The confusion of thought apparent in these ancient traditions of paradise was no doubt partly due to the fact that primitive man, with his limited grasp of the possibilities of space, pictured heaven as not far distant from him. It was a happier and a brighter earth, which offered material rather than spiritual joys, and where, according to the earliest conceptions, the spirits of the departed carried on the same pursuits, reaped and sowed and hunted, as they had done while in life. Thus the old Accadian dwellers by the Euphrates pictured the sky as the counterpart of their own fertile plains, and the sun as a ploughman yoking his oxen to the glittering plough, with which he tilled the heavenly pasture.[307] The same idea is exemplified in the names of the zodiacal constellations, which are of extremely ancient origin, the sign we still know as Taurus being called by the Accadians “the bull who guides the year.” So near was heaven that it was not impossible to climb up to it, if you could but find the cosmic tree by which it was upheld. The Khasias of India have a legend that the stars are men who have climbed into heaven by a tree.[308] The Mbocobis of Paraguay still believe that the souls of the dead go up “to the earth on high” by the tree which joins us to heaven, and find an entrance by means of the holes in the sky-roof through which the rain descends.[309] There is a Chinese story of a king, who having heard of the glories of paradise, set forth in search of it. After long wanderings he came to a mighty column, which, he had been told, must be climbed in order to reach the wished-for goal. But it was too slippery, and he was compelled to fall back upon the alternative route, a steep and rugged mountain path. When almost fainting with fatigue he was assisted by some friendly nymphs, and at length arrived at a beautiful garden, with a wondrous tree in its midst, and a fountain of immortality, from which four rivers, flowing to the four corners of the earth, took their rise.[310] The same notion of the similarity and propinquity of the heavenly field is illustrated by the story of the Etruscan priest, who by his charms brought down to earth a bit of heaven whereon to build his temple. The Mahometans assert that the Caaba was lowered directly from the celestial paradise exactly at the centre of the earth. And the Bedouins of Arabia still believe that the jinni, living near the lowest heaven, can hear the conversation of the angels, and so gain valuable information which they are able to impart to men.[311]