THE HUMAN SPECIES. 171 



earliest nations moved further from their original com- 

 mon centre, or mythical tales spread onwards with 

 time. There is Natibundana, perhaps Dhawalaghiri, 

 where the patriarch god himself, in the form of Kapila, 

 conducted the ark, and secured it to the rock, according 

 to Hindoo lore ; and, on the north, where the Tahtar 

 legend places Nataghi, the boatman god of the moun- 

 tain, with his family, in one of the peaks of Altai ; for 

 it is not a fact which always marks a pagan source, as 

 has been remarked, when Man's existence is made to 

 commence after the diluvian cataclysis. There is con- 

 stantly a record of antecedent existence, though not a 

 history, among early nations. It is variously told, but 

 not the less the same in substance, in both hemispheres, 

 and in the South Sea Islands. 



Although, in Central Asia, no very distinct evidence 

 of a general diluvian action, so late as to involve the 

 fate of many nations can be detected ; still, there can- 

 not be a doubt, that with scarce an opposable circum- 

 stance, all Man's historical dogmatic knowledge and 

 traditionary records, all his acquirements, inventions, 

 and domestic possessions, point to that locality, as con- 

 nected with a great cataclysis, and as the scene where 

 human development took its first most evident distri- 

 bution. 



The animals subdued for household purposes by the 

 earliest nations, are found upon or around it, in all 

 directions ; like the dog, universally spread where Man 

 resides ; and the hog, found radiating from points, 

 where the wild species occur, from south-east to north- 



