Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/128

106 ancestors the whole earth was overflowed. Then two persons alone were saved, a man and a woman, who remained on Mount Tamanaku, which is not far from the Cucivero river, where our ancestors formerly dwelt. They lamented sore over the loss of their friends and relations, and as they wandered sadly about the mountain they heard a voice which told them to cast the kernels of the nuts of the Palma Mauritia backwards over their shoulders. They did so, and out of the nuts cast by the woman rose females, and out of those cast by the man sprang males."

The Peruvians related that their first king and founder of their nation, Manco Capak, along with his wife Mama Ocllo, after the great deluge left their land, and came from the holy island in the lake Titicaca, on which the sun cast its first beam when the flood drained away.

A Brazilian legend is that the Evil Spirit Arbomoku, and the spirits of the air, made a compact together to destroy mankind. The former opened all the fountains of the earth, the latter poured the clouds upon the ground and inundated it, so that only one mountain-top appeared above the water, and on that took refuge two persons, a brother and a sister, from whom all the new generations sprang.

 XVI.

THE PLANTING OF THE VINE. BOWED under his toil, dripping with perspiration, stood the patriarch Noah, labouring to break the hard clods. All at once Satan appeared and said to him,— "What new undertaking have you in hand? What new fruit do you expect to extract from these clods?" "I plant the grape," answered the patriarch.

"The grape! proud plant, most precious fruit! joy and delight to men! Your labour is great; will you allow me to assist you? Let us share the labour of producing the vine." 