ON THE HINDUS. 



427 



veneration paid by men to the vaft body of fire which 

 " looks from his fole dominion like the God of this 

 11 world ;" and another, the immoderate refpecl fhewn 

 to the memory of powerful or virtuous anceftors, Spe- 

 cially the founders of kingdoms, legiflators, and war- 

 riors, of whom the Sun or the Moon were wildly fup- 

 pofed to be the parents. 



III. The remains of Architecture and Sculpture in 

 India, which I mention here as mere monuments of 

 antiquity, not as fpecimens of ancient art, feem to 

 prove an early connection between this country and 

 Africa, The pyramids of Egypt, the coloffal fiatues 

 defcribed by Paufanias and others, the Sphinx, and the 

 Hermes Canis, (which laft bears a great refemblance to 

 the Vardhdvatdr, or the incarnation of Vijlmu in the 

 form of a Boar,) indicate the ftyle and mythology of 

 the fame indefatigable workmen who formed the vaft 

 excavations oiCandrah, the various temples and images 

 of Buddha, and the idols which are continually dug up 

 at Gayd, or in its vicinity. The letters on many of 

 thefe monuments appear, as I have before intimated, 

 partly of Indian, and partly of Abyffinian or Ethiopick, 

 origin; and all thefe indubitable fafts may induce no 

 ill-grounded opinion, that Ethiopia and Hindufldn were 

 peopled or colonized by the fame extraordinary race; 

 in confirmation of which, it may be added, that the 

 mountaineers of Be ngal and Bahdr can hardly bediftin- 

 guifliedin fome of their features, particularly their lips 

 and nofes, from the modern Abyffinians, whom the 

 Arabs call the children of Cufh, And the ancient Hin- 

 dus, according to Straho, differed in nothing from the 

 Africans, but in the ftraightnefs and fmoothnefs of their 

 hair, while that of the others was crifp or woolly ; a 

 difference proceeding chiefly, if not entirely, from the 

 refpe&ive humidity or drynefs of their atmofpheres. 

 Hence the people who received the firf light of the rifing 



Gg? fm % 



