THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 103 



accordance, either with the portion of the lists of Manetho which 

 appears to correspond with it, or with the other hieroglyphical inscrip- 

 tion, this consequence would arise, that the pretended eighteenth dy- 

 nasty, the first with which the ancient chronologists can make any 

 agreement, is also the first which has left out on the monuments any 

 trace of its existence. Manetho may have consulted this and similar 

 documents ; biit it is not the less apparent that a list, a series of 

 names or of portraits, which everywhere occur, is very far from being 

 history. 



May we not then assume of the inhabitants of the valleys of the 

 Euphrates and the Tigris, what we have proved and knov/n with re- 

 gard to the Indians, and is made so probable respecting the people o f 

 the valley of the Nile ? Established as the Indians * and Egyptians 

 are, on a fine commercial situation — in extensive plains in which they 

 have been compelled to intersect with various canals — instructed like 

 them by an hereditary priesthood, the pretended depositaries of sacred 

 books, the privileged possessors of the sciences, astrologers, construc- 

 tors of pjTamids and other vast monuments \ — should they not also 

 have a mutual resemblance in other essential points ? May not their 

 history be similarly reduced to mere legends ? I venture to say, that 

 it is not only probable, but that it is demonstrated by fact. 



Neither Moses nor Homer make any mention of a great kingdom in 

 Upper Asia. Herodotus 'I only assigns to the supremacy of the Assy- 

 rians five hundred and twenty years of duration, and makes its origin 

 about eight centuries before his own time. After visiting Babylon, 

 and having consulted the priests, he did not even learn the name of 

 Ninus, as king of the Assyrians, and only mentions him as the father 

 of Asron §, first Lydian king of the race of the Heraclidse. Neverthe- 

 less he makes him son of Belus, so much confusion had then occurred 

 in the oral traditions. If he speaks of Semiramis as one of the queens 

 who has left great monuments in Babylon, he only places her seven 

 generations before Cyrus. 



Hellanicus, cotemporary with Herodotus, far from allowing that 

 Semiramis built anything at Babylon, attributes the founding of that 

 city to II Chaldseus, fourteenth in order from Ninus. 



* All the ancient mythology of the Brahmins relates to the plains through which 

 the Ganges flows, and it is evidently there that their first establishments were 

 formed. 



■f The descriptions of the ancient Chaldean monuments are very similar to those 

 of the Indians and Egyptians ; but these monuments are not similarly preserved, be- 

 cause they were only made of sun-dried bricks. 



J Clio, cap. xcv. § Clio, cap. vii. 



jl Stephen of Byzantium, at the word Chaldasi. 



