It is unfortunately a difficult thing to make a comparison of the ark as described in Genesis with a ship of the Babylonian story. It was thought, by the earlier translators of the Babylonian story of the Flood, that its size was indicated in the second paragraph of the story (p. 102, ll. 11, 12), but Dr. Haupt justly doubts that rendering. If the size of the vessel were indicated at all, it was probably in the next paragraph, where the building of the ship is described. This part, however, is so very mutilated, that very little clear sense can be made out of it. The Babylonian home-land of the story seems certainly to be indicated by the mention of two kinds of bitumen or pitch for caulking the vessel, Babylonia being the land of bitumen _par excellence_. Those who were to live on board were to sustain themselves with the flesh of oxen, and to all appearance they cheered the weary hours with the various kinds of drink of which they laid in store. They were not neglectful, either, of the oil that they used in preparing the various dishes, and with which they anointed their persons. All these points, though but little things in themselves, go to show that the story, in its Babylonian dress, was really written in the country of that luxury-loving people. The mention of holes for the cables, too, shows that the story is the production of maritime people, such as the Babylonians were. Apparently the Babylonians found there was something inconsistent in the patriarch being saved without any of his relatives (except his sons), and the artificers who had helped him to build the ship which was to save him from the destruction that overwhelmed his countrymen and theirs. For this reason, and also because of the relationship that might be supposed to exist between master and servant, his relatives and the sons of the artificers(11) are saved along with his own family, which, of course, would not only include his sons, but their wives also. On this point, therefore, the two accounts may be regarded as in agreement.