grove of olive-trees was first designedly planted there, in order that a CHAP. VII. more perfect resemblance of Ararat might thus be obtained. It is not difficult to adduce parallel instances in corroboration of the conjecture. The planting of the sacred olive at Athens is immediately connected with a story of a local deluge: there was a grove of olives round the temple of the Samian Neptune: there was another olive-grove round the temple of Jupiter in the immediate vicinity of the Elèan Olympus: on the coast of Arabia in the Red sea and opposite to the Egyptian Thebais, are three - small islands, deemed (I apprehend) holy; which, in the time of Strabo, were thickly planted with olives: on the coast of Asia Minor, not far from Ephesus, is another consecrated island; which contested with Delos the parturition of Latona, and in which was shewn the olive-tree that supported the goddess after her labour and round that lofty peak of Meru, where the Hindoos assert the ark of Menu to have rested, there are still extensive groves of olive planted originally, with the same design that I suppose the groves of mount Olivet to have been planted". But, however this may be, the three-peaked hill of Jerusalem, which I believe to have been an ancient Canaanitish high place, was studiously selected by Solomon for the purposes of his base idolatry, when he apostatised to the commemorative heroworship of the Gentiles. On this occasion, the ship-goddess Astoreth, whom the Phenicians venerated with Adonis or the summit of the lunar mount Lebanon, was placed, like the Indian Isi, on the central peak: while Chemosh and Milcom, who, like Bal-Ram and Jagan-Nath or Osiris and Horus, are but varied forms of the great father, occupied the two other points of the hill".

When three peaks could not be had to the sacred hill; two, if they offered themselves, were beheld with similar veneration. Such is the case with the two small tumuli in upper India, near the pretended tomb of Noah, which are denominated the mountains of the Moon: and such was the case with the two famous peaks, which branch out from the top of the Grecian Parnassus. In all practicable matters, this holy mountain was

p. 52

'Strab. Geog. lib. viii. p. 343, 353. lib. xvi. p. 769. lib. xiv. p. 639. Asiat. Res. vol. vi 78.xxiii. 13. See Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 578.,

BOOK V. the very counterpart of the Indian Meru: and, as I suppose the two points of Nysa and Cyrrha to exhibit upon a vast scale the lunar boat resting on the top of the hill, so Pyrrha and Deucalion are fabled to have landed upon its summit out of that Ark which was astronomically symbolized by the crescent of the Moon".

2. When the huge Ship of the deluge fixed itself immoveably among the bare rocks and crags of the tempest-beaten Ararat; the surrounding cliffs, its own gloomy interior, and the narrow door of entrance in its perpendicular side, would all conspire together to excite the idea of a spacious cavern. This semblance of a grotto would necessarily, I should conceive, for a season be at once the habitation and the oratory of the Noëtic family: for, until, as their numbers increased, they had been able to construct for themselves more commodious dwellings, they would obviously prefer the friendly shelter of the Ark before an exposure to the inclemency of the weather. Hence originated the sanctity of caverns: hence we rarely find a holy mountain unprovided with a grotto either natural or artificial : and hence we meet with so many tales of the great father, being either born from a cave, or nursed in a cave, or dwelling in a cave, or taking refuge in a cave when he quitted the Ark within which he had been exposed at sea'. Hence too the imitative regeneration of the Mysteries was indifferently thought to be procured by an evasion either from a cave or from a boat: hence the ship Argo and the sacred grotto were alike deemed oracular and hence the entrance into the mystic cavern and the entrance into the floating navicular coffin were equally reckoned a descent into Hades or an inclosure within the womb of the great infernal ship-goddess. Other matters, as we proceed in the inquiry, will serve to corroborate a position, which already may seem to be sufficiently established.

(1.) Of the cavern combined with the sacred mountain it is easy to produce a variety of instances: and so much has been already said respecting the character of the deities worshipped in such holy places, that on that point nothing more need be added.

Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 501. See Plate III. Fig. 2, 3.

* See Plate III. Fig. 18.

3 See Plate III. Fig. 15.

Porphyry tells us from Eubulus, that Zoroaster first consecrated a CHAP. VII. natural grotto to the universal father Mithras in the mountains bordering upon Persia: and he adds, that from Zoroaster the practice was adopted by others, insomuch that it very generally obtained to celebrate the Mysteries and to perform other religious ceremonies in caverns either natural or artificial'. In this I believe him to be perfectly accurate: for the primeval Zoroaster was the transmigrating great father; and those, who in subsequent ages assumed the name, were the Archimagi, who were severally the acknowledged representatives of demiurge, and who claimed to be successive incarnate manifestations of him. Porphyry goes on to remark, that the Mithratic cave was closely allied to that of Jupiter in Crete, that of Pan and the Moon in Arcadia, and that of Bacchus in the island of Naxus; each of which was situated in the recesses of a craggy mountain *: and this catalogue may with much ease be greatly extended. There was a cave in a rocky promontory on the coast of Epidaurus near Brasiæ, where Bacchus was thought to have been nursed by Ino when he landed out of the ark'. There was another cave in the diluvian mount Parnassus, dedicated to the Corycian nymphs; whom Deucalion is said to have adored and consulted at the close of his perilous voyage, and by whom we are to understand the priestesses of the mundane Cor or holy circle of the Idèan mother. Another we find in the literal Indian Meru or Parnasa at the head of the Ganges, consecrated to Devi or Isi who floated as a ship on the surface of the deluge. Another we have in the peak of Chaisaghar, where the ark of Menu is still traditionally said to have come to land: it is much resorted to by pilgrims; and in its vicinity are shewn the pretended impressions made by the feet of the dove, which was sent out of the Ark. There was another in the Tauric mount Cassius of Cilicia, where Osiris or Jupiter was thought to have been confined by the oceanic monster Typhon, and where the appulse of the Ark was wont to be fixed by the inhabitants of the country 7. There was another again in the Mauri

Porph. de ant. nymph. p. 253, 254.

