164 Druidism in connection with Wiltshire. 
never have lived on those friendly terms with either the ancient 
inhabitants of Canaan or the Egyptians, unless their language and 
religion had been the same, which from various incidental cireum- 
stances mentioned in the sacred narrative, they appear to have 
been. Thus it would appear that Abraham when resident in Ca- 
naan was among a people of similar origin with himself, which 
illustrates the expression in Genesis of the ‘“ Canaanite being then 
in the land,” implying that Canaan had not then been overrun by 
another race of foreigners, who afterwards obtained possession of 
both Canaan and Egypt, and are supposed to have come from Misr! 
in India, which they had formerly colonized as the descendants of 
Hind the eldest son of Ham. 
“In proof of this Oriental invasion it may be supposed,” says 
the author of the Fragments, “very justly, that if the Hamite con- 
querors of Egypt subdued and occupied Canaan and Arabia, they 
would leave memorials of various kinds, both of their idolatry, and 
of their industry; and this no doubt, they have done in the towns 
they built, and in the names they gave them. But such histories 
of the origin of their towns as have lately reached us are related in 
language peculiarly figurative; for instance—war is called a fire or 
conflagration ; enemies are described as long grass, or thickets, or 
thorns, consumed by fire; and after the conquests of these enemies, 
the erection of places of worship becomes the immediate object of 
the history, and is considered as the origin of towns. Moreover, 
instituting the figure or rite of an idol in such town, is described as 
the birth, origin, &c., of that deity; indeed, it might be the original 
invention of such a figure, or the primary adoption of such a sym- 
bol, for the purpose of employing it as an idol.” The account in 
Diodorus Siculus of the conquests of Ninus, who overran the whole 
of the East and propagated the Hindoo religion, which is described 
1 This word, according to Taylor, is applied by the Arabs to Egypt and its 
Metropolis, and it seems to be clearly derived from the Sanscreet. Not knowing 
however its origin, they employ it in speaking of any large city, and gave the 
appellation of Al-Mizran in the dual to Cufa and Basra: the same word is 
also used in the sense of a boundary or line of separation. Of Mizr, the dual and 
plural form in Hebrew are Misrain and Mizrim, and the second of them is often 
applied in Scripture to the people of Egypt. 
