78 Before Chrift 324. 



With all thefe high acquifitions in philofophy, literature, arts, 

 fciences, and manufadures ; in fliort, with every requifite of national 

 grandeur and felicity, they carried the pacific virtues to fuch an excefs, 

 and confequently were fo ignorant of the art of war, that in all ages 

 e%-ery adventurous plunderer, who could colled: fifty or a hundred thou- 

 fand robbers under his command, and could furmount the natural ob- 

 flruclions of rugged mountains and great rivers, has found it an eafy 

 matter to feize the wealth of an induftrious and gentle, but effeminate, 

 people. Yet, notwithflanding the frequent repetition of thofe robberies, 

 the Indians, by the fertility of their foil, the frugality of their expenfes, 

 particularly in their fubfiilence, and above all, by the unrivaled excel- 

 lence of their manufadures, and the greatnefs of their trade, though ge- 

 nerally a pafTive one, have in ail ages quickly recovered from the effeds 

 of the depredations, and foon become more vvcalthy than their plunder- 

 ers *. 



Such were the people, whom the comparatively rude and ignorant 

 Greeks infolently termed barbarians ; in which they are followed by 

 too many of the Europeans, even of the prefent day, who confider, as 

 creatures of an inferior fpecies, the defcendents of artifts and fages, who 

 were unqueflionably the teachers of thofe, from whom we derive our 

 firft knowlege of arts, fcience, philofophy, and letters. 



Though the Greeks cannot fland a comparifon with the people of 

 the Eafl in the depth of fcience, and far lei's in the perfedion of manu- 

 fadures, yet, till the redudion of their country by the Romans, they 

 preferved a diftinguifhed pre-eminence above all the nations of Europe, 

 (unlefs the Etrurians ought to be excepted) in literature and fcience ; 

 while in the fine arts, and in mofl: works of tafte, they attained a de- 

 gree of excellence, furpailing that of the oriental nations f. 



At this time, and probably for many centuries before j;, the fouthern 



• National indulliy is a gentle, regular, and lake, or a branch of the ocean. £See Herod. L. i, 



never-failing Itrcam, piodncing a gradual and cer- c. 203 ; L. ii, c. II ; L. iv, c. 44.] 

 tain accumulation of wealth , whereas the horridly- For the hiftory of Alexander, I have moflly fol- 



fplendid acqiiifition of conciiielt, is an inundation, lowed Arrian. The iketch of the antient Hate of 



which, after fuddcnly crtiitiiig an ocean of fupcr- India is chiefly compiled from Arrian, Strabo, 



abundance, leaves behind it a ruined and barren Pliny, &:c. who have preferved fragments of tl.c 



defert. works of Ncarchus, Oncficritns, Megatthenes, and 



f It cannot, however, be denied, that the other writers of Alexander's age ; and I am in- 



Gretks of Alexander's age wx-re wonderfully igno- dcbted for the mod of the recently-obtained in- 



rant of many things, which they might have known formation, to Doftor Robertfon's elaborate ap- 



from Herodotus. Had they attended to the in- pendix U->\\\% Difquifition on ancient India, to which 



foimation Iranfmitted by him, they need not have the reader may apply for more ample information, 



fuppofcd, that Alexander was the firft, who, after and for the authorities. 



their fabulous Bicchus and Hercules, reached the J ' The labour of Egypt, and merchandize of 



River Indus: they need not have fuppofcd that ' Ethiopia, and the Sabeans, men of flat ure,' were 



rivtr to be the Nile, becaufe they faw crocodiles noted by Ifaiah, {j . 45] who lived 800 years 



in it, nor have been tirrllied by the tides at the before the Chrillian a;ia ; and Agatharchides, 650 



mouth of it ; nor would Alexander have been in years after him, dcfcribtd the Sabeans as remarkably 



doubt, whether the Cafpian fea was an inland ilout men, and the grcateil merchants in the wuild. 



