ommentators, and their
insisting on going beyond the narrative itself, that has raised such
difficulties, and made the problem look more hopeless than it really is.

To what purpose are "the three continents of the old world" "subjected
to the most rigorous search," as Dr. Wright puts it--when it is quite
plain from the text itself, that the solution is to be sought in the
neighbourhood of the Euphrates, or not at all? The whole inquiry seems
to have been one in which a vast cloud of learned dust has been raised
by speculators, who began their inquiry without clearly determining, to
start with, what was the point at issue. Either the description in Gen.
ii. 3-14 is meant for allegory, or geographical fact: this question must
first be settled; and if the latter is agreed to, then it is quite
inconceivable that the words should imply any very extensive region, or
any fancied realm extending over a large proportion of one or other
quarter of the globe. The problem is then at once narrowed; and it is
simply unreasonable to look for Havila in India, or for Pison in the
province of Burma, as one learned author does!

Yet commentators have forgotten this; and gone--the earlier ones into
interpretation of allegory--the later into impossible geographical
speculation; while only the most recent have confined themselves to the
obvious terms of the problem as laid down in the narrative itself--a
narrative which (whether true or false) is clearly meant to be definite
and exact, as we have seen. Our A.V. translators are to be held, to
some extent, responsible for the freedom which speculation has
exercised, by themselves taking the C[=u]sh of the narrative to
"Ethiopia," i.e., to the African continent--for which there is no
authority whatever.

As regards the _allegorical_ interpretations, they are too extravagant
for serious notice. Souls, angels, human passions and motives, are
supposed to be represented by towns, rivers, and countries. To all this
it is enough to reply--What reason can we have for supposing an
allegory suddenly to be interpolated at Gen. ii. 8? There is no allegory
before it, there is none after.

Then as to the early geographical expounders. Josephus and others
supposed the allusion was made to the great rivers known to ancient
geography, all of which ran into that greatest river of all, which
encircled the globe. In this view, the Gihon might be the Nile, and the
Pison the Ganges! Here, again, it may be rema