Engravings of
both these may be seen in "Nineveh and its Palaces."

In the story of Oannes we have probably the account preserved by a rude
people of the advent among them at a very early period of one more
enlightened than themselves; just as the Peruvians accounted in their
peculiar way for the coming of Manco Capac. He comes also from a land
farther east, by the Persian Gulf. These people were at the time very
likely ignorant of even the most rudimentary navigation, and hence
coming by water he was to them a fish indeed.

The incarnation of Brahma as a fish--the Matsya Avatar--is recounted in
much Sanscrit; but it appears to be only a symbolical reference to a
great division of Nature,--a heathen assertion of God in the sea, as
well as elsewhere. The same is true of the marine deities of Greece and
Rome, which were not fishy, though the words Triton and Nereid have led
to misconception, as in relation to those words it is necessary to
understand a distinction that has not always been made. The mythological
Triton was one,--a sea-god subordinate to Poseidon, and played a
conspicuous part in Deucalion's flood. He is pictured by Ovid as
carrying a horn, and wearing a Tynan robe, that may be construed into a
blue jacket,--which would make him the original sailor. The Nereids were
fifty. They were the daughters of Nereus, and, pursued by the fifty sons
of AEgyptus, could find rest in no land, and became wanderers upon the
sea, and at length sea-nymphs. Each had a special, besides the general
name.

There does, however, appear to have been a "fishy composure" held sacred
by the Greeks: this was the _Pompilus_, "Pompilus," says Apollonius
Rhodius, "was originally a man, and he was changed into a fish on
account of a love-affair of Apollo's. They say that Apollo fell in love
with a beauty named Ocyrhoe, and that, when she had crossed over to
Miletus, at the time of a festival, and was afraid to return lest the
god should attack her, she induced Pompilus, a sailor, and friend to her
father, to see her safely home; and that he led her down to the shore
and embarked, when Apollo appeared, took the maiden, sunk the ship, and
metamorphosed Pompilus into a fish." Others assert this fish to have
sprung at the same time with Aphrodite, and from the same heavenly
blood. What fish it was it is scarcely possible to say; but that there
was a fish bearing this name held sacred by the Greeks is certain.

The Triton, in which the ancie