has been observed, the Flood-legends of no other two races present any thing like the correspondence which exists. between these two, and their nearly exact coincidence,—in these two perfectly distinct races, even (there is reason to believe, as will presently be seen) as to the name of the Flood-hero, gives certainly a very strong presumption of both races having passed through the same cataclysm. Dr. Ignaz Goldziher ("Mythology among the Hebrews") objects to this view, that if it were so, the Phoenician clan of the Semites should have preserved the Flood-tradition, of which, he considers, there is no trace among such fragments of Phoenician records as remain to us. Dr. Goldziher does not however take account, or seem to be aware, of the Apamean Flood-legend, which I shall show to be, in all probability, the Phoenician; -transplanted into and adopted by, Phrygia, — and then lending some of its features to the Greek myth.

Both legends indicate the construction of some sort of floats, probably rude rafts of tree-trunks, on which the effects of these early herdsmen and cultivators were conveyed over the troubled waters until stranded on some mountain-side. These were the originals of the famous "ships" of the Indian "Manu," the Chaldæan "Xisuthrus" and the Hebrew "Noah."

The march of the Iranian Aryans is curiously indicated, stage by stage, in the Vendidad, as will be presently shown. That of the Indians was, doubtless, first to Kashmir, then to the Penjâb, Delhi, and Nepâl. Meanwhile those who were to found the Aramæan and the Assyrio-Chaldæan peoples would be slowly working their way down the courses of the Indus and the Sutlej. Arrived at the Arabian Sea, (in the land of Ophir,) it would probably be at least a generation before, partly by landand partly by water-travel, the pioneers of the Aramæans would reach, by way of the Persian Gulf, the confluence of the Euphrates and the Tigris. Temporary settlements would interrupt their marches, but, pushed on, perhaps,

by other tribes, they at length reached and occupied in its whole extent, the Aramæan table-land, from the high lands of Armenia to those of Gennesareth and Jordan. Of this movement we have the faint trace in their tradition of the happy abode of their first ancestor in the Eastward garden and his expulsion thence through the machinations of "the serpent," (the same as the waterdragon of the Apocalypse, and that of the Iranian myth,) and in that of the hero of the Flood and his "ship." These two personages, originally one in the first form of the legend, had now become separated in the Aramæan form.

The ancestors of the Assyrio-Chaldæans, an allied clan, probably closely followed the Aramæans, settling first in Lower Chaldæa, then in Babylonia, and, some generations afterward, founding Nineveh.' The Flood-legend of this people will be considered in a future page.

The Chaldaic legend of the creation may be illustrated by the Zend, with which it is supposed to have been combined by Zarathustra. The pure and original legend (or, rather, a fragment of it) has, however, recently been discovered and deciphered by Mr. George Smith on some unfortunately imperfect Chaldæan tablets in the British Museum collection (see his "Chaldæan account of Genesis"). Zarathustra, whom we have seen as a very early leader of the Irano-Aryans, (about B.C. 2200-2250,) ingrafted, according to some authors, the Chaldaic cosmogony upon the story original with his tribe, in his creation-legend in the Avesta. From this we learn, (according to Von Bohlen,) that the Assyrio-Chaldæans (as well as the Iranian or Medo-Aryans) believed that the

The Phanician branch of this (Semitic) race apparently crossed the head of the Persian Gulf, near where their depôt-islands, Aradus (Bahrein) and Tyrus, (either named for or giving name to, Tyre and Arvad,)-are afterwards found established, and thence made their way, either by land across North Arabia, or, as the ancient authorities have it, by sea around Arabia to the head of the Red Sea, and thence across the Suez Isthmus, to their final home on the coast of Syria. Justin expressly states that the Phoinikes (Phoeni or Puni) came from India, and first settled on the Persian Gulf.

universe was created in six equal and successive millennial periods,' by the Deity, in the following order:

"(Ist), the Heaven and the terrestrial Light between heaven and earth; (2d), the Water which fills the deep as the sea, and ascends up on high as clouds; (3d), the Earth, whose seed was first brought forth upon the sacred mountain Albordj; (4th), trees and plants; (5th), animals, and (6th), lastly man, — whereupon the Creator rested, and connected the divine origin of the festivals with these periods of creation." (Von Bohlen, Genesis, ii. p. 3.)

On this it is to be remarked, first, that the sacred mountain Albordj is certainly a purely Iranian and not a Chaldæan feature, and second, that the order of creation. does not agree with the Babylonian tablets, which make the water-dragon Tiamat (correspondent to the watery abyss or chaos of Genesis, the Ba-au or Bohu of the Phoenicians) the first created thing.

