xcept Noah, his wife and children, were either drowned or
changed. Those men who ran to the mountains when they saw the flood
rising became monkeys; those who flung themselves into the sea became
fish; the Chinese turned into hornbills; a woman who was eating seaweed
and kept on eating after the waves broke over her became a dugong.

In Mindanao, Basilan, and Sulu the pig is held in suspicion and its
flesh is not eaten. The reason for this aversion is that the first
pigs were grandchildren of the great Mahomet himself, and their
conversion to these lowly quadrupeds fell out in this way: When Jesus
(Isa) called on Mahomet, the latter, jealous of his reputed power,
bade him guess what was in the next room. Christ said that he did
not wish to do so. Mahomet then commanded him to prove his ability
to see through walls, and added that if he made a mistake he would
kill him. Thereupon Christ answered, "There are two animals in that
chamber that are like no other in the world."

"Wrong!" cried the Prophet, plucking out his sword. "They are my
grandchildren. You have spoken false, and you must lose your head."

"Look and see," insisted Christ, and Mahomet flung open the chamber
door, whereupon two hogs rushed out. It should be added that while
the divinity of Christ is denied in some of the Oriental religions,
he figures in many of them as a great and good man, gifted with
supernatural power. Moros charge as one reason for killing Christians
that followers of Christ disgrace and belie mankind in teaching that
men could kill their own god.

On Mindoro the timarau, a small buffalo that lives in the jungle,
has given rise to rumors of a fierce and destructive creature that
carries a single horn on his head. It is a wild and hard fighter, but
it has two horns, and is not likely to injure any save those who are
seeking to injure it. A creature with an armed head has lingered down
from the day of Marco Polo, because in the stock of yarns assembled by
that redoubtable tourist the unicorn figured. This was the rhinoceros,
which is found so near the Philippines as Sumatra. The gnu of Africa
is another possible ancestor of this creature, a belief in which
goes back to the time of Aristotle; but the horse-like animal with
a narwhal's horn that frisks on the British arms never existed.

And, speaking of horses, it is strange that centaurs should figure
in the mythology of a country like Luzon; but a mile from the church
at Mariveles i