1850.] Br&hminical Conquerors of India. 23 



rulers for the time (the Hyksos), or retaliation of cruelties and oppres- 

 sions sustained for many centuries (to the hardening, doubtless, of the 

 hearts of the oppressed), that originated among the Egyptians a bar- 

 barism in war utterly at variance with their advanced Hindu- like state 

 in what we can see of their other habits ? I read a sort of answer in 

 an important observation, recorded by Mr. Layard with his usual 

 accuracy, as respects the corresponding graven records of like cruelties 

 discovered by him at Khorsabad, Konyunjib, and Nimroud : he made 

 it in his consideration of the use of writing among the ancient Assy- 

 rians, but it has served a double purpose. u In the most ancient sculp- 

 tures of Nimroud, there are no representations of scribes. In the more 

 recent however, at (the three places above-named) we have eunuchs 

 writing down the number of heads and the amount of spoil, on rolls 

 of leather, or some other flexible material," (Nineveh and its remains. 

 Vol. II. p. 184,) and the representation of this is given by Mr. Layard, 

 where two figures, one bearded, the other apparently a eunuch, record 

 the heads, a heap of which has already accumulated at their feet f 

 brought to them by victorious soldiers. The possible use of the 

 papyrus by these scribes leads Mr. Layard on to a consideration of 

 the intercourse between Assyria and Egypt, about the period recorded 

 in the sculpture, and this he with the concurrence of Mr. Birch, the 

 learned co-labourer with Chevalier Bunsen in his Egyptian enquiries, 

 refers at the earliest to the 18th Egyptian dynasty, or even to an 

 epoch long posterior to it, that of the 22nd dynasty, which commenced 

 oiily 982 years before Christ. 



The necessary deduction from all which is, as respects the characters, 

 habits, and opinions of the ancient Egyptians, that there is nothing 

 in the pictured records to shake our belief, that anterior to the Hyksos 

 dynasties, they possessed a degree of moral civilization, not inferior to 

 that described in the written records of the Hindus ; and that alto- 

 gether consonant with the character attaching to them historically, as 

 the benefactors and instructors of mankind ; nay, further, we are 

 enabled, under this impression, to confirm ourselves in the idea that 

 the graves of that early Egyptianized race, whose very memory, like 

 that of the old Etrurian tombs in Italy, had passed from the minds of 

 those who superimposed palaces upon them, — give evidence, in the 

 unwarlike nature of the objects they contain, of the resting place of a 



