e waters," which "covered the low hills and
bathed the foot of the highest mountains." Mr. Davis suggests that a
great derangement of waters of the Yellow River, one of the largest in
the world, might even now cause the flood of Yaou to be repeated, and
lay the most fertile and populous plains of China under water. In modern
times the bursting of the banks of an artificial canal, into which a
portion of the Yellow River has been turned, has repeatedly given rise
to the most dreadful accidents, and is a source of perpetual anxiety to
the government. It is easy, therefore, to imagine how much greater may
have been the inundation, if this valley was ever convulsed by a violent
earthquake.[6]

Humboldt relates the interesting fact that, after the annihilation of a
large part of the inhabitants of Cumana, by an earthquake in 1766, a
season of extraordinary fertility ensued, in consequence of the great
rains which accompanied the subterranean convulsions. "The Indians," he
says, "celebrated, after the ideas of an antique superstition, by
festivals and dancing, the destruction of the world and the approaching
epoch of its regeneration."[7]

The existence of such rites among the rude nations of South America is
most important, as showing what effects may be produced by local
catastrophes, recurring at distant intervals of time, on the minds of a
barbarous and uncultivated race. I shall point out in the sequel how the
tradition of a deluge among the Araucanian Indians may be explained, by
reference to great earthquake-waves which have repeatedly rolled over
part of Chili since the first recorded flood of 1590. (See chap. 29,
Book II.) The legend also of the ancient Peruvians of an inundation many
years before the reign of the Incas, in which only six persons were
saved on a float, relates to a region which has more than once been
overwhelmed by inroads of the ocean since the days of Pizarro. (Chap.
29, Book II.) I might refer the reader to my account of the submergence
of a wide area in Cutch so lately as the year 1819, when a single tower
only of the fort of Sindree appeared above the waste of waters (see
Chap. 28, Book II.), if it were necessary, to prove how easily the
catastrophes of modern times might give rise to traditionary narratives,
among a rude people, of floods of boundless extent. Nations without
written records, and who are indebted for all their knowledge of past
events exclusively to oral tradition, are in the