non fere ducenta reddat, &c. that is, "It is so fruitful in "bringing forth corn, that it yieldeth two hundred fold;" the leaves of wheat and barley being almost four fingers broad as for the height of millet and sesam, they are even in length like unto trees, which although I know to be true, yet I forbear to speak hereof, well knowing that those things which are reported of this fruitfulness will seem very incredible to those which never were in the country of Babylon. They have commonly in all the country palmtrees growing of their own accord, the most of them bearing fruit; out of which they make both meats, and wine, and honey, ordering them as the fig-trees. Thus far Herodotus.

66

To this palm-tree, so much admired in the East India, Strabo and Niger add a fourth excellency, which is, that it yieldeth bread; ex quibus panem, et mel, et vinum, et acetum conficiunt; "of which these people make bread, wine, honey, and vinegar." But Antonius the Eremite findeth a fifth commodity, not inferior to any of those four, which is, that from this selfsame tree there is drawn a kind of fine flax, of which people make their garments, and with which in East India they prepare the cordage for their ships; and that this is true, Athanasius in the life of Antonius the Eremite confesseth, saying, "That he received a garment made "thereof from the Eremite himself, which he brought with "him out of this region." So therefore those trees, which the East Indies so highly esteem and so much admire, (as indeed the earth yieldeth no plant comparable to this,) those trees, I say, are in this upper Babylon, or region of Eden, as common as any trees of the field. Sunt etiam, saith Strabo, passim per omnem regionem palmæ sua sponte nascentes; "There are of palms over all the whole region, grow❝ing of their own accord." Of this place Quintus Curtius maketh this report, Euntibus a parte læva Arabiæ odorum fertilitate nobilis, regio campestris interest inter Tigrim et Euphratem, jacens tam ubere et pingui solo, ut a pastu repelli pecora dicantur, ne satietas perimat; that is, "As you "travel on the left hand of Arabia, (famous for plenty of "sweet odours,) there lieth a champaign country placed be

"tween Tigris and Euphrates, and so fruitful and fat a "soil, that they are said to drive their cattle from pasture, "lest they should perish by satiety." Bis in anno segetes Babylonii secant; "The Babylonians cut their corn twice a "year," saith Niger. And as countries generally are more fruitful to the southward than in the northern parts; so we may judge the excellency of this by that report which Strabo maketh of the south part of Armenia, which is the north border of Eden, or a part thereof; his words be these in the Latin, Tota enim hæc regio frugibus et arboribus abundat mansuetis, itemque semper virentibus; "This region ❝aboundeth with pleasant fruits, and trees always green:" which witnesseth a perpetual spring, not found elsewhere but in the Indies only, by reason of the sun's neighbourhood, the life and stirrer up of nature in a perpetual activity. In brief, so great is the fertility of the ground, that the people are constrained twice to mow down their corn-fields, and a third time to eat them up with sheep; which husbandry the Spaniards wanting in the valley of Mexico, for the first forty years, could not make our kind of wheat bear seed, but it grew up as high as the trees, and was fruitless. Besides, those fields are altogether without weeds, saith ¶Pliny, who addeth this singularity to that soil, that the second year the very stubble (or rather falling down of the seeds again) yieldeth them a harvest of corn without any further labour: his words are these; Ubertatis tantæ sunt, ut sequenti anno sponte restibilis fiat seges.

SECT. XIII.

Of the river Pison, and the land of Havilah.

AFTER the discovery of Eden, and the testimonies of the fertility thereof, it resteth to prove that Pison and Ge hon are branches of Tigris and Euphrates. For that the knowledge and certainty of these two rivers should trouble so many wise men, it is strange to me, seeing necessity

a Plin. Nat. Hist. 1. 18. c. 17.

itself (Tigris and Euphrates being known) findeth them out: for Euphrates, or Tigris, or both, be that river or rivers of Eden which water paradise, which river or rivers Moses witnesseth afterward, divided into four heads, whereof the one is called Pison, the other Gehon, &c. Could there be a stranger fancy in the world, than when we find both these, namely, Tigris and Euphrates, in Assyria and Mesopotamia, to seek the other two in India and Egypt, making the one Ganges and the other Nilus? Two rivers as far distant as any of fame known or discovered in the world: the scriptures making it so plain, that these rivers were divided into four branches; and with the scriptures, nature, reason, and experience bearing witness. There is no error which hath not some slippery and bad foundation, or some appearance of probability resembling truth, which when men (who study to be singular) find out, (straining reason according to their fancies,) they then publish to the world matter of contention and jangling; not doubting but in the variable deformity of men's minds to find some partakers or sectators, the better by their help to nurse and cherish such weak babes as their own inventions have begotten.

