one of their most beautiful symbols, the dragon. Later it became the
emblem of Set, the slayer of Osiris; and after that it was looked
upon with horror as the enemy of mankind, the destroyer, the evil
principle. Hence, in Egypt, the Hebrew captives adopted the serpent
as emblematical of evil, and later used it in their scriptural
records as the evil genius that tempted Eve and brought about the
fall of man. And so all people whose religious beliefs are founded
upon the Hebrew Bible now look upon the serpent as the symbol of
evil. Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans thus regard it."

Jose gazed at the man with rapt interest. "Don't stop!" he urged. "Go
on! go on!"

Hitt laughed. "Well," he resumed, "the tree and the serpent were
worshiped all through eastern countries, from Scandinavia to the
Asiatic peninsula and down into Egypt. And, do you know, we even find
vestiges of such worship in America? Down in Adams county, Ohio, on
the banks of Brush creek, there is a great mound, called the serpent
mound. It is seven hundred feet long, and greatly resembles the one in
Glen Feechan, Argyleshire, Scotland. It also resembles the one I found
in the ancient city of Tiahuanuco, whose ruins lie at an elevation of
some thirteen thousand feet above the Pacific ocean, on the shores of
Lake Titicaca, near the Bolivian frontier. This ancient city ages ago
sent out colonists all over North and South America. These primitive
people believed that a serpent emitted an egg from its mouth, and that
the earth was born of that egg. Now the serpent mound in Ohio has an
egg in its mouth. What is the logical inference?"

"You don't mean it!" exclaimed Jose, his eyes wide with astonishment.

Hitt laughed again in evident enjoyment of the priest's wonder. Then
he resumed: "It has been established to my entire satisfaction that
the ancient Egyptians and the Mayas of Central and South America used
almost identical symbols. And from all antiquity, and by all nations,
the symbols of the tree and serpent and their worship have been so
closely identified as to render it certain that their origin is the
same. What, then, are the serpent and tree of knowledge in the Hebrew
Bible but an outgrowth of this? The tree of life, of civilization, of
knowledge, was placed in the middle of the land, of the 'garden,' of
the primitive country of the race, Mayax. And the empire of the Mayas
was situated between the two great continents of North and South
America. The