University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER III.

Noah, who is the first scafaring man
we read of, begat three sons, Shem, Ham,
and Japhet. Authors, it is true, are not
wanting, who affirm that the patriarch
had a number of other children. Thus
Berosus makes him father of the gigantic
Titans; Methodius gives him a son called
Jonithus, or Jonicus; and others have
mentioned a son, named Thuiscon, from
whom descended the Teutona or Teutonic,
or in other words the Dutch nation.

I regret exceedingly that the nature of
my plan will not permit me to gratify
the laudable curiosity of my readers, by
investigating minutely the history of the
great Noah. Indeed such an undertaking
would be attended with more
trouble than many people would imagine;
for the good old patriarch seems to have
been a great traveller in his day, and to
have passed under a different name in
every country that he visited. The Chaldeans,
for instance, give us his story,
merely altering his name into Xisuthrus
—a trivial alteration, which, to an historian
skilled in etymologies, will appear
wholly unimportant. It appears likewise
that he had exchanged his tarpawling
and quadrant among the Chaldeans
for the gorgeous insignia of royalty, and
appears as a monarch in their annals.
The Egyptians celebrate him under the
name of Osiris: the Indians as Menu;
the Greek and Roman writers confound
him with Ogyges, and the Theban with
Deucalion and Saturn. But the Chinese,
who deservedly rank among the most
extensive and authentic historians, inasmuch
as they have known the world
much longer than any one else, declare
that Noah was no other than Fohi; and
what gives this assertion some air of credibility
is, that it is a fact, admitted by
the most enlightened hiterati, that Noah
travelled into China, at the time of the
building of the tower of Babel (probably
to improve himself in the study of languages);
and the learned Dr. Shackford
gives us the additional information, that
the ark rested on a mountain on the
frontiers of China.

From this mass of rational conjectures
and sage hypotheses many satisfactory
deductions might be drawn; but I shall
content myself with the simple fact stated
in the Bible, viz. that Noah begat three
sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. It is astonishing
on what remote and obscure
contingencies the great affairs of this
world depend, and how events the most
distant, and to the common observer unconnected,
are inevitably consequent the
one to the other. It remains to the philosopher
to discover these mysterious affinities,
and it is the prondest triumph of
his skill to detect and drag forth some
latent chain of causation, which at first
sight appears a paradox to the inexperienced
observer. Thus many of my
readers will doubtless wonder what connexion
the family of Noah can possibly
have with this history—and many will
stare when informed, that the whole history
of this quarter of the world has
taken its character and course from the
simple circumstance of the patriarch's
having but three sons—but to explain.

Noah, we are told by sundry very credible
historians, becoming sole surviving
heir and proprietor of the earth,