382 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



colonies to every part of the earth, mutilated, altered, 

 and debased, but still always discernible, notwith- 

 standing that in time the high plains of Asia had first 

 instituted a Sabaean worship, and subsequently im- 

 planted it upon the Arkite creed, confounding the 

 patriarch navigator with the sun, typifying the 

 deluge in the form of a dragon or vast sea serpent, 

 and converting the ship or ark into a living organ of 

 preservation and reproduction: thus was substance 

 afforded for interminable legends, names, and dogmas, 

 which, in one or more forms, spread all around, reached 

 the furthest west, originated the repetition of ancient 

 names for new localities, new sites of Paradise, new 

 rivers of Eden, new mountains of the Descent, in the 

 succession of migrations, and when time had fixed 

 fresh centres of national existence.* In this manner, 

 while the Semitic nations recalled the memory of 



* The root, Ar, in Arach, Araxes, Arachosia, Arbela, 

 Arch, Ararat, Arawati, Aarhorn, Aar, and Ra, rivers, 

 ever implies rushing, soaring, as in the Circassian a peak, 

 in Pelhevic a roaring stream, and in Sanscrit denomina- 

 tions abounding in High Asia, always connected with 

 mountain and high land : hence we find it often in connec- 

 tion with the physical localities, where Eden and the four 

 rivers of Paradise, as well as the diluvian event are placed 

 by the traditions of nations. Indian pundits have pointed 

 out Lake Manama, 17,000 feet above the sea, as the sacred 

 centre whence the four rivers of Paradise, the Brama- 

 putra, Ganges, Indus, and Sita, are erroneously asserted to 

 proceed. But each nation long located in a region has 

 found a sacred centre, and the required rivers, at no great 

 distance from home. There are at least twenty of them 

 between Thibet and Snowdon. 