3 Paus. Lacon. p. 209. Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 501.

Pag. Idol.

Porph. de ant. nymph. p. 262.

* Paus. Phoc. p. 672. Ovid. Metam. lib. i. ver. 320.
Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 521–523.

7 Apollod. Bibl. lib. i. c. 6. § 3.

VOL. III.

2 D

1

BOOK V. tanian mount Atlas, which is described by Maximus Tyrius as a sort of deep hole like a well: it was of such a' size, that fruit-trees grew in the bottom of it; but its steepness, and the peculiar sanctity attributed to it, alike precluded the possibility of a descent'. There was another in mount Argèus near Tyana: this sacred hill yet bears the name of Argau; but both its ancient and its modern appellation is equally derived from the cavern worship of the ship Argo or Argha. Nor was the natural grotto, as attached to the holy mountain, solely venerated in the great eastern continent: the Floridans of America, we are told, were accustomed to adore the Sun under the figure of a cone in a sacred cavern, which ran deep into the bowels of a lofty hill. This mode of worship is in every particular an exact transcript of the superstition that overspread the whole pagan world. The cone or phallus was employed to represent the great father in perhaps every region from Hindostan to Ireland: and the Floridan mountain with its cavern was but the local Meru or Parnassus of the country.

(2.) Natural grottos are rarely found except in craggy mountainous districts, whether continental or insular. Hence we may pronounce, that almost every sacred grotto was in the vicinity of some sacred hill: and, if that hill rose as an island out of the sea, it was the more valued; because a more exact representation was thus obtained of mount Ararat, surrounded by the waters of the retiring deluge, and bearing amidst its rocks that Ark which presented to the fancy an image of a gloomy excavation. For the same reason caverns on the sea-shore were highly venerated: and the traditions, associated with them, are usually such as have an immediate reference to the flood and the ark-god.

Thus Anius was born in a rocky cavern in the island of Eubèa; where the ark had drifted, within which his mother Rheo, while pregnant, had been consigned to the waves: and we find a legend, that his daughters were afterwards changed by Bacchus into doves. Thus Jason, the fabulous navigator of the ship Argo, was educated in the cave of Chiron 5. And

'Max. Tyr. Dissert. xxxviii. p. 373, 374.

2 Bryant's Anal. vol. i. p. 215
3 Banier's Mythol. vol. i. p. 144.
Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 570. Ovid Metam. lib. xiii. ver. 674.

5 Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 175.

With a CHAP. VII.

thus Mithras was thought to have been born out of a cavern'.
similar allusion to the Ark and the deluge, the navicular goddess Venus
was worshipped by the Naupactians in a cavern on the sea-shore: the
fictitious queen Lamia, who is said to have delighted in the murder of in-
fants and who is evidently the same as the destroying Cali or Diana of the
Indo-Scythians, was venerated by their African brethren in a cave which
ran into the side of a craggy mountain': the most ancient god and king of
the Japanese is reported to have once hid himself in a cave; and no doubt
can be entertained of his real character, since we find him adored as the
Sun and represented sitting upon a cow: the Mysteries of the Samo-
thracian Cabiri were celebrated within the dark recesses of the insular cave
Zerinthus the British Hu was worshipped in a cleft or cavern of an island
washed by the ocean, which was esteemed his special sanctuary: the
Gothic Hercules is said to have found a nymph, half woman and half ser-
pent, in a cavern of Scythia, by whom he became the parent of three sons 7:
Apollo was worshipped in a celebrated cavern near the river Lethe or Styx
in the country of the Magnetes: the small shrines of Buddha are usually
constructed within rocky caverns; and his more austere votaries esteem it
a duty to live in woods, in grottos, or in artificial subterrancous buildings":
the Peruvians had a tradition, that, when a former race of men perished by
the waters of an universal deluge, the world was repeopled by their ances-
tors who were born at that period out of a cavern": the Phigalensians
worshipped the Cabiric Ceres in a dark grotto; and represented the god-
dess with a dove in one hand and a dolphin in the other, denominating the
holy mountain where the grotto was situated mount Olivet ": the Homeric
cave of the Nymphs is, with the same reference to the branch brought back
by the dove, provided with a flourishing olive-tree" and the grotto of the

1 Just. Mart. Dial, cum Tryph. p. 296. i 9.1 2

3 Diod. Bibl. lib. xx. p. 778.

"Lycoph. Cassan. ver. 77.

"Herod. Hist. lib. iv. c. 8, 9, 10.

2 Paus, Phoc. p. 687.
Kæmpfer's Japan b. ii. p. 153. b. iii. p. 231.
Davies's Mythol. p. 120, 507, 508, 537.
Paus. Phoc. p. 672.

Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 422. vol. vi. p. 292. See also Symes's Embass. to Ava. vol. iii.
10 Purch. Pilgr. book ix. c. 9. p. 874.

p. 213, 214.

"Paus. Arcad. p. 522, 523.

Hom. Odyss. lib. xiii. ver. 102.