SACRED ISLES IN THE WEST, SCC. 263 



lege o^ Fort IFilliam. I have already presented one 

 to Mr. Colebrooke; and I take tliis opportunity 

 to acknowledge the friendly assistance I have al- 

 ways received from that gentleman, and his ready 

 conniiunication of every sort of information that 

 could be of use to me, through the whole course of 

 my literary pursuits, and for which I return, most 

 gratefully, my most sincere and hearty thanks : and 

 I candidly acknowledge, that without his assistance 

 1 should never have been able to bring to a conclu- 

 sion, in a manner satisfactory^ to myself, the pre- 

 sent work, which, from its nature, and that of 

 the materials, is attended with difficulties of which 

 few people, unacquainted with the subject, can 

 form any idea. 



With regard to the British Isles, I soon found that 

 the grand outlines were perfectly correct; even more 

 so than those of my essay on. Egypt and Ethiopia, 

 which countries are very little known to the learned, 

 and of which little is recorded in the Puran'as, when 

 compared to their holy land. My pandit had tilled 

 up the rest with a vast number of legends of all 

 sorts, but most of them of little importance, and 

 aifording very little light on the subject. 



The White Island, in the West, is the holy land 

 of the Hindus. It is of course a sort of fairy land, 

 which, as might be expected from their well known 

 disposition, they have not failed to store with won- 

 derful mountains, places of worship, and holy 

 streams. It would be highly imprudent to attenipt 

 to ascertain their present names and situation; 

 though I have occasionally broken through this 

 rule, and may have been seduced, by a strange si- 

 milarity of names and other circumstances, within 

 the fascinating attraction of conjectural etymo- 

 logy. • 



S4 



