Chap. III. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 297 



Indians certainly did not come to Egypt ; and, if fo, the Egyptians 

 mud have gone to India, and made fettlements in that country. If, 

 therefore, there was no other evidence of the Egyptians having been 

 in India in very antient times, this alone, which arifes from the 

 nature of the thing, would be fufficient to convince me. 



But the matter does not reft upon argument only; for Diodorus 

 Siculus has given us a very particular account, from the Egyptian 

 facred books, no doubt, which he fays, he ftudied very dilligently, 

 of the expedition of Ofiris, one of the laft race of their Di^mon or 

 God Kings, as they called them, into India, with a great army; and 

 this expedition he made, he fays, by land, through Arabia, along 

 the coaft of the Arabian Gulph, or Red Sea, as we call it *. For 

 it does not appear, that, fo early as the days of Ofms, the Egyptians 

 had what could be called a fleet, though they certainly had the ufe 

 of navigation in the earlieft times; for, otherwife, they could not 

 have lived in a country where there was fuch a river, which once 

 a year overflowed the whole country. But, under Sefoftris, they 

 had a fleet of 400 fliips ; and, yet, he likewife made the expedition 

 by land into India, where he went farther than, it appears, Ofnis did; 

 for he crofled the Ganges, and overran the country as far as the 

 Ocean f. Now Sefoftris, according to Herodotus's calculation, which 

 the Priefts gave him from their books, was the 33 2d human King, 

 counting from Menes, the firft human King |. Now, this muft be 

 allowed to be the hiftorical period of the Egyptian hiftory, not the 

 mythological or fabulous, as fome may think it. And, if fo, it muft 

 be alfo allowed, that the Egyptians were in India at fome time or 

 another, unlefs we have a mind to rcjetl the whole hiftory of Egypt 

 as fabulous. 

 Vol. IV. P p But 



* Dlod. lib. cap. ly. 



f Ibid. cap. jf. 



+ Herodot. lib. 2. cap. 79. 



