LANGUAGES OF THE INDO-EUKOPEAN FAMILY. 417 



■son of Esau with the god Atum, yet correctly adds, "the name 

 occurs as well in the Autei of Pliay, and the modern BENI 

 ATIYEH of Burckhardt and the Desert of TIH.'* Pliny mentions 

 the fact of these same Autei dwelling within the borders of Egypt.®* 

 BouTAN a later name of Thoum or Pithom, B ATHAM, the land of the 

 Arabian Aixtei, and the PHATHMETIC mouth of the Nile, shewing 

 different forms of the same word, testify to an original connection.''* 

 The word Autei is not unlike Aetos, the ancient name of the Nile, 

 with which Diodorus connects the myth of Prometheus.'® I am not 

 aware that we have any more definite confirmation of the application 

 of this name to the great river than the existence of the term 

 Phathmetic as applied to a branch of it. Aetos, however, is a word 

 meaning eagle in Greek, and is the Hebrew AIT or GAIT, a bird 

 of pr&i/,'''' whence, doubtless, came by the prefix of m the Coptic maut, 

 the vultm-e. But just as ETH, the plough, gives ETHAM, so we 

 have a geogi-aphical name in the tiibe of Simeon, derived from AIT, 

 namely, ETAM, also called ETHER.'® A link, which connects the 

 god Athom with water, and the Nile in particular, is found in his 

 association with the lotus, a plant sacred to that river. The name 

 of the lotus among the Egyptians was nofee, the modern Nuphar, 

 now applied to a genus of water-lilies closely allied to the Nymphaea 

 and Nelumbo genera, between which the lotus is to be found.'" 

 NoPRE, however, was a name of Athom, who bore the lotus upon 

 his head.®" The word nofre, which, among other meanings, has that 

 of good, is found in Nephercheres, the name of an Egyptian king ; 

 Tiebris, the Bacchic fawn skin often pictured on Egyptian monuments 

 in intimate connection with Nofre- Athom ; and Nipur or Niffer, a 

 famous place among the ancient Babylonians, with which may be joined 

 Kharris Nipra, the celebrated temple, the name of which inverts the 

 Egyptian Nephercheres.®^ Turning now fi-om Egyptian to Hindoo 



73 Jervis's Genesis, 469. 

 ii Plini Hist. Nat. Lib. vi., 33. 



'5 Galloway, Egypt's Record, 511, 512, 515. Hengstenberg, Egypt and_the Books of Mises 

 Arans. Edin., 1845, p. 49. 

 " Died. Sic. i. 19. 

 •J' Vide Gesenii Lexicon in loe. 



78 Joshua, six. 1. i. Cliron. iv. 3. 



79 Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom. Lond., 1853, pp. 410, 414. 



•80 Wilkinson's Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians, Vol. i., 256. Vide et. 285. 



Kenrick's Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs, i., 331. 



*i Eawlinson's Herodotus, App., Bk. i.. Essay, s., 2. (iii.J 



