ITALY, AND INDIA. 269 



Every one knows that the true name of Egypt 'is Misr, 

 fpelled with a palatial iibilant both in Hebrew and Ara- 

 bick. It feems in Hebrew to have been the proper 

 name of the firfl fettler in it; and when the Arabs ufe 

 the word for a great city, they probably mean a city like 

 the capital of Egypt. Father Marco, a Roman miffionary, 

 who, though not a fcholar of the firft rate, is incapable, 

 I am perfuaded, of a deliberate falfehood, lent me the 

 laft book of a Rdmdyan, which he hadtranflated through 

 the Hindi into his native language, and with it a fhort 

 vocabulary of mythological andhiftorical names., which 

 had been explained to him by the Pandits of Betiyd, 

 where he had longrefided. One of the articles in his little 

 Dictionary was, " Tirut, a town or province, in which 

 " the priefts from Egypt fettled:" and when I afked 

 him what name Egypt bore among the Hindus, he faid 

 Misr ; but obferved,that they fometimes confounded it 

 with Abyjfinia. I perceived that his memory of what 

 he had written was correct. ; for Misr was another word 

 in his index, " from which country (he faid) came the 

 " Egyptian priefts who fettled in Tirut." I fufpected 

 immediately that his intelligence flowed from the Mu- 

 Jelmans, who call fugar-candy Mijri, or Egyptian ; but, 

 when I examined him clofely, andcarneftly defiredhim 

 to recollect from whom he had received his informa- 

 tion, he repeatedly and pofitively declared, that ;; it 

 " had been given him by feveral Hindus, and particu- 

 " larly by a Brahman, his intimate friend, who was re- 

 " puted a confiderable Pandit, and had lived three years 

 " near his houfe." We then conceived that the feat of his 

 Egyptian colony muft have been 7Yro/W,commonly pro- 

 nounced Tirut, and anciently called MiVhild, the prin- 

 cipal town of Janacadesa, or North Bahar ; but Ma- 

 hefa Pandit, who was born in that very diftrict, and who 

 fubmitted patiently to a long examination concerning 

 Misr, overfet all our conclufions ; he denied that the 

 Brdhmans of his country were generally furnamed Misr, 

 as we had been informed; and faid, that the addition of 

 Mifra to the name of Vdchefpet'u and other learned au- 

 thors, 



