The _Chinese_ believe the earth to have been at one time covered with water, which they described as flowing abundantly and then subsiding. This great flood divided the higher from the lower age of man. It happened during the reign of Yaou. This inundation, which is termed _hung-shwuy_ (great water), almost ruined the country, and is spoken of by Chinese writers with sentiments of horror. The _Shoo-King_, one of their sacred books, describes the waters as reaching to the tops of some of the mountains, covering the hills, and expanding as wide as the vault of heaven.[25:3] The _Parsees_ say that by the temptation of the evil spirit men became wicked, and God destroyed them with a deluge, except a few, from whom the world was peopled anew.[25:4] In the _Zend-Avesta_, the oldest sacred book of the Persians, of whom the Parsees are direct descendants, there are sixteen countries spoken of as having been given by Ormuzd, the Good Deity, for the Aryans to live in; and these countries are described as a land of delight, which was turned by Ahriman, the Evil Deity, into a land of death and cold, partly, it is said, by a great flood, which is described as being like Noah's flood recorded in the Book of Genesis.[26:1] The ancient _Greeks_ had records of a flood which destroyed nearly the whole human race.[26:2] The story is as follows: "From his throne in the high Olympos, Zeus looked down on the children of men, and saw that everywhere they followed only their lusts, and cared nothing for right or for law. And ever, as their hearts waxed grosser in their wickedness, they devised for themselves new rites to appease the anger of the gods, till the whole earth was filled with blood. Far away in the hidden glens of the Arcadian hills the sons of Lykaon feasted and spake proud words against the majesty of Zeus, and Zeus himself came down from his throne to see their way and their doings. . . . Then Zeus returned to his home on Olympos, and he gave the word that a flood of waters should be let loose upon the earth, that the sons of men might die for their great wickedness. So the west wind rose in its might, and the dark rain-clouds veiled the whole heaven, for the winds of the north which drive away the mists and vapors were shut up in their prison house. On hill and valley burst the merciless rain, and the rivers, loosened from their courses, rushed over the whole plains and up the mountain-side. From his home on the highlands of Phthia, Deukalion looked forth on the angry sky, and, when he saw the waters swelling in the valleys beneath, he called Pyrrha, his wife, and said to her: 'The time has come of which my father, the wise Prometheus, forewarned me. Make ready, therefore, the ark which I have built, and place in it all that we may need for food while the flood of waters is out upon the earth.' . . . Then Pyrrha