By the Rev. J. L. Ross. 175 
them, were afterwards adopted by the Canaanites and Jews, namely 
Bel or Bael-Peor, the sun, and Astaroth i.e. Juno or the moon; 
also Dagon, supposed to have been Saturn the inventor of hus- 
bandry; and others, as Moloch and Remphaim, which are frequently 
. alluded to in the history of the Jews. Under the name of Chon and 
Rephain it is supposed Hercules is meant, which is the appellation 
given him by the Egyptians. By some the name Hercules is de- 
rived from a Hebrew word Haircal, the giver of all light: Rephain 
is derived from an Hebrew term signifying giants. Porphyry, 
however, supposes the twelve labours of Hercules to be the twelve 
signs of the zodiac, through which the sun passes in his annual 
course. It may be further remarked, that the Pheenicians cele- 
brated their worship in groves like the Druids; the priests of 
| Baal being described as priests of the groves, when summoned by 
_ Jehu, four hundred and fifty of whom were destroyed. 
| Some remarks must now be made on the language of the Pheeni- 
cians as identifying them with the Celtae, whose extraction is to 
be traced to those ancient navigators. It would be tedious, how- 
_ ever, to enumerate the different cities and rivers on the Mediter- 
_ reanean coasts which clearly owe their names to a Pheenician origin: 
. a list of them is given in Sir W. Betham’s ‘Gael and the Cymbri.’ 
In mentioning one of the Spanish rivers Mondoneda, which he 
derives from maon, heroes, and onadai, unfortunate, he relates 
the following anecdote. ‘This river, and the Episcopal city in Ga- 
licia, take their name from some event. I had proceeded thus far 
when a friend, a Spanish officer, told me of a regiment of infantry 
in Spain, now called Espinados Mondonedoes, of which there is 
a tradition. He then proceeded to relate that this regiment, having 
successfully resisted a conspiracy against an ancient Spanish mon- 
arch, (though only thirty out of three hundred survived) obtained 
as a recompense the distinction of being the hereditary royal 
guards in all time to come, which they have remained ever since. 
“ Mondonedoes,” he adds, ‘‘has no meaning in Spanish, nor is there 
any period fixed for the event; it must, therefore, be one of the 
events of remote antiquity, when the Gaelic was the language of 
the country, 7c. the ancient language of Phonicia.” In Erse or 
Celtic, this would mean the ‘unfortynste Tem--*? 
