HE name of India is probably derived from Hind, or 

 Hindu, the appellation of the people inhabiting it, which 

 the Spaniards and Portugusje, the firft navigators to India, 

 were accuftomed to vvrite Gentu. The Greeks, who penetrated 

 through Perfia into India, received from the Per/tans the name of 

 Hind, as that of the nation; but they alfo improperly called 

 Indus, the river named by the inhabitants Sind or Sindo. In a 

 later age, the Romans termed the country, India, the people, Iti- 

 dians, but the river alfo, Indus -, yet they were not unacquainted 

 with the name oi Sindi. The Arabians and Perftans again em- 

 ployed the names of Sind, and Hind, which occur frequently in 

 their writings. After the Portugueje began to navigate for the 

 purpofe of exploring new regions, many of them fufpedled, that 

 if they were to fleer direftly weflward, they would at length 

 arrive at the fartheft iflands in the vicinity of India ; and becaufe 

 they conceived thefe iflands to lie before thofe Indian regions (ante 

 illas) they gave them, in the geographical c>.arts made before the 

 difcovery of America, the name of Antilles ; and that India, which 



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