From Kleuker's edition of the Zend-Avesta, (ii. 217, 280, iii. 62, 84, 85,) the following continuation of the Zend legend (which may be regarded up to this point, as containing features common to both Chaldæans and Iranian or Medo-Persic Aryans) is abridged by Kalisch (note, that from this point it is purely Iranian):

"The first couple, the parents of the human race, Meshia and Meshiane, lived originally in purity and innocence. Perpetual happiness was promised to them by Ormuzd," [Ahura-mazda,]" the Creator of every good gift, if they persevered in their virtue. But an evil demon" [Dev, Deva] "was sent to them by Ahriman," [Angrômainyus,]" the representative of every thing noxious and sinful. He appeared unexpectedly in the form of a serpent, and gave them the fruit of a wonderful tree, Hôm,2 which imparted immortality, and had the power of restoring the dead to life. Thus evil inclinations entered their hearts; all their moral excellence was destroyed. Ahriman himself appeared under the form of the same reptile, and completed the work of seduction. They acknowledged him instead of Ormuzd as the creator of every thing good; and the consequence was, that

The "six periods" of creation the Etruscan legend, derived from the Pelasgic branch of the European Aryans, also made cycles of one thousand years, six thousand in all. (Suidas, Tyrrhenia, etc.)

2 The Pilpel of the Indian myth. This fruit or juice was the Hôma, in another form.

they forfeited forever the internal happiness for which they were destined. They killed beasts, and clothed themselves in their skins; they built houses, but paid not their debt of gratitude to the Deity. The evil demons thus obtained still more perfect power over their minds, and called forth envy, hatred, discord, and rebellion, which raged in the bosom of the families.”

The striking similarity of this legend to the Hebrew form of the Aramaic one, leaves little room for doubt of their common origin. It seems highly probable that the strange effects of the fruit or juice of the Hôm, (or “tree of knowledge of good and evil,") which on the one hand could restore the dead to life, and on the other produced “evil inclinations" and "destroyed moral excellence," are in reality an allegory of the workings of that remarkable intoxicant, the Sôma or Hôma, -extracted from either the Sarcostemma, - the Cannabis, or from the Asclepias acida, or "sour milk-weed," or as some say, from the Banian. It is almost certain that the Iranian reform in religion, which occurred at the period of the separation of the two branches of the Aryans, and was probably led by Yima, embraced, (in addition to the doctrine of monotheism,) the reform of the excesses in the use of this intoxicating extract, resin or fermented juice, which had made part of the Aryan cultus. The Hôm tree embraces in one plant, the qualities of the Hebrew "tree of life" and "tree of knowledge of good and evil." The name of the primal couple, Meshia-Meshiane, (or Meschia and Meschianah,) recalls the Manu'scha form of the name of the Indian first man, of which it is doubtless a variation. The German mensch, man, may be compared with this form. Manu, or rather Manuḥ, Manukh, signifies "the knower," or "thinker:" (compare mens, mind, etc.). The Hebrew name, Adam, or adamah," the red," or "red-man," is possibly a "sun-myth" addition to the legend, — derived, however, ultimately, from Sskr. adima, "beautiful, perfect," an epithet of Manu, as we shall see hereafter.

The second division of the primitive legend, that treat

ing of the Deluge, we are fortunate in possessing in two distinct, reliable, and unmutilated Chaldaic forms; the historic, in the fragments of Berosus preserved in several Greek writers, and the inscriptional, in the tablets recently deciphered by Mr. George Smith. In it, the name of the Ark- or Flood-hero, Xisuthrus and Sisithrus or Sisuthrus in Berosus, Ha-sis-adra in the tablets, may fairly be read Sisathra, the change in Berosus from the tablet-name being a clear instance of the dropping of the first syllable which is common in the descent of legendary or semimythic traditional names. This name Sisathra is strikingly like Zathraus-tes, the most correct form of the name of the great Iranian leader, as preserved by Diodorus Siculus. The last syllable of Zathraus-tes, is obviously a terminational form added for convenience of Hellenic inflection. Omitting this excrescence and substituting for the Zeta the double Sigma to which it is equivalent, these names, (Zathraus, Zarathus,) become Ssathraus and Ssarathus. The identity of Ssathraus, Ssarathus, with Sisathra can hardly be doubted, and leads at once to the suspicion that the name of the great Aryan legislator, who, according to Berosus as quoted by Syncellus, founded a dynasty in Chaldæa, has crept into the legend, taking the place of that of its original hero, apparently of Manukh or Manu. How this was possible, I shall presently endeavor to show. The form in which Berosus gives the Chaldaic Flood-legend is as follows (Kalisch, Gen., 202, 204):

"The representative of the tenth generation after the first man, was Xisuthrus, a pious and wise monarch. The god Chronos or Belus" [Kronos, is, rather, Hea; Belus, was a successor of El, Ilu or Ilus, afterwards the Hebrew El and Syrian Ba-al] "revealed to him that continual rains, commencing on a certain day, the fifteenth of the month Daesius," [compare "the seventeenth day of the second month," Gen..]" would cause a general deluge, by which mankind would be destroyed. At the command of the deity, Xisuthrus built an immense

The forms Zoroaster, Zoroastres, with their Greek derivation from ¿@ov, áσтpov, quasi, "living star," are of course incorrect.