which had been given him.

_Vishnu_ then appeared before them, in the form of a fish, as he had
said, and Satyavrata fastened a cable to his horn.

The deluge in time abated, and Satyavrata, instructed in all divine and
human knowledge, was appointed, by the favor of _Vishnu_, the Seventh
Menu. After coming forth from the ark he offers up a sacrifice to
Brahma.[25:1]

The ancient temples of Hindostan contain representations of Vishnu
sustaining the earth while overwhelmed by the waters of the deluge. _A
rainbow is seen on the surface of the subsiding waters._[25:2]

The _Chinese_ believe the earth to have been at one time covered with
water, which they described as flowing abundantly and then subsiding.
This great flood divided the higher from the lower age of man. It
happened during the reign of Yaou. This inundation, which is termed
_hung-shwuy_ (great water), almost ruined the country, and is spoken of
by Chinese writers with sentiments of horror. The _Shoo-King_, one of
their sacred books, describes the waters as reaching to the tops of some
of the mountains, covering the hills, and expanding as wide as the vault
of heaven.[25:3]

The _Parsees_ say that by the temptation of the evil spirit men became
wicked, and God destroyed them with a deluge, except a few, from whom
the world was peopled anew.[25:4]

In the _Zend-Avesta_, the oldest sacred book of the Persians, of whom
the Parsees are direct descendants, there are sixteen countries spoken
of as having been given by Ormuzd, the Good Deity, for the Aryans to
live in; and these countries are described as a land of delight, which
was turned by Ahriman, the Evil Deity, into a land of death and cold,
partly, it is said, by a great flood, which is described as being like
Noah's flood recorded in the Book of Genesis.[26:1]

The ancient _Greeks_ had records of a flood which destroyed nearly the
whole human race.[26:2] The story is as follows:

"From his throne in the high Olympos, Zeus looked down on the
children of men, and saw that everywhere they followed only
their lusts, and cared nothing for right or for law. And ever,
as their hearts waxed grosser in their wickedness, they
devised for themselves new rites to appease the anger of the
gods, till the whole earth was filled with blood. Far away in
the hidden glens of the Arcadian hills the sons of Lykaon
feasted and spake proud words against the majesty of Zeus, and