2G2 HASISADRA'S ADVENTURE vn 



together, without troubling himself very much 

 about the resulting repetitions and inconsistencies ; 

 the product of such a primitive editorial operation 

 would be a narrative analogous to that which 

 treats of the Noachian deluge in the book of 

 Genesis. For the Pentateuchal story is indu- 

 bitably a patchwork, composed of fragments of at 

 least two, different and partly discrepant, narra- 

 tives, quilted together in such an inartistic fashion 

 that the seams remain conspicuous. And, in the 

 matter of circumstantial exaggeration, it in some 

 respects excels even the second-hand legend 

 of Berosus. 



There is a certain practicality about the notion 

 of taking refuge from floods and storms in a ship 

 provided with a steersman ; but, surely, no 

 one who had ever seen more water than he 

 could wade through would dream of facing even 

 a moderate breeze, in a huge three-storied coffer, 

 or box, three hundred cubits long, fifty wide and 

 thirty high, left to drift without rudder or pilot. 1 

 Not content with giving the exact year of Noah's 



1 In the second volume of the History of the Euphrates 

 Expedition, p. 637, Col. Chesney gives a very interesting 

 account of the simple and rapid manner in which the people 

 about Tekrit and in the marshes of Lemlum construct 

 large barges, and make them water-tight with bitumen. 

 Doubtless the practice is extremely ancient ; and as Colonel 

 Chesney suggests, may possibly have furnished the conception 

 of Noah's ark. But it is one thing to build a barge 44ft. long 

 by 1 1ft. wide and 4ft. deep in the way described ; and another 

 to get a vessel of ten times the dimensions, so constructed, to 

 hold together. 



