January i, 1903] 



NA TURE 



205 



the original form of the Babylonian and Assyrian history 

 of Creation is many thousands of years old. Whether 

 it originated with the Akkadians or some other non- 

 Semitic people cannot be said definitely at present, but 

 it is very probable that the Semitic Babylonians were 

 only the borrowers and not the inventors of this remark- 

 able work. 



We may now note the main heads of the legend. At 

 the beginning of all things, Apsii and Tiamat were water 

 deities and typified chaos ; to these were born Lahmu 

 and Lahamu, and later appeared Ansharand Kishar, and 

 still later Anu and other gods came into being. One 

 of the newly-found fragments of the first tablet mentions 

 the birth of Nudimmud (Ea), and although Daniascius 

 states that Bel, the creator of the world, was the son of 

 Ea and Damkina ('Aor, Aawcij), it is clear from the frag- 

 ment that Marduk, who is made to take the leading 

 part in the later tablets of Creation, was supposed to be 

 in existence, like Mummu and Gaga. In the earlier 

 episodes of the Creation story, it is Ea and not Marduk 

 who is the hero, and we learn for the first time, from the 

 new material, that it was Apsii, a god of chaos, and not 

 Tiamat who rebelled against the gods. Apsii disliked 

 the new order of things and the creation of the universe 

 for the simple reason that the beings who formed mem- 

 bers of the new world disturbed his peace and rest ; as 

 soon as he had made up his mind as to what was likely to 

 happen, he called Mummu his minister (the Mcoii/iis- 

 of Damascius), and the two went to Tiamat and took 

 counsel with her, and complained that " he could get 

 rest neither by day nor by night." The putting of the 

 house of the world into order by the gods destroyed his 

 rest and peace of mind. Of< the conflict which took 

 place between Ea and Apsu and his ally Mummu we 

 know little, but that the great god did not succeed in 

 inflicting a decisive defeat on Apsii and his allies is 

 clear from the fact that, later, Anshar found it necessary 

 to exhort Marduk to do battle with Tiamat. Of the 

 defeat and death of Tiamat we need say little, for the 

 story of how the god of light slew her and split her 

 body into halves is familiar to all. The actual account 

 of the creation of the world by Marduk begins towards 

 the end of the fourth tablet, where it is said that one- 

 half of the body of Tiamat formed a covering for heaven, 

 and that Marduk, having formed E-shara, made the great 

 trinity of Anu, Bel and Ea to dwell therein. 



In the fifth tablet, we hear of the fixing of the con- 

 stellations of the Zodiac, the founding of the year, &c, 

 and it seems as if this section contained an account of 

 the creation of vegetation. The sixth tablet, as we know 

 from one of the new fragments, told the story of the 

 creation of man, and it seems as if Marduk made man 

 with the view both of punishing the gods and of providing 

 a creature who should at all times worship him. Marduk, 

 or Bel, instructed Ea to cut off his (i.e. Marduk's) head, 

 and man was formed out of the blood which flowed from 

 the god's body. Marduk is made to tell Ea that he 

 intends to create man from his own blood and from the 

 "bone "which he will create; it is important to note 

 that the Assyrian word for "bone" is issimtu, and that 

 it is the exact equivalent of the Hebrew 'esem, " bone," 

 which occurs is Genesis ii. 23, in connection with the 

 account of the creation of woman. 



