We know that in Iona, ten or twelve centuries ago, Greek was written, though we do not know if the Iona library possessed--what Queen Mary had among the sixteen Greek volumes[11] in her library--a copy of Herodotus; but we are particularly anxious to ascertain if the story told by Herodotus of Rhampsinitus, and the robbery of his royal treasury by that "Shifty Lad" "the Master Thief,"[12] was in vogue as a popular tale among the Scottish Gaels or Britons in the oldest times? The tale is prevalent in different guises from India to Scotland and Scandinavia among the Aryans, or alleged descendants of Japhet; Herodotus heard it about twenty-three centuries ago in Egypt, and consequently (according, at least, to some high philologists), among the alleged descendants of Shem; and could any Scottish Turanians, as alleged descendants of Ham, in the deputation, tell us whether the tale was also a favourite with them and their forefathers? For if so, then, in consonance with the usual reasoning on this and other popular tales, the story must have been known in the Ark itself, as the sons of Noah separated soon after leaving it, and yet all their descendants were acquainted with this legend. But have these and other such simple tales not originated in many different places, and among many different people, at different times; and have they not an appearance of similarity, merely because, in the course of their development, the earliest products of the human fancy, as well as of the human hand, are always more or less similar under similar circumstances?