Page:Bible Defence of Slavery.djvu/102

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88
ORIGIN, CHARACTER, AND

had evidently placed between them; amalgamation, therefore, during the three hundred and fifty years of Noah's life after the flood, it is not likely often happened among them.

But from the extreme fruitfulness of these families, there were produced, by the time fifty years had gone by, great multitudes of men, women and children, spreading out in all directions around the patriarch Noah, their common father; who, in cultivating the ground and fighting the wild beasts, which by this time had filled the wilderness, presented a great company of gigantic forest adventurers. These adventurers, in pursuing the game of the wilds, in all directions, for the sake of their flesh for food, and their skins for clothing, would naturally fall in with other tracts of arable lands, streams, lakes, brooks, and rivers; along the banks of which, wonderful discoveries of flowry vales and mountains would be made. Broad savannas, abounding with all kinds of beasts and fowls — the waters with fishes, and the wilderness with berries, fruits, roots and esculent herbs. Nuts of all trees, spices, gums, aromatics and balms, frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, and odors, wild honey, grapes and flowry regions with perpetual verdure, could but captivate the hearts of these pioneers of the wilds of the Euphrates and Tigris.

The news of such discoveries being continually reported through the settlements, excited the formation of new companies, who, planting other neighborhoods in all directions, soon to the delighted eyes of Noah and his sons, occupied a large district, with multitudes of white, red, and black inhabitants; who