THE HITMAN SPECIES. 351 



be derived from a commemoration of their first landing-, or 

 their original departure from the east, confounded with a 

 diluvian tradition; notwithstanding, that record is so deep 

 rooted, that, even to this day, in Arabia, the Arabs do not call 

 out an army, where many tribes are collected, without bearing 

 at the head of it a reminiscence of the ark, in the shape of a 

 wooden frame, placed on the back of a strong camel, and 

 adorned with ostrich feathers, which they call Merkeb (the 

 ship). 



The styles of sculpture, architecture, and excavation, not- 

 withstanding the remote period of their origin, have more 

 affinity to the Bactrian Hindoo than to any other colossal, 

 ponderous detail ; such as a compound of what remains of 

 Nineveh and the earliest cavern temples would produce, 

 showing traces of the natural development of art, when work- 

 ing upon the same kind of materials with similar means. The 

 statues retain the normal pillar form in all ; but the parts of 

 architectural combination advanced beyond mere excavation, 

 as it still was in the most ancient cavern temples of India ; not 

 so complete and less appropriate than the Egyptian, indicating 

 an older date, though it was wielded in both regions by sacer- 

 dotal supremacies over great populations. The system of wor- 

 ship in Egypt was likewise allied to the Indian, though both, 

 no doubt, had their revolutions, innovations, and successive 

 incorporations of foreign elements. British sepoys, forming 

 part of the expedition that was to cooperate with General Sir 

 Ralph Abercrombie in the re-conquest of Egypt, no sooner 

 entered the ancient temples in the valley of the Nile, than 

 they asserted their own divinities were discovered on the 

 walls, and worshipped them accordingly. They even pointed 



were four or five, all greatly distorted from the true narrative in the Pen- 

 tateuch. One or other of these Indian migrators revived the Neel of 

 India in the Nile of Africa; for, unless the notion had begun in E^ypt, 

 all antiquity, to the time of Alexander, would not have been led to believe 

 that the African stream had its source in India. 



