cause the vessel to sail' (with a rope tied to its horn), 'for many years, without wearying, in this immensity of water.' At length the ship was dragged by the fish on to the highest point of the Himalaya. 'That is why the highest summit of the Himaran (Himalaya) was called _Nan_bundhanam, or the place to which the ship was attached, a name which it bears to this day--_Sache cela, O Prince des Bharatidians._' Then _le gracieux_, with placid gaze, thus addressed the richis--'I am Brahma, the ancestor (_l'ancestre_) of all creatures. No one is greater than I. Under the form of a fish I came to save you from the terrors of death. From Manou, now, shall all creatures, with the gods, the demons (_au souras_), and mankind, be born.... This is the ancient and celebrated history which bears the name of the 'History of the _Fish_.'"[158] [156] Comp. "Traditions of the New Zealanders." [157] Do not the seven richis or sages correspond to the seven (or eight) (Phoenician) Kabiri. (There were seven or eight persons in the ark, accordingly as we take separate account or not of Noah.) As regards the Kabiri, their number (seven or eight, accordingly as we include "Æsculapius") must be the clue to the solution of "the most obscure and mysterious question in mythology." Bunsen ("Egypt," iv. 229) says of an astral explanation:--"It does not enable us to explain the details of those representations which do not contain the number seven (or eight), and, in fact, seven brothers." It will suffice, from our point of view, if there are numerically seven persons. Bunsen (iv. p. 291) says--"It is quite clear that the fundamental number of the gods in the oldest mythologies of Phoenicia, and all Asia, as well as Egypt, was seven. There were seven Kabiri, with the seven Titans. There are also seven Titans mentioned in other genealogies of the race of Kronos. Of the latter, one dies a virgin and disappears." But as with the Kabiri we have seen the number seven, or eight, accordingly as Æsculapius is included or not, so (vide p. 314) we see the primitive gods of Egypt either seven or eight, accordingly as Thoth, "the eighth," or Horus, figure as the "last divine king" (p. 319). When Horus so figures, "_he_ is frequently represented as _the eighth, conducting the bark of the gods_, with _the seven great gods_," &c. Moreover, it is elsewhere (p. 347) said that "the Phoenicians, in their sacred books, stated that the Kabiri _embarked in ships_, and landed near Mount Kaison. This legend was corroborated by the existence of a shrine on that coast in historic times." [_Query_, The tradition of the Deluge localised, and the shrine commemorative of that catastrophe (_vide_ Boulanger, &c., _infra_, p. 244);