Among the Thlinkeets of British Columbia there is a legend that the Great Crow or Raven, Yehl, was the creator of most things: "_Very dark, damp, and chaotic_ was the world in the beginning; nothing with breath or body moved there except Yehl; in the likeness of _a raven he brooded over the mist; his black winds beat down the vast confusion; the waters went back before him and the dry land appeared_. The Thlinkeets were placed on the earth--though how or when does not exactly appear--while the world was _still in darkness, and without sun, moon, or stars_."[2] The legend proceeds at considerable length to tell the doings of Yehl. His uncle tried to slay him, and, when he failed, "he imprecated with a potent curse a deluge upon all the earth. . . . The flood came, the waters rose and rose; but Yehl clothed himself in his bird-skin, and soared up to the heavens, where he stuck his beak into a cloud, and remained until the waters were assuaged."[3] This tradition reminds us of the legend of the Thessalian Cerambos, "who escaped the flood by rising into the air on wings, given him by the nymphs." I turn now to the traditions of the Miztecs, who dwelt on the outskirts of the Mexican Empire; this legend was taken by Fray Gregoria Garcia[4] from a book found in a convent in Cuilapa, a little Indian town, about a league and a half south of Oajaca; the book had been compiled by the vicar of the convent, "just as they [1. "Popular Science Monthly," October, 1879, p. 800. 2. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 98. 3. Ibid., p. 99. 4. "Origen de los Ind.," pp. 327-329.] {p. 214} themselves were accustomed to depict and to interpret it in their primitive scrolls": "In the year and in _the day of obscurity and darkness_," (the days of the dense clouds?), "yea, even before the days or the years were," (before the visible revolution of the sun marked the days, and the universal darkness and cold prevented the changes of the seasons?), "when the world was in _great darkness and chaos_, when the earth was covered with water, and there was nothing but _mud and slime on all the face of the earth_--behold a god became visible, and his name was the Deer, and his surname was the Lion-snake. There appeared also a very beautiful goddess called the Deer, and surnamed the Tiger-snake. These two gods were the origin and beginning of all the gods." This lion-snake was probably one of the comets; the tiger-snake was doubtless a second comet, called after the tiger, on account of its variegated, mottled appearance. It will be observed they appeared _before_ the light had returned,