Virgins of the sun. Concubines of the Inca. Matrimony. Reflexions. When the philosopher reads over the histories which adventurous travellers, or Christian missionaries, have given of the religions of the savage, or uncivilized, people whom they have visited, he feels painfully conscious that the accounts are not implicitly to be relied upon. In some he recognizes the fact that communications only take place between the one party and the other by signs, which not only may be, but very generally are, misinterpreted on both sides; in others he is able to see, or, at least, he comes to the conclusion, that the untaught barbarians have not a single idea which is not connected with eating and drinking, war, revenge, and love;--that such, indeed, resemble brute beasts, who have no more conception of hell or heaven, God and the soul, than an elephant has of aerostation, or a crow of theology. In other narratives the observer notices, that the individuals who interrogate the savages are themselves enthusiasts of a high order, who ask leading questions, and are content to receive, as a satisfactory answer, anything which can be considered as a reply. By this means very erroneous ideas have crept in amongst ourselves, and writers have built arguments upon a foundation as flimsy as a shifting sand. For example, I have repeatedly heard it alleged that every known tribe, in every part of the world which has yet been visited, has a tradition respecting an universal deluge, and the salvation of their progenitors by a floating vessel; and on this has been founded the hypothesis that all architecture, and even written characters, have an ark for their type. This development has been very ingeniously supported by J. P. Lesley, in _Man's Origin and Destiny_ (Trubner, London, 1868), a work replete with learning, and bold, but somewhat unsound, deductions. This assumed fact has also been used in support of the Biblical story of Noah, his ark, and the universal deluge--a myth so palpably extravagant, that everyone who professes to credit it is compelled to object to some detail, and to lean upon some frail reed, with the hope that he may thus be pardoned for his credulity. Since the above was written, it has been ascertained that the tale of Noah and his deluge is adapted from an Assyrian or Babylonian legend, written apparently with a view to make a story fitting to the sign of the Zodiac called Aquarius, one to the full as fabulous as that of the birth of Bacchus, and the amours of Zeus.