Idolatry and Philosophy of the Zabians. 203 
the waters of the Ocean, and think that perhaps that may be her 
resting place. Or, I can look upon the setting sun, and hope that 
she too beholds him in his evening glory. I ‘feel freshened by the 
_breeze, for it may have passed gently over her, while training her 
tender flowers, or perhaps bear with it the ‘echoes of her guitar, 
which she played at the shut of day, in her father’s orange grove. 
Life, has not unappropriately been called the ‘ Vale of tears,’ for its. * 
passage is bitter; how the transit through the gate of death to the => 
tomb may be, I cannot tell. But when I have been falling asleep, © 
the tones of distant evening music have been very sweet, and the 
workings of a calm imagination delightful. I would then hope, that 
when the ties between the body and the mind break one by one, 
when earthly objects fade away, and the hum of this distracted world 
grows faint and more faint, that there is a serene prospect in the soul 
of fairy landscapes and happy climes, surpassing the lovely calm- 
ness of these Indian skies, or the pleasant vales in the Fortunate 
“Islands.” 
A clear firmament furnished the Chaldeans with a school for as- 
‘tronomy,—and they were sensible of the advantages of their situa- 
tion. Berosus* states, that the Babylonians possessed astronomical 
observations made four hundred and eighty years before his times 
and Epigenes, that they reached to seven hundred and twenty years 
before him, or to the reign of Nabonassar. When the sword of Al- 
_exander had destroyed the Persian Empire, Callisthenes found 
among the ruins of Babylon, astronomical observations taking in 
a series of 1903 years,t and Diodorus Siculust reports, that when 
_ Alexander was in Asia, the Chaldeans reckoned 473000 years, since 
‘they first observed the stars ;$ not that so long a space was understood 
by themselves of years, unless they joined in the common boast of 
‘oriental nations, m proclaiming a feigned antiquity. For it is prob- 
able, that these years were but periods or cycles of short length, 
which when they were properly arranged by Callisthenes, amount- 
ed to no more than 2000 solar years. ‘These reports of the early 
efforts of the Chaldeans, are corroborated by the testimony of many 
eastern writers.||_ Mohsani Fani in his account of them, confirms in. 
some degree the fragments of Berosus, observing that they ‘assidu- 
+ In a fragment preserved by Pliny, L. 7. ch. 66. 
+ Simplicius de Ceelo, L. 2. Com. 46. p. 123. b. 18. 
t L. 2. p. 83. § Sir I. Newton’s Chron. p. 265. | Jones’s Discourse 6th. 
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