218 BURMA, ITS PEOPLE AXD PRODUCTIOyS. 



scorchcti the soil as I k'ft Paradise. Follow my blackened traces, and they will conduct 

 you to the gate whence I was expelled.' 



" Scth hastened to Paradise. The way was barren, vegetation was scanty and 

 of sombre colour ; over all lay the black prints of his father's and mother's feet. 

 Presently the walls surrounding Paradise appeai'ed. Around them nature revived, 

 the earth was covered with verdure and dappled with flowers. The air vibrated 

 with exquisite music. Seth was dazzled with the beaiity which surrounded him, 

 and walked on forgetful of his mission. Suddenly there flashed before him a 

 wavering line of fire, upright like a serpent of light continuously quivering. It 

 was the flaming sword in the hand of the cherub who guarded the gate. As Seth 

 drew nigh, he saw that the angel's wings were expanded so as to block the door. 

 He prostrated himself before the cherub unable to utter a word. But the celestial 

 being read in his soul better than a mortal can read a book the words which were 

 there impressed, and he said, ' The time for pardon is not yet come. Four thousand 

 years must roll away ere the Redeemer shall open the gate to Adam, closed by his 

 disobedience. But as a token of future pardon, the wood whereon redemption shall 

 be won shall grow from the tomb of tliy father. Behold what he lost by his trans- 

 gression.' At these words the angel swung open the gi-eat portal of gold and fire, 

 and Seth looked in. He beheld a fountain, clear as ciystal, sparkling like silver 

 dust, playing in the midst of tlie garden, and gushing forth in four living streams. 

 Before this mystic fountain grew a mighty tree, with a trunk of vast bulk, and 

 thickly branched, but destitute of bark and foliage. Around the bole was wreathed 

 a frightful serpent or caterpillar, which had scorched the bark and devoured the 

 leaves. Beneath the tree was a precipice. Seth beheld the roots of the tree in Hell. 

 There Cain was endeavouring to grasp the roots and clamber up them into Paradise ; 

 but they laced themselves around the body and limbs of the fratricide, as the threads 

 of a spider's web entangle a fly, and the fibres of the tree penetrated the body of Cain 

 as though they were endued with life. 



" Horror-struck at this appalling spectacle, Seth raised his eyes to the summit 

 of the tree. Now all was changed. The tree had grown till its branches reached 

 heaven. The boughs were covered with leaves, flowers and fruit. But the fairest 

 fruit was a little babe, a living sun, who seemed to be listening to the songs of 

 seven white doves, who circled round his head. A woman more lovely than the 

 moon bore the child in her arms. 



"Then the cherub shut the door and said, 'I give thee now three seeds taken 

 from that tree. When Adam is dead, place these seeds in thy father's mouth and 

 bury him.' 



" So Seth took the seeds and returned to his father. Adam was glad to hear 

 what his son told him, and ho praised God. On the third day alter the return of 

 Seth, he died. Then his son buried him in the skins of beasts, which God had given 

 him for a covering, and his sepulchre was on Golgotha. In course of time, three 

 trees grew from the seeds brought from Paradise ; one was a Cedar, another a 

 Cypress, and the third a Pine. They grew with prodigious force, thrusting their 

 boughs to right and left. It was with one of these boughs that Moses performed 

 his miracles in Egypt, brought water out of the rock, and healed those whom the 

 serpents slew in the desert. After a while the three trees touched one another, then 

 began to incorporate, and confound their several natures in a single trunk. It was 

 beneath this tree that David sat when he bewailed his sins. 



"In the time of Solomon, this was the noblest of the trees of Lebanon; it 

 sui-passed all in the forests of King Hiram, as a monarch sui-passes those who crowd 

 at his feet. Now, when the son of David erected his palace, he cut down this tree 

 to convert it into the main pillar, supporting his roof. But all in vain. The column 

 refiiseil to answer the pui-pose ; it was at one time too long, at another too short. 

 Surprised at this resistance, Solomon lowered the walls of his palace to suit the 

 beam, but at once it shot up and pierced the roof, like an arrow driven through 

 a piece of canvas, or a bird recovering its liberty. Solomon, enraged, cast the tree 

 over Cedron, that all might trample on it as they crossed the brook. There the 

 Queen of Sheba found it, and she, recognizing its viitue, had it raised. Solomon 



