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frequent hieroglyph. As for Ireland, the celebrated legend of 
St. Patrick, viz., that he banished all the snakes from it, can 
only be reasonably explained by the supposition that, in 
evangelizing that country, he abolished serpent worship. 
But it is in India that the most precise and singular 
forms of serpent mythology are preserved. It is not merely 
that houses are built for and" dedicated to them, in which 
they are religiously fed and tended with the greatest reverence, 
or that the cave of Elephanta and other temples are sculptured 
with gods grasping serpents in their hands. Over and above 
this more ordinary form of serpent worship, we find distinct 
mythological representations, so closely copied from the 
Hebrew tradition, that it is impossible not to recognize their 
likeness. Maurice, for example, in his large work on the 
History of India, vol. ii., gives engravings of Krishna, first, as 
enfolded by a serpent, which is biting Ids heel ; and, secondly, 
as trampling the serpent upon its heady copied accurately from 
the Hindu originals. 
Now America supplies exact analogies to all these facts. 
When Mexico was first discovered, Montezuma, on one occa- 
sion, showed Cortez his gods. Among these, one idol was 
covered with gold and jewels, and his body bound with golden 
serpents. Some years since, in a collection of Mexican 
antiquities brought over to England by a Mr. Bullock, the 
cast of a terrific idol was exhibited, consisting of a serpent 
coiled up in an irritated position, with jaws extended, and in 
the act of gorging a woman. Like the Hindus, they also kept 
live serpents as household gods in their private dwellings. 
Nor is this all, for among the paintings of the Aztecs found 
in Mexico, two have been preserved by M. Aglio in which a 
figure is drawn smiting a great serpent on the head. While a 
similar but more expressive painting occurs in Plate 74 of the 
Borgian collection, where a figure is represented as victoriously 
smiting the serpent’s head, at the same time that the serpent 
is biting his heel . 
I will not enlarge upon this part of my subject by adducing 
evidences from ancient Peru, and the modern tribes of North 
America, because I submit that the foregoing are sufficient; 
for they not only set forth a unity of mythological worship 
between the Old and the New World, but of tradition also, and 
that in such exact agreement with the Hebrew tradition as 
to render their identity of origin approximately clear and 
certain. 
Y. The same thing may be traced even still more powerfully 
in relation to the Hebrew tradition of the universal deluge. 
To narrate the many traditions which exist of a general 
