"The proof of my assertion lies in the ruins and monuments still to be found buried beneath the waves, hundreds of miles from the shore, though some were undoubtedly on islands which also sunk at this time. What would be the first effects of a cataclysm of such magnitude? The ships at sea, if they escaped at all, would sail for home. Arriving where the original shores had been, and finding nothing for even fifty miles beyond, the survivors would imagine that the whole country had been lost, and so would turn towards those other shores which their race had colonized. They would carry with them the story of the Flood which had submerged the whole of the western continent, and from this account we would finally inherit our version of the awful event. Having accepted the theory of the destruction of their home-land, and being thus compelled to adopt permanently their new abiding-places, would not these colonists immediately set about making their new home to resemble as much as possible the old? Undoubtedly! Hence we find them building the tower of Babel, in which project they were foiled by the confusion of tongues. Would it surprise you, however, to know that a similar legend is found in Central America?"
"I am ignorant, Doctor, of all that pertains to the subject. Therefore, of course, I should be surprised, but I am deeply interested."
"The legend is still current among the natives dwelling near the pyramid of Cholula, to which it alludes, but I will give you a version of it which is recorded in a manuscript of Pedro de Los Rios. It is as follows:
"Before the great inundation, which took place four thousand eight hundred years after the creation of the World, the country of Anahuac was inhabited by giants. All those who did not perish were transformed into fishes, save seven, who fled into caverns. When the waters subsided, one of these giants, Xelhua, surnamed the Architect, went to Chollolan, where, as a memorial of the mountain Tlaloc, which had served for an asylum to himself and his six brethren, he built an artificial hill in form of a pyramid…. The gods beheld with wrath this edifice, the top of which was to reach the clouds. Irritated at the daring attempt of Xelhua, they hurled fire [lightning?] on the pyramid. Numbers of the workmen perished; the work was discontinued."
"Indeed, Doctor, the two traditions are similar. How is that to be understood, since certainly from the time of the Flood, until the discovery by Columbus, there was no communication between the Old and the so-called New World?"
"Wherever, in two places devoid of communication, similar occurences are recorded, they have a common inspiration. So it was in this instance. The colonists built the temple to their God whom they had worshipped in Mexico. The Mexicans did likewise, moved to the action by the destruction of all their places of worship, because of the great inroad made by the sea, and the consequent narrowing of the land. In both instances, we can understand the desire to attain a great height, in order to have a place of safety if a second flood were to supervene. Now let me call your attention to a little coincidence. You observe in the Mexican story that seven giants were saved. This number seven has always been considered a numeral of great significance, by all the religionists of olden times. Thus the author of the book of Genesis so divided the beginning of his narration, that the creation of the world and all that occurred up to the Flood, is told in seven chapters. Depending upon legends for his facts about that period, which the Mexican story says covered forty-eight hundred years, he condenses it all into the mystic number of seven chapters."
"From all this, then, I am to believe that the story of the Flood is true in the main? I had always supposed that it was either a myth, or an exaggeration of some local inundation?"
"Undoubtedly the great Flood occurred. But now I come to the object which I had in telling you all this. The great pyramids in Mexico, or teocali as they were called, were temples, places of worship consecrated to the god Tesculipoca. Would it surprise you to hear that this Mexican deity is no other than Æsculapius, commonly called the father of medicine?"
"It would, indeed!"
"Yet it is true. Like many other of the mythological gods of Europe, he really existed in Mexico. The quickest manner of recognizing him, is by his name. Let us place the Mexican and the European, one under the other: