175 
Two of the rivers of Eden are expressly stated to be the 
Euphrates, and the Tigris under its old Accadian name, still in 
use , “ Hiddekel 33 ;* and Gikhkhan, the exact representative of 
Gihon, is given as a synonym of the Euphrates. This was 
probably a branch of the Euphrates, compassing the whole 
land of Cush, or the land of Nimrod, the Kutha of the 
Arabian geographers. The site of the town has been iden- 
tified with the ruins of Towibah, immediately adjacent to 
Babylon. There remains only the river Pison to be inquired 
after. This compassed the whole land of Havilah, which was 
a settlement of the Ishmaelites, the most to the east of any of 
their tribes. It has been identified by consent of commen- 
tators with the province of Bahrein, on the Persian Gulf, a 
district anciently watered, as we gather from Pliny, by a 
branch of the Euphrates which, diverging from the course of 
its other channels, ran southward parallel with this gulf, and 
fell into it nearly opposite to the Bahrein Islands, of which one 
still retains the name of Aval,t famous for its pearl-fishery. 
A further verification of the site is afforded by the added 
words “ there are (bdellium) pearls,” n V*T?, from the root ^1?, 
as signifying an excellent, selected pearl (Ges. Lex.). All 
things considered, I think it must be admitted that the 
sacred historian described the Garden of Eden as in Babylonia. 
The first mention of Eden, (delight, pleasure) is in Gen. ii., 
apparently of a district well known under that name, watered 
by the four well-known principal streams above mentioned, 
flowing through a deep rich alluvial tract of country, which by 
this very description reminds us that ages must have elapsed 
before the creation of man for such rivers to be formed and for 
their alluvium to be thus deposited. These streams (the 
Euphrates and the Tigris) have throughout the historic period 
mingled their often-changing courses either through natural 
or artificial channels. Through one of these last the steam- 
boats of Colonel Chesney’s expedition made their way, passing 
from the one river to the other. 
When Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, he 
dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden, that is, 
apparently, of the district so called ; whilst this tract of country 
again was that lying to the eastward of Judea. 
This whole region is little watered by rain, as Herodotus 
remarks (Clio, i. 193) ; but there went up a mist from the 
# Col. Chesney, Ex. to the Tigris and Euphrates, i. 13. See Eden, Smith’s 
Diet. ; A. H. Sayce, Soc. Bib. Arch. Trans., vol. i. p. 300 ; Smith’s Diet., sub 
voce Eden. 
t Forster’s Geog. of Arabia, i. 40. 
