116 ORIGIN AND DECLINE OF THE 



From the Malabar Coast they go to MosamhiqiiCy 

 where they have agents, who generally reside there 

 seven or eight years ; and Strahlenberg takes no- 

 tice of a merchant from the Malabar Coast, 2Lt Astra- 

 chan* From Sural and Gujjar'at, they go to Muscat 

 and other trading places in Arabia, where Brah' 

 mens are to be found also, according to Niebuhr. 

 Arrian in his Periplus says, that the inhabitants 

 of the island of Dioscoridis (now Socotora,) consisted 

 of Arabs and H'mdus, with a few Ch^eeks, settled 

 there on account of the trade to India. The famous 

 Pra'n-puri told me, that when he was at Baha- 

 rein on the Persian Gulf, he was informed by the 

 Hindus, whom he found settled there, that they used 

 to go formerly to Egypt, where they had houses of 

 agency, but that they had left off going there for 

 about two or three generations. 



This shows, that there was between the Greeks^ 

 JRomans, Carthaginians and the Hiiulus, a constant 

 and reciprocal intercourse (which is by no means the 

 case now) for a period of 1200 years at least: and to 

 wliich nothing, but the overgrowing power of the 

 Muselmans, could put a stop. In visiting the sages 

 of Babylonia and Egypt, the Hitidus must have been 

 greatly surprised, and their vanity humbled, when 

 they heard them talk of their remote antiquity. 

 Then, and not before, in my opinion, they resolved 

 not to be behind hand with any of them ; and cer- 

 tainly they have succeeded wonderfully. Neither 

 the Greeks and Romans, nor the Turdetani, a Galic 

 nation, though settled in Spain, according to Strabo, 

 carried history, and the beginning of things, beyond 



P. 33;j. 



