Chap. III. A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I C S. 303 



very likely, that Ofiris or Sefoftris would leave a colony of their 

 troops in India, (as Sefoftris certainly did at Colchis,) in order to eafe 

 themifelves of their fuperfluous numbers. 



Thus I think I have proved, as much as any fad of antient hil- 

 tory can be proved, that the Egyptians were in India in very an- 

 tient times. Nor fhould I have been at fo great pains to prove, 

 what, from the nature of the thing, 1 think, is evident, if fo great 

 an author as Strabo, had not treated, as a fable, the expeditions of 

 Bacchus and Hercules into India. But he does not appear, to me, 

 to have diftinguifhed betwixt the Egyptian Bacchus and Hercules, 

 and the Grecian : And, therefore, it is no wonder, that he treats, 

 as fabulous, thefe expeditions of Bacchus and Hercules *. But, 

 he gives neither ?.rguments nor authorities in fupport of his 

 opinion; and he acknowledges, that Megafthenes, who, as I have 

 faid, accompanied Alexander to India, was of another opinion; and 

 he adds, what I think is not mentioned by Arrian, that Megafthenes 

 related, that Bacchus was worfhipped, even by the philofophers of 

 India, in the mountains, and Hercules in the Plains f. Neither do I 

 think that his opinion of the Egyptians never having been in India, 

 is coniiftant with what he relates of the burial place of the Egyptian 



Kings, 



Literary Society of India by Henry Vaufittart. This tranflation Sir William Jones has 

 given us in his Ajiatk Rejearchc:, vol. 2. p. 69. According to the account of this 

 author, the Afghans are a colony of Jews, which fettled in India. Who the author was, 

 and ^vhen he lived, who tells this ftory, we are not informed : But whoever was the 

 author of it, I think very little credit is to be given to it. It is confeffed by the Gentle- 

 man, who prefented it to the Society, (p. 67. ibid.) that the beginning of it is entirely 

 fabulous ; and the reft of it, in my judgment, is of very little value.— The ground 

 work of what remains of it, is the Hiftory of the Old Teftament, contained In the two 



books of Samuel ; but with many additional circumftances, which, I am pei-fuaded, are 



fabulous. 



* Strabo, p. ^05. 

 f Ibid. lib. 15. 