The creation of man was the final act of creation, and 

 when this was accomplished the gods assembled in their 

 council chamber in Upshukkinaku, with Marduk at their 

 head, and they sang to him a hymn of praise, the text 

 of which forms the seventh section of the Creation story 

 and contains fifty addresses to the god. How Marduk 

 managed to survive his decapitation is not told us, and 

 we can only surmise that he met the gods in their 

 council chamber in some sort of spiritual body. The 

 space at our disposal will not allow us to call attention to 

 many very interesting details of the legend, especially 



NO. 1731, VOL. 67] 



in the parallels which may be drawn between parts of it 

 and the Book of Genesis ; these prove beyond all reason- 

 able doubt that the Jews borrowed large portions of their 

 religious literature Irom their kinsmen the Babylonians, 

 and that the seven days of Creation were imagined long 

 before the days of the patriarch Abraham. The student 

 of comparative folklore will find much to interest him 

 in Mr. King's latest work, and will perhaps trace the 

 mingling of legends illustrated in it with somewhat 

 mixed feelings. Mr. King's texts are carefully edited 

 and well copied, and his translations, which we have 

 examined in several passages, are faithful and not unduly 

 literal, and his work is a credit to English Assyriology. 



A POT OF BASIL. 



""PHERE is a widely spread belief, both amongst 

 ■*• natives and amongst the white sojourners in Western 

 Africa, that the presence of a certain species of plant in 

 a room drives away mosquitos, and, in fact, a single 

 plant is said to be sufficient to clear a room. On his 

 recent return from Northern Nigeria, Major J. A. 

 Burdon, of the Cameron Highlanders, brought with him 

 and gave to me a few leaves of this plant. These, 

 through the kindness of Mr. H. H. W. Pearson, have been 

 identified by the experts at Kew as belonging to Ocimum 

 viride, Willd., a member of the order Labiate, which 

 occurs from Senegambia southwards to Angola. 



Major Burdon, who is Resident of the Nupe Province, 

 Northern Nigeria, and Hausa Scholar of Christ's College, 

 Cambridge, has given me the following account of the 

 plant : — 



"A fragment of what turns out to be Ocimum viride 

 was given me in August last at Lokoja, Northern Nigeria, 

 by Captain H. D. Larymore, C.M.G., R.A., Resident of 

 the Kabba Province. Capt. Lirymore's notice had been 

 drawn to the plant by a native living in a low-lying part 

 of the native town at Lokoja, who had told him that the 

 natives suffered very little from the swarms of mos- 

 quitos which existed in that part, as they protected them- 

 selves from them by the use of this plant. 



" Capt. Larymore made inquiries and obtained a few 

 specimens of the plant, which grows wild, though not 

 very abundantly, in the neighbourhood of Lokoja. These 

 specimens he planted in pots and boxes and kept in and 

 about his house. The specimens I saw were about the 

 size of a geranium. 



" He informed me that the presence of one of these 

 plants in a room undoubtedly drove the mosquitos out, 

 and that by placing three or four of the plants round his 

 bed at night he was able to sleep unmolested without 

 using a mosquito net. This is very strong testimony to 

 the efficacy of the plant, for the house in which Capt. 

 Larymore was living is, as I had cause to know well in 

 former years, infested with mosquitos." 



In the fifth volume of Sir W. T. Thisellon- Dyer's 

 " Flora of Tropical Africa," Ocimum viride is described 

 as follows : — 



" O. viride, Willd. ; Benth. in DC. Prod. XII. 34. A 

 perennial 3-6 ft. high, with much-branched glabrous 

 stems. Leaves distinctly petioled, oblong, acute, mem- 

 branous, 3-4 in. long, glabrous on both sides, or obscurely 

 pubescent beneath. Racemes lax, copiously panicled, 

 3-6 in. long ; rhachis finely pubescent ; bracts decid- 

 uous ; pedicels not very short. Calyx \ in. long ; tube 

 campanulate ; upper lobe orbicular, as long as the tube ; 

 lower teeth short. Corolla half as long again as the 

 calyx-lobes. Stamens but little exserted, the two upper 

 with filaments toothed above the base. — Benth. in Hook. 

 Niger Fl. 488 ; Henriques in Bolet Soc. Brot. X. 149. 

 O. febrifugum. Lindl., in Bot. Reg. t. 753. O. heptodon, 

 P. Beauv. Fl. Owar. II. 59. t. 94." 



The plant is figured on plate 753 of the ninth volume 



