least remarkable among those with which he has made us acquainted: that the two branches of the Nile, which form the tract called the Delta, divide at the head of that Delta at a place called BATN EL BAKARI, or, the Cow's Belly; and the reader, by referring back to the preceding geographical treatise, will observe that the Ganges enters the region of Hindostan through the rock of GANGOTRI, or, the Cow-head Rock.* Without hazarding any decision, or even venturing at present to give an opinion, which of these countries originally imparted its customs and manners thus remarkably correspondent to the other, I cannot omit the present opportunity of mentioning likewise another striking trait: that very high estimation in which, Herodotus says, the plant of the LOTOS, which he emphatically denominates the lily of the Nile, was, in ancient times, holden in Egypt, and which is still considered as sacred in India. Herodotus flourished in the fifth century before Christ; and M. Savary, who writes in the eighteenth century of the Christian æra, affirms, that it is at this day regarded with the same

* Savary's Letters on Egypt, vol. i. p. 7. London edit. printed for Robinson.

+ Vide Herodoti lib. i. p. 135, where the reader will find a description of this beautiful plant, not very dissimilar from that of Savary.

general and decided preference to all other plants. He affirms the LOTOS to be an aquatic plant, peculiar to Egypt, and that it grows in rivulets and by the side of lakes, "There are two species," he observes; "the one bearing a white, the other a blueish flower. The calix of the LOTOS blows like that of a large tulip, diffusing a sweetness like the smell of the lily. The rivulets, near Damietta, are covered with this majestic flower, which rises about two feet above the water." The SUGAR-CANE too, it should be observed, has been immemorially cultivated in either country; and some authors, M. Savary informs us, assert, that this plant was brought from India to Egypt. He himself, however, is inclined to think, that only the method of cultivating it was brought thence: the sugar-cane appears to him to be a native of a country which produces many species of reeds, and where it grows wild, while its very name of CASSAH, or reed, which it still bears, strongly corroborates his opinion. That the Indians early cultivated the sugar-cane, though they understood nothing of preparing it like the moderns, but only collected the exuded balsam, may be proved from Pliny; and, that they *Savary, vol. i. p. 8.

+ Saccharum et Arabia fert; sed laudatius India. Plinii Nat. Hist. cap. xii. p. 361. Aldi edit.

1

must have had it in abundance, will be hereafter evinced from the very curious and novel circumstance, with which the following history will more particularly acquaint the reader, of an ancient king of India filling up the ditch of a besieged city with the large stalks of this plant. I need not cite any author to prove so noto-rious a fact, as that VEGETABLES anciently constituted the principal food of the Egyptians, as M. Savary and others acquaint us is the case at this day. Now vegetables, it will be remembered, form the principal sustenance of three out of the four great tribes of India. The priests of Egypt had a SACRED SACERDOTAL LANGUAGE and hieroglyphic character, the use of which was forbidden to the vulgar. The Brahmins have A SACRED LANGUAGE, which they call DEVANAGARI, a word compounded of Deva, divine, and Nagari, a city; and this language is believed to have been revealed from heaven to those sages, by the divinity of India, in the same manner as the elements of the sacerdotal language of Egypt were supposed to be imparted by the elder HERMES. The Indians, according to Mr. Halhed and others, as we shall

*

*Sir William Jones, in the Asiatic Researches, vol. i. P. 423.

+ Halhed's Preface to the Code, p. 49, quarto edit.

see hereafter, are divided into four great CASts, and one inferior tribe, called BURREN SUNKER. Diodorus Siculus * informs us, that the Egyp→ tians likewise were divided into FIVE SEPARATE TRIBES, of which the first in order was the sacerdotal. The ABLUTIONS of the Egyptians. were innumerable, if we may believe Herodotus; and I may here, with peculiar propriety repeat that the cow and the SERPENT were equally venerated in both countries. But, in treating of the AVATARS, having devoted a few pages to the consideration of what Father Bouchet has asserted, in the Lettres Edifiantes, that the Indians had borrowed most of their superstitious ceremonies from the Hebrews and Egyptians, I shall no longer detain the reader from the contemplation of those massy fabrics, the temples of Egypt. The construction and ornaments of these temples he will be naturally led to compare with those of India, and form that deduction as to the original designers, which he may think most reconcileable to reason and probability.

Let us then, attentive to the advice of Mr. Gough, once more turn the eye of admiration to the vast plain of Egypt; and, after survey

* Diodori Siculi lib. i. p. 67, 68, edit. Rhodomani. + Herodoti lib. ii. p. 116, edit. Stephan. 1592.

ing with silent astonishment the massy fragments of rock of which the pyramids are composed, as well as learning their exact dimensions from the accurate geometrician Mr. Greaves, let us again, with Norden and Pococke, ascend the more elevated region of the Thebais. We have already, with those travellers, explored the sacred caverns in which the ancient Cuthite devotion of Egypt, a devotion of gloom and melancholy, was practised; we have already penetrated with them into the sepulchral grottoes in which her departed monarchs lie entombed; let us now visit the august palaces in which those monarchs, when living, swayed the imperial sceptre; and the superb fanes, to this day glittering with gold and azure, in which the deities of Egypt were daily honoured with odoriferous incense, and the most costly oblations. To the more ample description of these celebrated travellers I shall add the cursory remarks of two recent travellers, M. Volney and M. Savary; the former of whom has with a bold and judicious pencil drawn the manners and genius of the people, while the other, with a pencil equally masterly, has sketched out the remains of her ancient grandeur, and brought them to our view in all the warmth of colouring which was natural to a man of genius and feeling, and