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Part HI 
NOTABLE HISTORIES. 
Legendary Accounts of Adam. 
According to the Talmudists, when Adam was created, his body was 
of immense magnitude. When he sinned, his stature w'as reduced to 
100 ells, according to somej to 900 cubits, according to others, who 
think this was done at the request of the angels, who were afraid of 
so gigantic a creature. In the island of Cejilon is a mountain, called 
the Peak or Mountain of Adam, from its being, according to the tra- 
dition of the country, the residence of our first parent. Here the 
print of his footsteps, above two palms in length, are still pointed out. 
By the same writers, things equally extravagant are ascribed to 
Adam’s understanding. Several Christians, indeed, seem to be little 
behind the Jews in the degree of knowledge he was supposed to 
possess; nothing being hidden from him, according to some, except 
contingent events relating to futurity. One writer indeed, Pinedo, 
excepts politics ; but a Carthusian friar, having exhausted, in favour of 
Aristotle, every imag^ and comparison he could think of, at last as- 
serted that Aristotle’s knowledge was as extensive as that of Adam. 
' In consequence of this surprising knowledge with which Adam 
' was endued, he is supposed to have been a considerable author. 
The Jews pretend that he wrote a book on the creation, and an- 
other on the Deity. Some rabbins ascribe the ninety-second 
psalm to Adam ; and in some manuscripts the Chaldee title of 
this psalm expressly declares that this is the song of praise which 
the first man repeated for the sabbath-day. Strange stories are 
told concerning Adam’s children. The Mahometans tells us, that 
our first parents having been throw'n headlong from the celestial 
regions, Adam fell upon the isle of Serendib, or Ceylon, in the East 
Indies, and Eve on Jodda, a port of the Red Sea, not far from Mecca. 
After a separation of upwards of 200 years, they met in Ceylun, where 
they multiplied ; according to some. Eve had twenty, according to 
others, only eight deliveries, bringing forth at each time twins, a male 
and a female, who afterwards married. The rabbins imagine that 
Eve brought forth Cain and Abel at a birth ; that Adam wept for 
Abel 100 years, in the valley of tears near Hebron. The inhabitants 
of Ceylon affirm that the salt lake on the mountain of Columbo con- 
sists wholly of the tears which Eve for one hundred years together 
shed because of Abel’s death. 
Some of the Arabians tell us, that Adam was buried near Mecca, 
on Mount Abukobeis ; others, that Noah, having laid his body in the 
ark, caused it to be carried after the deluge to Jerusalem by Melchi- 
sedec the son of Shem ; of this opinion are the Eastern Christians ; 
but the Persians affirm that he was interred in the isle of Serendib; 
where his corpse was guarded by lions, at the time the giants w^arred 
upon one another. St Jerome imagined that x\dam was buried at 
