Mourne, in the county of Down, Ireland, a lake occupies the
mountain-top, and its overflowings help to form rivers.
If we suppose the destruction of Atlantis to have been, in like manner,
accompanied by a tremendous outpour of water from one or more of its
volcanoes, thrown to a great height, and deluging the land, we can
understand the description in the Chaldean legend of "the terrible
water-spout," which even "the gods grew afraid of," and which "rose to
the sky," and which seems to have been one of the chief causes, together
with the earthquake, of the destruction of the country. And in this view
we are confirmed by the Aramæan legend of the Deluge, probably derived
at an earlier age from the Chaldean tradition. In it we are told, "All
on a sudden enormous volumes of water issued from the earth, and rains
of extraordinary abundance began to fall; the rivers left their beds,
and the ocean overflowed its banks." The disturbance in Dominica
duplicates this description exactly: "In a moment" the water and mud
burst from the mountains, "the floodgates of heaven were opened," and
"the river overflowed its banks."
And here, again, we are reminded of the expression in Genesis, "the same
day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up" (chap. vii.,
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