We do, it is true, find among the Brahmins, in the book entitled the _"Ezourveidam"_ the names of _Adimo_ and of _Procriti_, his wife. But though _Adimo_ has some little resemblance to our _Adam_, the Indians say: "We were a great people established on the banks of the Indus and the Ganges many ages before the Hebrew horde moved towards the Jordan. The Egyptians, the Persians, and the Arabs came to us for wisdom and spices when the Jews were unknown to the rest of mankind. We cannot have taken our _Adimo_ from their Adam; our _Procriti_ does not in the least resemble _Eve_; besides, their history and ours are entirely different. "Moreover, the _'Veidam'_ on which the _'Ezourveidam'_ is a commentary, is believed by us to have been composed at a more remote period of antiquity than the Jewish books; and the _'Veidam'_ itself is a newer law given to the Brahmins, fifteen hundred years after their first law, called _Shasta_ or _Shastabad_." Such, or nearly such, are the answers which the Brahmins of the present day have often made to the chaplains of merchant vessels who have talked to them of Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel, when the traders of Europe have gone, with arms in their hands, to buy their spices and lay waste their country. The Phœnician Sanchoniathon, who certainly lived before the period at which we place Moses, and who is quoted by Eusebius as an authentic writer, gives ten generations to the human race, as does Moses, down to the time of Noah; but, in these ten generations, he mentions neither Adam nor Eve, nor any of their descendants, not even Noah himself. The names, according to the Greek translation by Philo of Biblos, are _Æon_, _Gems_, _Phox_, _Liban_, _Usou_, _Halieus_, _Chrisor_, _Tecnites_, _Agrove_, _Amine_; these are the first ten generations. We do not see the name of _Noah_ or of _Adam_ in any of the ancient dynasties of Egypt: they are not to be found among the Chaldæans; in a word, the whole earth has been silent respecting them. It must be owned that such a silence is unparalleled. Every people has attributed to itself some imaginary origin, yet none has approached the true one. We cannot comprehend how the father of all nations has so long been unknown, while in the natural course of things his name should have been carried from mouth to mouth to the farthest corners of the earth. Let us humble ourselves to the decrees of that Providence which has permitted so astonishing an oblivion. All was mysterious and concealed in the nation guided by God Himself, which prepared the way for Christianity, and was the wild olive on which the fruitful one has been grafted. That the names of the authors of mankind should be unknown to mankind is a mystery of the highest order.