Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/154

132 the basement was overthrown by an earthquake, only the middle story was left intact,—how, we are not informed.

We will now take the Mussulman tradition. Nimrod, who, according to the Arabs, was the son of Canaan, and brother of Cush, sons of Ham, having cast Abraham, who refused to acknowledge him as supreme monarch of the world, into a burning, fiery furnace, from which he issued unhurt, said to his courtiers, "I will go to heaven and see this God whom Abraham preaches, and who protects him." His wise men having represented to him that heaven is very high, Nimrod ordered the erection of a tower, by which he might reach it. For three years an immense multitude of workmen toiled at the erection of this tower. Every day Nimrod ascended it and looked up, but the sky seemed to him as distant from the summit of his tower as it had from the level ground.

One morning he found his tower cast down. But Nimrod was not to be defeated so easily. He ordered a firmer foundation to be laid, and a second tower was constructed; but however high it was built, the sky remained inaccessible. Then Nimrod resolved on reaching heaven in another fashion. He had a large box made, and to the four corners he attached gigantic birds of the species Roc. They bore Nimrod high into the air, and then fluttered here and fluttered there, and finally upset the box, and tumbled him on the top of a mountain, which he cracked by his fall, without however materially injuring himself. But Nimrod was not penitent, nor ready to submit to the Most High, therefore God confounded the language of his subjects, and thus rent from him a large portion of his kingdom. God sent a wind, says Abulfaraj, which overthrew the Tower of Babel and buried Nimrod under its ruins.

Of Babel we find fewer traditions preserved amongst the ancient nations, than we did of the Deluge.

The Zendavesta makes no mention of such an event; and it is equally unknown to the Chinese books, though curiously enough, in Chinese hieroglyphics, the tower is the symbol of separation.