[940] Keller, _op. cit._, p. 347, is astray in stating that Ea was regarded “als Fischgott.” As god of the waters, he was the protector of the fish therein, but apart from this, there is no evidence that he was termed, even with a wide use of the word, a Fish God. [941] For the omission of fish from the cargo of Noah’s ark, Whiston in his philosophic _A New Theory of the Deluge_ (London, 1737), accounts by the fact, that fish, living in a cooler, more equable element, were correcter in their lives than beasts and birds, who from the heat or cold on land engendered by the sun or its absence were prone to excesses of passion or exercises of sin, and so were saved! [942] The length of the flood varies greatly from the above seven days, to eight months and nine days of the _Nippur Poem_, to the nine months and nine days of _Le Poème Sumérien_, during which Tagtug is afloat, and to the one year and ten days which is the total duration in the Bible. [943] See Poebel, _Historical Texts_ (Publications of the Babylonian Section of the University of Pennsylvania), vol. IV., Part I., pp. 9 ff. In Langdon’s _Le Poème Sumérien_ (Paris, 1919) is to be found much, which is not written in the later account of Adapa and of the Flood, and of Paradise, and many details which are different. _In it there is no woman, no temptress, no serpent._ But it does record that the survivor of the Flood was placed in a garden and apparently forbidden to eat of the fruit of a tree, growing in the centre of the garden. He does eat, however, and thereby loses immortality. [944] The myth of the Deluge is practically world-wide, except in Africa (including Egypt), “where native legends of a great flood are conspicuously absent—indeed, no clear case of one has yet been reported.” J. G. Frazer, _Folklore in the Old Testament_ (London, 1918), vol. I. p. 40. Maspero seems quite wide of the mark in treating the semi-ritual myth of the Destruction of Man as “a dry deluge myth,” _Dawn of Civilization_ (London, 1894), pp. 164 ff. For various accounts of the Deluge, see Hastings, _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, article _Deluge_ (Edinburgh, 1911). CHAPTER XXXV FISH—VIVARIA—THE FIRST INSTANCE OF POACHING We find in two important sources of our knowledge of Assyria (proper) references to beasts or fishes of the sea and of the river. The first occurs in _The Broken Column_ of Tiglath-Pileser I., in whose reign Assyria attained to high prosperity. This king, the first of that country to leave behind a detailed record of his achievements, was, as we have seen, a mighty hunter. After recounting his many military campaigns he adds in Column IV. a list of the beasts and fish which he had taken in his hunting expeditions. The text runs:— 1. The gods Ninurta and Nergal, who loved his priesthood, (the task) of hunting in the field, 2. Entrusted unto him, and in ships of the land of Arvad 3. he sailed, and he slew a mighty dolphin in the sea.[945]