e accompanied by dogs. The
sound of the pipes is heard for a time; then the music ceases
suddenly, and shortly afterwards the dog returns without a hair upon
its body. It has evidently been in conflict with demons.

The tunnel may run from a castle to the seashore, from a cave on one
side of a hill to a cave on the other, or from a seashore cave to a
distant island.

It is possible that these widespread tunnel stories had origin among
the cave dwellers of the Palaeolithic Age, who believed that deep
caverns were the doors of the underground retreats of dragons and
giants and other supernatural enemies of mankind.

In Babylonia, as elsewhere, the priests utilized the floating material
from which all mythologies were framed, and impressed upon it the
stamp of their doctrines. The symbolized stories were afterwards
distributed far and wide, as were those attached to the memory of
Alexander the Great at a later period. Thus in many countries may be
found at the present day different versions of immemorial folk tales,
which represent various stages of culture, and direct and indirect
contact at different periods with civilizations that have stirred the
ocean of human thought, and sent their ideas rippling in widening
circles to far-distant shores.

CHAPTER IX.

DELUGE LEGEND, THE ISLAND OF THE BLESSED, AND HADES

Babylonian Story of the Flood--The Two Immortals on the Island of
the Blessed--Deluge Legends in the Old and New Worlds--How
Babylonian Culture reached India--Theory of Cosmic
Periods--Gilgamesh resembles the Indian Yama and Persian
Yimeh--Links with Varuna and Mitra--The Great Winter in Persian and
Teutonic Mythologies--Babylonian Hades compared with the Egyptian,
Greek, Indian, Teutonic, and Celtic Otherworlds--Legend of Nergal
and the Queen of Death--Underworld originally the Grave--Why
Weapons, &c., were Buried with the Dead--Japanese and Roman
Beliefs--Palaeolithic Burial Customs--"Our Graves are our
Houses"--Importance of Babylonian Funerary Ceremonies--Doctrine of
Eternal Bliss in Egypt and India--Why Suppressed in Babylonia--Heavy
Burial Fees--Various Burial Customs.

The story of the Deluge which was related to Gilgamesh by
Pir-napishtim runs as follows:--

"Hear me, O Gilgamesh, and I will make revelation regarding the hidden
doings of the high gods. As thou knowest, the city of Shurippak is
situated upon the bank of the Euphrates. The gods were within it:
th