d to the ark, but with
feet covered with mud. Sent out a third time, the birds returned no
more, and Xisuthrus knew that land had reappeared: so he removed some of
the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold! the vessel had grounded
on a mountain. Then Xisuthrus went forth with his wife and his daughter,
and his pilot, and fell down and worshipped the earth, and built an
altar, and offered sacrifice to the gods; after which he disappeared from
sight, together with those who had accompanied him. They who had
remained in the ark and not gone forth with Xisuthrus, now left it and
searched for him, and shouted out his name; but Xisuthrus was not seen
any more. Only his voice answered them out of the air, saying, 'Worship
God; for because I worshipped God, am I gone to dwell with the gods; and
they who were with me have shared the same honor.' And he bade them
return to Babylon, and recover the writings buried at Sippara, and make
them known among men; and he told them that the land in which they then
were was Armenia. So they, when they had heard all, sacrificed to the
gods and went their way on foot to Babylon, and, having reached it,
recovered the buried writings from Sippara, and built many cities and
temples, and restored Babylon. Some portion of the ark still continues
in Armenia, in the Gordiaean (Kurdish) Mountains; and persons scrape off
the bitumen from it to bring away, and this they use as a remedy to avert
misfortunes."

"The earth was still of one language, when the primitive men, who were
proud of their strength and stature, and despised the gods as their
inferiors, erected a tower of vast height, in order than they might mount
to heaven. And the tower was now near to heaven, when the gods (or God)
caused the winds to blow and overturned the structure upon the men, and
made them speak with divers tongues; wherefore the city was called
Babylon."

Here again we have a harmony with Scripture of the most remarkable
kind--a harmony not confined to the main facts, but reaching even to the
minuter points, and one which is altogether most curious and interesting.
The Babylonians have not only, in common with the great majority of
nations, handed down from age to age the general tradition of the Flood,
but they are acquainted with most of the particulars of the occurrence.
They know of the divine warning to a single man, the direction to
construct a huge ship or ark, the command to take into it a chosen fe