ing and instructive links in the history of the human race and its progress in civilisation.
"Taking, then, the account as it stands in the Bible,"[1] says Mr Budge, "it appears that the descendants of Ham, the third son of Noah, were Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. The lands of Cush and Mizraim have hitherto been identified with Ethiopia and Egypt respectively; Phut was regarded as doubtful, and Canaan was the country with which we are so well acquainted from the frequent occurrence of the name in the Bible. The identification of the first-named and most important of these districts, the land of Cush, has been regarded by many as unsatisfactory: for Nimrod, judging from the names of towns said to have been founded by him, could hardly have been an Ethiopian, though, according to the Bible story, he was a descendant of Cush.
Amongst the treasures of the Assyrian excavations there has luckily been found a tablet, giving, in a list of the nations, &c., along the Taurus range of mountains, a country bearing the name of Kusu, the same word as is used in the inscriptions to denote the country of Ethiopia; and from this and from other sources it is clear that two countries of this name were known to the people of the ancient world, the one being Ethiopia and the other Cappadocia or its immediate neighbourhood. It seems therefore likely that Nimrod and his followers, for some reason unrecorded, left his home in the land of Cush or Cappadocia, and journeying in a south-easterly direction, came to the land of Sumer or Shinar. There meeting perhaps with the Semitic population of the country, he did not go any farther, but settled there with his followers, and built Babylon, and Birs-Nimroud, the supposed Tower of Babel.
In course of time the new comers began to mingle with
- ↑ Genesis x. 6.
