THE PYRAMIDS. 



155 



should restore the golden age ; and a distinct record of 

 the destruction of the world by water, and of the pres- 

 ervation of one family, from whom, of course, each, in 

 his own fashion, derived its own progeniture. In all, in 

 a greater or less degree, you detect that craving after 

 something beyond human reason, which may serve as a 

 guide ; a craving which, at the same time that it is the 

 most fertile source of credulous and superstitious belief, is 

 sufficient to prove the absolute necessity of a Divine rev- 

 elation, and the impracticability of man's dwelling in con- 

 tent upon earth without one. Further, by the traditional 

 histories of the people inhabiting Central America, you 

 are carried forward, in a most extraordinary manner, to 

 the events attending the building of the tower of Babel, 

 and the subsequent scattering of the human race.* 



But here, it has generally been considered, that all 

 consistent analogies cease ; and it would certainly appear 

 that as, after the deluge, the human race lived together 

 for five hundred years as one great family, subject to the 

 same practices and superstitions, cultivating the same 

 arts and sciences, and having one common tradition and 

 history, so, after the dispersion, they spread in different 

 bands over the face of the globe, carrying with them 

 the knowledge, science, and so forth, which, till then, had 

 been common to all, and which was certainly the base 

 upon which the founders of nations in the Old World 

 afterward built their several systems, civil and religious. 



It is perfectly comprehensible for the rest, that the 

 principal features in the traditions of the Americans, 

 whether barbarous or demi-civilized, should be continual 



* " The people of Mechoachan preserved a tradition, that Coxcox, 

 whom they call Tezpi, embarked in a spacious vessel with his wife, 

 children, various animals and vegetables, whose use was important to 

 man. After the waters began to decrease, Tezpi sent out from his ark 

 a vulture, to ascertain the state of the waters, but this bird, which feeds 

 on carrion, did not return to him, in consequence of the number of dead 

 bodies which were to be found everywhere strewed on the earth. Tezpi 

 sent out other birds, of which the humming bird alone returned, holding 

 in its beak a branch covered with leaves. Tezpi seeing that the earth 

 had begun to produce vegetation, left his vessel near the mountain of 

 Colhuacan." — Humboldt, Res. ii. 65. 



