5oS 



NA TURE 



[September 20, 1894. 



the local colouting of the legend and the survival of an ancient 

 custom, to observe that this practice of paying the native boats 

 of the Euphrates with pitch has persisted in Mesopotamia 

 down to the present da>-, natural pitch being used, which occurs 

 at various localities in the valley, but particularly near the i 

 town of Hit. Siinapistim's method of procedure, both in build- I 

 ing and paying his boat, may still be witnessed at Hit as a I 

 matter of almost every-day occurrence. 



Situapistim having provisioned the vessel, and brought into 

 it all his goods and chattels, received an intimation of the 

 immediate approach of the catastrophe; he went on board with 

 his family and friends, closed the roof, and prudently entrusted 

 the helm to the sailor — Buzar-sadi-rabi. Heavy rain fell during 

 an anxious night, and as soon as daybreak appeared — 



" There .-irosc from the 'ount'aiion of heaven, a dark cloud. 

 The siorm-c^d Raman thundered iu ils midst and 

 Neho and Mcrodach went in front. 

 As leaders they passed over mountain and plain 

 Ninit} went therein, and the storm l>ehind him follou'ed. 

 The Anunnal:! raised high their torches. _ 

 With their radi.-int brighine'^s the land glittered, 

 The lurnioil of Raman reached to heaven. 

 All that was hght was turned to darkness. 



• • • • • * 



In the earth men perished. . . . 

 Brother beheld not his brother, men knew not one another. In the 



heaven 

 The Kods were terriBed by the deluge, and 

 Hastened to ascend to the heaven of Anu. 

 The pods were like a dog — sat down cowering on the ring wall of 



heaven. 

 Ishlar cried like one filled with anger. 

 Cried the mistress of the gods — the sweet-voiced — 

 * 'I he former generation is turned lo clay. . . . 

 What 1 ha\e borne, where is it!* 

 Like fish spawn it tills the sea.' " 



For six days the flood lasted and ceased on the seventh, and 

 Ihen Silnapistim is made to say — 



'* I looked on the sea and ctUed aloud. 



Hut the while r.{ mankind was turned to clay. 

 1 opened the air-hole, and the light fell on my face : 

 I iMjwed I'lw. sat down, and wept. 

 Over my face (lowed niy tears." 



Sitnapislim then beheld the land. Mount Nizir, on which the 

 ship grounded. It remained swinging there for seven days; on the 

 seventh day Sitnapistim sent out a dove, which returned, then 

 a swallow, which flew to and fro, but also returned, and finally 

 a raven : — " The raven went, saw the goingdown of the waters, 

 came croaking nearer, but did not come back." Sitnapislim 

 then left the ship with his people, built an altar on the summit 

 o( the mouniain, and oftered sacrifice. The poem then runs — 

 " The Kods Miiell the savour, the gods smelt the sweet savour, 

 The Kods gathered like (lies over the !.acri5cer. 



The mistress of the gods. Ishtar, lifted up the(bow?) which Anu had 

 made according to her wish." 



A discussion then takes place among the gods, who all through 

 are very human, and in ils course Ea suggests lo Bel, who 

 seems lo have been the prime mover in all the mischief, that he 

 should for the future destroy mankind in a less undiscriminating 

 manner — by wild beasts, pestilence, and famine. The scene 

 ends happily with the apotheosis of Sitnapislim and his wife. 



The surprising resemblance of ihe story lo the biblical 

 narrative, extending into idenlity of i»ords, as in the case of the 

 "gods smelt Ihe sweet savour," points to direct derivation or 

 borrowing, and there can be very little doubl in deciding on 

 which side the borrowing lay. The biblical narrative is indeed 

 a Jahvislic or Monotheistic edition of the Chaldean. To this 

 conclusion the most distinguished Assyrian scholars have been 

 led. I need only mention here I'rof. Sayce, whose opinion is 

 expressed on page 119 of his work on " The Higher Criticism 

 and the Monuments," published by the Society for Promoting 

 Christian Knowledge, during the current year. 



The Chaldean slory ceriainly reduces the flood to much 

 smaller dimensions, and so far brings it nearer (he range o( 

 probability ; the rain lasted only seven days, and the waters 

 have subsided sufficiently at Ihe end of a fortnight (or 

 Sitnapislim lo land. They do not cover all the high mountains, 

 and the stranding of the ship on Mount Nizir when the flood 

 was at ils climax, gives us a maximum height, which it cannot 

 have exceeded; for if this mountain h.id been deeply submerged, 

 it could not have arrested ihc passage of the ship. The height 

 of the Nizir mountains is about 1000 feet above the sea-level, 

 which siill leaves room for a very respectable flaod. 