But this mistaking (and first for the river of Pison) seemeth to have grown out of the not distinguishing of that region in India called Havilah, from Havilah which adjoineth to Babylonia, afterwards known by the name of Susiana. For Havilah upon Tigris took name from Havilah the son of Cush; and Havilah in India, from Havilah the son of Joctan; the one remembered by Moses in the description of paradise, the other where' Moses setteth down the generations of Noah and his sons after the flood. For the sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, and Raamah; and the sons of Joctan were Ophir and Havilah, &c. of which latter, to wit, of Ophir and Havilah, the sons of Joctan, that island of Ophir, (whence Solomon had gold,) and Havilah adjoining, had their names. Now because Ganges is a great and

r Gen. x. 7, 29.

a famous river of the East India, and Havilah a country of the same, and is situated upon Ganges; hence it came that Ganges is taken for Pison, which river is said by Moses to water the land of Havilah. Or perhaps it was supposed that those four rivers named by Moses must of necessity be four of the greatest in the world; whence (supposing that Ganges was the next great and famous river after Tigris and Euphrates) they chose out this river to make one of the four. And yet certainly there is another river, whom in these respects they should rather have chosen than Ganges; for the river Indus on this side India, for beauty, for nearness, and for ability, giveth no way place to Ganges; but exceedeth it in all. And how can any reasonable man conceive that Ganges can be one of the four heads; seeing Indus cometh between it and Tigris, and between Tigris and Indus is all that large empire of Persia, consisting of many kingdoms. And again; farther towards the east, and beyond Indus, are all those ample dominions of India intra Gangem which lie between those two proud rivers of Indus and Ganges, now called the kingdom of Mogor. So as if Indus be not accounted for any of the four, because it is removed from Tigris by all the breadth of Persia, then how much less Ganges, which falleth into the ocean, little, less than forty degrees to the eastward of Indus? Surely, whosoever readeth the story of Alexander shall find, that there is no river in Asia that can exceed Indus. For Hydaspis was of that breadth and depth, as Alexander thereon in great galleys transported himself and the greatest part of his army, and in sailing down that branch of Indus found it so large and deep, and by reason thereof so great a billow, as it endangered his whole fleet, which was ready to be swallowed up therein: Hydaspis, as aforesaid, being but one of many branches of Indus, comparable to it, and as great as it, having besides this the rivers of Coas, of Suastus, Acesines, Adris, (otherwise Hirotis,) Hispalis, and Zaradus, all which make but one Indus, and by it are swal

$ Gen. ii. II.

RALEGH, HIST. WORLD, VOL. I.

I

lowed up with all their children and companions, which being all incorporated and made one stream, it crosseth athwart Asia, and then at Cambaia visiteth the ocean sea.

But because Pison, which compasseth Havilah, as also t Gehon, which watereth Cush, must somewhere be joined with the rest in one body, or at least be found to proceed out of the same country of Eden, out of which the other two heads do proceed, out of doubt they cannot, either the one or the other, be Ganges or Nilus: for Nilus riseth in the uttermost of the south, and runneth northward into the Mediterranean sea; and the river Ganges riseth out of the mountain Imaus, or (as others will have it) Caucasus, which divides the northern Scythia from India, and runneth from north to south into the Indian ocean. And as for Perath and Hiddekel, (that is, Euphrates and Tigris,) the one of them is begotten in Armenia, near Georgiana or Iberia; the other not far off in the same Armenia, by the Gordiæan mountains, so as Ganges, who only travelleth in her own India, and Nilus through Ethiopia and Egypt, never saw the land of Eden, or joined themselves in one channel, either with themselves or with either of the other; and therefore could not at any time from thence be separated or divided into four heads or branches, according to Moses.

Therefore the river Pison, which enricheth Havilah, is the same which, by joining itself with Tigris, was therefore called Pisi-Tigris, or Piso-Tigris, of Pison and Tigris, which river watereth that Havilah, which Havilah the son of Cush gave name unto, and not Havilah of India, so called of Havilah the son of Joctan, who inhabited with his brother Ophir in the east. And this Havilah of the Cushites hath also u gold, bdellium, and the onyx-stone. This bdellium is a tree, of the bigness of an olive, whereof Arabia hath great plenty, which yieldeth a certain gum, sweet to smell to, but bitter in taste, called also bdellium. The Hebrews take the loadstone for bdellium. Beroaldus affirmeth, that Bdela in Hebrew signifieth pearl; so doth Eugubinus; and

+ Gen. ii. 13.

" Gen. ii. 12.