[46] This date is sometimes given earlier, but when account is taken of the proper motion of these stars we get about the date above mentioned. I cannot understand how Dr. Ball, Astronomer Royal for Ireland, has obtained the date 2248 B.C., unless he has taken the proper motion of Alcyone the wrong way. The proper motion of this star during the last 4000 years has been such as to increase the star's distance from the equinoctial colure; and therefore, of course, the actual interval of time since the star was on the colure is less than it would be calculated to be if the proper motion were neglected.
[47] Russland unter Alexander II. Leipzig: 1870.
[48] "The day and night of the battle passed, and the sufferers received no food or water, and their festering wounds were undressed. The following morning the Russians entered and took possession, and made the day one of rejoicing with the visit of the Czar and the Imperial Staff; but this celebration of the event, however short it may have seemed to the victors, was a long season of horrible suffering for the wretched, helpless captives who stretched their skeleton hands in vain towards heaven, praying for a bit of bread or a drop of water. Neither friend nor foe was there to alleviate their sufferings, or to give the trifle needed to save them from a painful death, and they died by hundreds; and before the morning of the third day the dead crowded the living in every one of those dirty, dimly-lighted rooms which confined the wounded in a foul and fetid atmosphere of disease and death. It was only on the morning of the third day that these wretched, tortured creatures had been left to their fate, that the Russians began the separation of the living from the dead."—Daily News Letter from Plevna.
[49] There is a notion in this country that Herzen, at one time, was banished to Siberia, and lived as an exile there. The idea is founded on a book of his, published in German and English, under the title of "My Exile in Siberia." Herzen, however, was never banished to Siberia, but only interned for a time at Perm, which is several hundred miles from the Siberian frontier, and later at Novgorod. There, as a Government official, he had to sign the passport documents of those who were transported to Siberia. He left Russia, and lived abroad in voluntary exile when he wrote his works of Panslavistic propagandism under Socialist colours.
[50] The system is thus expounded in the "Laws of Manu," i. 68-86. For its ulterior developments see Wilson, Vishnu-Purāna, pp. 23-26, and 259-271.
[51] Theopompus, cited by the author of the treatise "On Isis and Osiris," attributed to Plutarch (c. 47), already pointed out this doctrine as existing among the Persians.
[52] Ewald calculates the four ages of the world which he believes he has discerned in the Bible as follows:—1. From the Creation to the Deluge; 2. from the Deluge to Abraham; 3. from Abraham to Moses; 4. from the Promulgation of the Mosaic Law. Such epochs have scarcely any resemblance to the Ages of Hesiod or of the Laws of Manu. And, moreover, it is well to note that wherever we meet simultaneously, as we do with Indians, Iranians, and Greeks, with the existence of the four ages and the tradition of the Deluge, these are completely independent of each other, have no connection whatever, which indicates a difference of origin, from sources having nothing in common. Nowhere does the Deluge coincide with the transition between two of these ages.
Nevertheless, there is a point where a certain approximation may be established between the theories of India and those of the Bible. The Laws of Manu say that in the four successive ages of the world the duration of human life goes on decreasing in the proportion of 4, 3, 2, 1; in the Bible we have the antediluvian patriarchs, with the exception of Enoch, who was translated to Heaven, living about 900 years. Subsequently Shem lives 600, and his three first descendants between 430 and 460; to the four succeeding generations there is assigned a life of between 200 and 240 years; finally, from the time of Abraham the existence of the patriarchs comes nearer to normal data, and no longer reaches a maximum of 200 years.
[53] "Vendidâd," ii. It is also related how Yima preserved the germs of men, animals, and plants from the Deluge. See, too, "Yesht," i. 25-27, ix. 3-12, xv. 15-17. "Bundehesh," xvii.
[54] "Yesht," xix. 31-38. "Bundehesh," xxiii. and xxxii. "Sad-der," 94.