106 ORIGIN AND ;DECLINE OF THE 



We are not to suppose, that there never was any 

 intercourse between India and the more western 

 countries of the old continent. There were diviners 

 and soothsayers in S^/rla and Palestine, from beyond 

 the east, that is to say from beyond Persia, and of 

 course from India, 700 years before Christ, accord- 

 ing to Isaiah; and these, long after, found their 

 way even to Rome ; and, according to some, it was a 

 Hindu, that had been shipwrecked in the Red Sea, 

 who first pointed out the way to India by sea.* 

 XiRXES, when he invaded Greece in the year 480 

 B. C. had a large body of Hindus with him, whose 

 officers were men of respectability, and there is little 

 doubt but that they had Brdhmens with them. 



Three hundred years before our era, the Carthagi- 

 nians had numerous elephants from India, and their 

 mahots or drivers were Hindus. They seldom used 

 the African elephants, which, says Pliny, were timo- 

 rous, and could not bear the sight of the elephants 

 from India.f The Carthaginians had no proper 

 name for an elephant, and from the mahots they 

 adopted the Hindu name Gaja, which they pronounc- 

 ed Gaisa. Till that time, they, as well as the Pha- 

 nicians their ancestors, called them Elaph or Alpha, 

 beeves or oxen :\ and the Romans, when they saw 

 Pyrrhus's elephants, called them also LiiccB Eaves, 

 and this was in the year 280 B. C. 



PoLYBius II informs us, that in the year answering 



• Strabo, p. 98 and 100. 



t S ALMAS. Exercilat. Pliuian. p. 2 if. 



X Hesych. under the word Alpha. 



II PoLYB. Lib. 1. p. 42. and Lib. 8. p. 200, 



