358 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



Kush, still called Kish in the country. Both the 

 Cushite and Aurite people had Caucasian or white 

 chiefs, since, even at this day, Dongola women are 

 prized, because they are comparatively fair. Leaders, 

 like the expelled Pandoos, led them, by coasting, till 

 they crossed over from the Arabian side to the Egyp- 

 tian. Coming from the Indus, the Aurites ascended 

 still higher, to the head of the Red Sea, as we are 

 expressly told by Syncellus. They passed by the 

 Wadi Sendeli, still named Derb-Tuarikh, and thence 

 spread from Memphis to Thebes ; for, had they been 

 mere wanderers through deserts, their gods, in after 

 ages, would not have been invariably placed in boats, 

 nor would there have been, annually, a festival, when 

 these idols were sent from below to visit others up the 

 river, in splendid barges.* The origin of such a cere- 

 mony could only be derived from a commemoration of 

 their first landing, or their original departure from 

 the east, confounded with a diluvian tradition; not- 

 withstanding, that record is so deep rooted, that even 

 to this day, in Arabia, the Arabs do not call out an 



* Diluvian records abound with all the Caucasian and 

 cognate races. There are, probably, more than one hundred 

 fabulous legends, religious and mythical, where the patri- 

 arch and his family are designated under different names, 

 circumstances, and localities. Even in Palestine, there 

 were four or five, all greatly distorted from the true narra- 

 tive in the Pentateuch. One or other of these Indian mi- 

 grators revived the Neel of India in the Nile of Africa ; 

 for, unless the notion had begun in Egypt, all antiquity, to 

 the time of Alexander, would not have been led to believe, 

 that the African stream had its source in India. 



