It is not, I think, generally known how widespread these traditions are. L'Abbé Gainet has collected some thirty-five ("La Bible sans la Bible"); but Mr Catlin (_vide infra_, p. 245) says he found the tradition of a deluge among one hundred and twenty tribes which he visited in North, South, and Central America. This accords with Humboldt's testimony (Kalisch, i. 204), who "found the tradition of a general deluge vividly entertained among the wild tribes peopling the regions of Orinoco." To these I must add the evidence of the indirect testimony of the commemorative ceremonies which I have collected in another chapter (_vide_ p. 242). It has been said that the Chinese tradition is too obscure to be adduced, but we shall see (p. 65) whether, when in contact with other traditions, it cannot be made to give light; and I shall refer my readers to the pages of Mr Palmer (_supra_, p. 71) for evidence of the tradition in Egypt, where it had heretofore been believed that no such evidence was to be found. In India (_vide_ ch. ix.) the tradition is embodied in the history of Manu and the fish; and Bunsen ("Egypt," iii. 470) admits "that there is evidence in the Vedas, however slight, that the flood does form a part of the reminiscences of Iran." _Vide_ also p. 68, evidence of the tradition in Cashmere. I wish also to direct attention here to two recent and important testimonies to the existence of the tradition in India and the Himalayan range. At pp. 151 and 450 of Hunter's "Bengal," it will be seen that the Santals have a distinct tradition of the Creation, flood, intoxication of Noah, and the dispersion; and of the Vedic evidence, which Bunsen (_supra_, 223) calls slight, Mr Hunter says:--"On the other hand, the Sanscrit story of the Deluge, like that in the Pentateuch, makes no mystery of the matter. A ship is built, seeds are taken on board, the ship is pulled about for some time by a fish, and at last gets on shore upon a peak of the Himalayas." Dr Hooker ("Himalayan Journal," ii. 3) says:--"The Lepchas have a curious legend of a man and woman having saved themselves on the _summit_ of Tendong (a very fine mountain, 8613 feet) during a flood which _once deluged Sikhim_," which he authenticates on the spot. Here, as in many of Mr Catlin's instances of local tradition, I may observe that the event as recorded proves the universality of the Deluge for the rest of the world, or at least all the world below the level of Tendong. In speaking, however, of the universal Deluge (universal as far as the human race are concerned), I do not enter into the geological argument, or exclude the view (permissible I believe, _vide_ Reusch, p.