Ararat, Pison, and Jerusalem. 261 



From the Sacred Writings, the river-basins of the present 

 rivers must have existed before the Deluge ; all these valleys, 

 therefore, cannot have been formed by this catastrophe ; for 

 the Scriptures enumerate the Hiddekel or Tigris and the Eu- 

 phrates among the rivers of Paradise. These rivers are the 

 measures with which we are furnished to determine the site of 

 Paradise, and to guard us from arbitrary determinations. They 

 lead us to the elevated table-land of Armenia, — to Ararat, 

 whose singular position we have just been considering. This 

 point seems to have been the one selected, for the first as well 

 as the second peopling of the globe. The garden of Eden lay , 

 eastward from Moses, who was journeying from Egypt to Pa- 

 lestine ; Armenia, the source of the Tigris and Euphrates, lay 

 also in the same direction (more exactly, NE.). Reland, Cal- 

 met, Michaelis, Faber, &c. have therefore been in strict accord- 

 ance with the Bible, when they placed Paradise in this region 

 of Asia. 



But the rivers Pison and Gihon gave much embarrassment to 

 all interpreters. 



Their eye must necessarily fall on the Araxes, which had its 

 source in the same district with the Euphrates and Tigris. 

 The Pison, says Rosenmiiller *, seems to be the Phasis of the 

 Greeks, which is identical with the Aras and Araxes. But 

 how shall we explain the words •f.'^ It flows round the whole 

 land of Hevilah, and in it we find gold. Rosenmiiller quotes 

 the following from G. F. Miiller | : — " Foreign writers give us 

 no information regarding the Chovalissi, a people related to the 

 Slavonian stock ; they are only noticed by the Russians, and by 

 them but rarely. They are said to have dwelt on the banks of 

 the Wolga, near the Caspian. Their name is derived from 

 Chovala, which has the same meaning as Slawa." From this 



• RosenmuUer Scholia in Vetus Test. p. 1. s. 50. See also Ritter, pt. ii. 

 p. T8T. Mannert first shewed that the Phasis of Xenophon was the Upper 

 Araxes, not the Colchian Phasis. 



•f Genesis ii. 11. 



X De Chovalissis, populo a plerisque ad Slavoruni prosapiani relato, exteri 

 scriptores nihil nos docent, sed soli Riissici, ipsi quoque raro illoruni mentio. 

 nein facientes. Ad Volgani proxime a Caspio mare feriintur habitasse. No. 

 men eorum derivatiir a Chovala, ejiisdem cum Slaw a significationis. 



