[159] I fancy it might be traced also in the Phoenician fish-god, Dagon. The _Saturday Review_ (June 4, 1870) in its review of Cox's "Mythology," says--"Dagon cannot be divided Dag-on, the fish 'On,' for a Semitic syllable cannot begin with a vowel; and if the necessary breathing 'aleph' were inserted (which it is very unsafe to do), it would then mean 'the fish of On,' which is not the signification required." But it is the signification which would fit in here; moreover, might not the terminal "aon," or "_haon_," suggested, have been originally, _i.e._ before displacement by "boustrophedon"--Noa or Noa_h_? I give this suggestion with all proper diffidence, and with some genuine misgiving as to the "breathing aleph." I find that Bryant ("Mythology," iii. p. 116) makes a similar suggestion. Bunsen ("Egypt," iv. 243) says--"Dagon is Dagan, _i.e._ corn. This is also implied by the Greek form of it--Sitôn, wheat-field (comp. p. 219). We have in the Bible, Dagon, a god of the Philistines, a name usually supposed to be derived from 'dag,' fish; the god has a human form ending in a fish, like the fish-shaped goddess, Derketo-Atergatis. It is clear, from Philo's own account, that the Phoenician Poseidon was a god of this kind, and it is difficult to find any other name for him. Yet we cannot say that Dagon is very clearly explained. Here is a god of agriculture, well authenticated, both linguistically and documentally, Dagan, _i.e._ wheat, and he is the _Zeus of agriculture_." _Vide_ p. 219. P. 261 says Dagon must not be confounded with "Dagan," but without reconciling it with the above at p. 243, on the contrary, we find "Dagon, Dagan = corn (the fish-man)." At p. 241, quoting from the _text_ of Philo, it is said still more pointedly--"Dagon, after he _had discovered corn and the plough_, was called Zeus Arotnios." Comp. p. 204. Believing (_vide_ ch. xii.) in the tradition of mythology, even among savages, I could not but be much struck on coming upon the following passage in Roggeveen's voyage, to find--in his account of the Eastern Islanders--the same conjunction of the bull and fish implied in the traditional names of their idols:--"The name of the largest idol was called _Taurico_, and the other _Dago_; at least, these were the words they called to them by, and wherewith they worshipped them. These savages had great respect for the two idols, _Taurico_ and _Dago_, and approached them with great reverence ... and to supplicate for help against us, and to call upon with a frightful shout and howling of _Dago! Dago!_" ("Historical Account of Voyages Round the World," 1774, i. 469, 470.)