A Note on Boodhiam and the Cave $c. 61 



being of an iEthiopic caste of countenance, it is both probable that 

 when the first ^Ethiopians settled on our, perhaps desert, shores, — it 

 was at so early a date as to have enabled them to preserve their 

 Troglodyte predilection for the cave ; as also that the Bhoodistical 

 religion was of iEthiopic extraction. It is an opinion held by most 

 Egyptologists, and one that seems to gain ground by fresh disco- 

 veries, that to ^Ethiopia was Egypt first indebted for the commence- 

 ment of her splendid proficiency in civilisation ; perhaps to the same 

 source may be due the equal progress which antient India had made 

 in the same career. The dry climate of Egypt has enabled her 

 to preserve the title-deeds of her claim ; whereas her sister India 

 has been daily for centuries, being robbed of the pledges of her 

 right, as much by the destructiveness of her climate, as by the 

 neglect of her Rulers ; this neglect has made us the bye-word of 

 the civilised nations of the world : is it not then incumbent on 

 us to place on record these vestiges of her antient glory ? At 

 this very moment, perhaps, a whole side-wall of beautifully paint- 

 ed fresco may be falling down— unheard of by us all, uncared for, I 

 feel assured, by none — but carrying with it into utter oblivion 

 the glowing record of scenes of bygone splendor, of passing interest 

 and truth. We must all of us, therefore, whatever may be our 

 individual or professional predilections or pursuits, feel interested in 

 the investigation of subjects connected with the antient state of 

 India, and with the preservation of the reliques that have come down 

 to us. But even the dry utilitarian principles, on which Govern- 

 ments profess to move, will find their reward in the same pursuits ; 

 for these subjects form a part of that system of Boodhism, which 

 they prove to have agreed admirably with the mental structure 

 of the race over which Providence has called us to preside. With it, 

 they were a happy, contented and noble-minded race, highly ad- 

 vanced in arts and civilisation, as is shewn by the vestiges they have 

 left ; deprived of it by the Brahmin, they rapidly sank into that 

 state of torpid barbarism in which we find them. If then the 

 Government should shew them what they are capable of, by placing 

 before them the record of what they have been ; by culling, from 

 the ethics of the Boodhist creed, dogmas which might be incorporat- 

 ed into the public system of education, truths which the Christian 



