It must, I think, be conceded that we have now before us three very similar accounts of works undertaken with reference to the reclamation of inundated land. All are undertaken by the first founders of their respective kingdoms--kingdoms widely separated and inhabited by people of diverse race--and all, more or less, contemporaneously. The Egyptians and Kashmerian have points in common as to their mode of reclamation, whilst the Chinese and Kashmerian have still more in common with the narrative in Genesis.[57] [57] I have since found this identical tradition (_vide_ p. 325) among the Mozca Indians. "Boshicha," it is said, "taught them _to build and to sow_, formed them _into communities_, GAVE AN OUTLET TO THE WATERS OF THE GREAT LAKE, &c." This seems demonstratively to prove, either that the Mozca Indians (South America) came from China, India, or Egypt--which I have contended for at p. 266--or else, which makes the argument I have in hand stronger, they have transmitted an identical tradition by a different channel. Four solutions occur to me as possible. Either they were obscure or perverted traditions of the Deluge, or their works were traditions of similar works effected by Noah after the Deluge; or these works were actually carried out upon the precedent and model of similar works effected by Noah; or they were fortuitous coincidences. Upon either of the three former conclusions, it will be shown that traditions of the Deluge, direct or indirect, exist both in Egypt and China, where it has been so confidently asserted that no tradition is to be found; and in the latter case, what is more especially to my purpose, a tradition which brings Yao into relation with Noah and Hoang-ti. In conclusion, I must remark that when it is urged that there is no tradition, or but slight tradition, of the flood in Egypt, we have a right to reply that there is no country where we should have so little reason to expect it. If there is any country where we should think it likely that the reminiscences of the Deluge would be effaced, it would be in a country periodically subject to inundations, where the people are annually made familiar with its incidents, and where its recurrence is not to them a cause of alarm, but a matter of expectation and joy.[58] [58] "The Chinese _who migrated before the Deluge (sic)_ have no reminiscences, any more than the Egyptians, of the great catastrophe which we know by the name of the Flood of Noah" (Bunsen's "Egypt," iii. 397). Palmer ("Egypt. Chron.," i. p. 38) says, with reference to a certain date--"This is only for such as know the true date of the flood, the end of the old world--an epoch by no means to be named, nor even directly alluded to, by any Egyptian." CHAPTER V. _CHRONOLOGY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF SCIENCE._