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On the Translation of Myths Between the Old And

THE NEW WORLD.

INTERCOURSE between various parts of the old world and the new was probably much more intimate even three or four thousand years ago than we, or at all events our immediate ancestors, have credited. The Deluge Tablets referred to in another chapter contain items from which we gather that sea-going vessels, well equipped and with skilled pilots, were in vogue in the time of Noah, and there is wanting no better proof of their seaworthiness than the fact that his particular craft was able to weather a long-continued tempest which would probably have sunk the greater part of those which keep the seas at the present time. The older Chinese classics make constant allusions to maritime adventure, and the discovery by Schliemann in ancient Troy* of vases with * Dr. Schliemann found a vase in the lowest strata of his excavations at Hissarlik with an inscription in an unknown language. Six years ago the Orientalist E. Burnouf declared it to be in Chinese, for which he was generally laughed at at the time.