Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/84

62 to become timid and conscience-stricken; fifthly, he was to be a vagabond on the earth; sixthly, he was to be cast out from God's presence; seventhly, a mark was to be placed upon him.

The Mussulmans say that the penitence of Cain, whom they call Kabil, was not sincere. He was filled with remorse, but it was mingled with envy and hatred, because he was regarded with disfavour by the rest of the sons of Adam. Near Damascus is shown a place at the foot of a mountain where Cain slew Abel. The legends of the death of Cain will be found under the title of Lamech. "Half a mile from the gates of Hebron," says the Capuchin Friar, Ignatius von Rheinfelden, in his Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, "begins the valley of Mamre, in which Abraham saw the three angels; the Campus Damascenes lies toward the west; there, Adam was created; and the spot is pointed out where Cain killed his brother Abel. The earth there is red, and may be moulded like wax." Salmeron says the same, "Adam was made of the earth or dust of the Campus Damascenus." And St. Jerome on Ezekiel, chap, xvii., says: "Damascus is the place where Abel was slain by his brother Cain; for which cause the spot is called Damascus, that is, Blood-drinking." This Damascus near Hebron is not to be confused with the city Damascus.

 VII.

THE DEATH OF ADAM.

ACCORDING to a Mussulman tradition, Adam was consoled for the loss of Abel by the discovery of how to make wheat-bread. The story is as follows:— The angel Gabriel was sent out of Paradise to give him the rest of the wheat-grains Eve had plucked from the forbidden tree, together with two oxen, and various instruments of husbandry. Hitherto he had fed on roots and berries, and had known nothing of sowing grain; acting under Gabriel's directions, he ploughed the land, but the plough stuck, and Adam 