The scepticijm which prevailed in the middle of this century 

 with regard to legends seems to have given place to an almost 



equally great credulity. The older argument seemed to be that 

 the presence of some obviously unveracious statements in a 

 legend condemned the rest, want of faith in some was want of 

 (aiih in all ; while the more modern view would appear to be 

 that since so many discredited legends have been found to 

 enshrine some important truth, all are to be assumed trust- 

 worthy till they are proved otherwise. 



It may be in this spirit that Suess has elaborately discussed 

 the Chaldean legend as though it presented us with a trust- 

 worthy account of the Mesopotamian deluge. 



Reasoning from Ihe facts as it records them, Suess lays great 

 stress on the course taken by the ship from Surippak, supposed 

 to have been situated near the mouth of the Euphrates, to 

 the land of Nizir, a distance of about 240 miles up stream. 

 Had the flood been produced solely by heavy rainfall and a 

 consequent overflowing of the swollen rivers, the ship instea.l 

 of being carried inland would have been drilled out to sea, i.i, 

 southwards into the Persian (lulf. Suess therefore suggests 

 that a great wave was produced in the Persian Gulf, partly by a 

 cyclone and partly by an earthquake. This wave of twofold 

 origin then rolled in upon the low-lying land of Mesopotamia, 

 and drove ils floods of water up the valley till they washed the 

 foot of the Nizir Hills. 



Of all catastrophes none are more terrible, none more dis- 

 astrous than those thus produced. When the shock of an 

 earthquake occurs beneath the sea, and affects the adjacent 

 land, a irembling of the ground is first felt, then the sea retires 

 and leaves Ihe beach bare, only to return in a long mighty wave 

 which breaks with violence on the shoie. Thus on October 

 2S, 1746, Callao in Peru, after being shaken by an earthquake, 

 was overwhelmed by a sea-wave and utterly destroyed ; of ils 

 5000 inhabitants only 200 survived the flood. Still more de- 

 structive was the famous earthquake of Lisbon, November I, 

 1755, when the inhabitants, without a warning, were destroyed 

 in the falling city, and iu six minutes 60,000 persons perished. 

 The sea in this case, as in others, retired firsl, and then rose 

 50 feet or mote above its usual level, swamping the boats in the 

 harbour ; at Cadiz the wave is said to have reached a height of 

 6q feet, and it was felt over ihe greater jiart of the Norih 

 Atlanlic Ocean, arriving even on our own shores, as at Kinsale 

 in Ireland, where it rushed into the harbour and poured into 

 the market-place. 



That a great seawave so produced might have thus arisen 

 in Ihe Persian Gulf is quite within the bounds of possibiliiy, 

 particularly as a zone of the earth's crust, very liable to earth- 

 quakes, stretches across the mouth of the Gulf near the Onnus 

 I Nlduntains. 



I Hut if we are lo follow the legend, we must follow it failh- 

 fully, and as a result of the most leccnt investigations it turns 

 I out that all the passages which were supposed lo refer to an 

 earlhqu.ike have been mistranslated. The earthquake is thus 

 put out of court, and we are left with what help we can get from 

 the hurricane, a kind of dislutbance which oltcn vies with the 

 earthquake in the deslruclive naluie of the sea-waves to which 

 it gives rise. 



The Andaman Islands of Ihe East Indies arc a centre which 

 give birth lo s.imc of ihe most terrific hurricanes in Ihe world. 

 Travelling more or less westwards anil nortlnvanli, these whirl- 

 winds sweep over ihe waters of the Hay of liengal and r.iise tl.c 

 sea into waves mountains high, which every now anil again lusli 

 over ihc low-lying lands of the tianges delta, oveiwhelming the 

 unfortunate inhabitants by myriads. Thus on ihe nighl of 

 October 14, 1737, one of these waves, estimated at 40 leet in 

 height, suddenly overlook the dwellers by the Ganges and de 

 siruycd them lo Ihc number of 100,000, or, as some say, 300,000 

 souls. These storms do not, as a rule, travel towards ihc 

 Persian Gulf, and the North Arabian Sea is singularly free from 

 them ; but Suess, tracing the course of Ihc slorm of October 24, 

 1S42, suggests that for once, in ihe case of Ihe deluge, an East 

 Indian slorm may have lost ils way and blundered, as it were, 

 into the Persian Gulf. The track of this slorm of 1S42 was as 

 follows ;— At 5 o'clock on October 24 it reached Pondicherry ; 

 il then slightly altered its direction and veered mote lo Ihc 

 soulh-wcsl, and on Ihe 25th al midday it crossed the westeiii 

 .. Ghats, and then divided into two i>arts ; the south centre need 

 ' not concern us. The northern centre travelled norih-easlwaril> 

 low.irds the Persian Gulf, and was felt frjm the Gulf of Adcii 

 to Cap Guardafui, wrecking in this tract a number of vessels. 



The greatest estimated height of storm-waves is from 40 l' 

 45 feel, and, as Suess points out, il must have needed a 



NO. 1299, VOL. 50] 



