34 On the -BORDERERS, MOUNTAINEERS, 



country was the Mother of the Gods, or Nature perfqnified, as we fee her 

 among the Indians in a thoufand forms and under a thoufand names. She 

 was called in the Phrygian dialed Ma', and reprefented in a car drawn by; 

 lions, with a drum in iier hand-, and a towered coronet on her head: her 

 myfteries (which feem to be alluded to in the Mofaick law) are foleamiz.ed 

 at the autumnal equinox in thefe provinces, where ihe is named, in one of 

 her . characters, Ma', is adored, in all of , them , as the great Mother, is 

 fio-urcd fitting on a lion, and appears in fome of her temples with a diadem 

 or mitre of turrets : a drum is called dindima both in SanfcritzxA Phrygian,; 

 and the title of Dindymene feems rather derived from .that word, than from 

 the name of a mountain. The Djana of Ephefus was manifestly the fame 

 •goddefs in the characler of productive Nature; and the Ast arte of the 

 Syrians and P.henicians (to whom we now return) was, 1 doubt not, the 

 fame in another form : 1 may on the whole allure you, that the learned 

 works of Selden and Jablonski, on the Gods of Syria and Egypt, would 

 receive more illuftration from the little Sanfcrit book, entitled Chandl, than 

 from all the fragments of oriental mythology, that are difperied in the 

 whole compafs of Grecian, Roman, and Hebrew literature. We are told, that 

 the Phenicians, like the Hindus, adored the Sun, and afTerted water to be the 

 firft of created things ; nor can we doubt, that Syria, Samaria, and Phenice, or 

 the long ilrip of land on the more of the Mediterranean, were anciently peo- 

 pled by a branch of the /W/^ flock, but were afterwards inhabited by that race, 

 which for the prefent we call Arabian : in all three the oldeft religion was the 

 Affyrian, as it is called by Selden, and the Samaritan letters appear to have 

 heen the fame-arJirfr. with thofe of Phenice ; but the Syriack language, of 

 which ample remains are. prefer ved, and the Punick, of! which we have a 

 clear fpecimen in Plautus and on monuments lately ■ brought to light., 

 ■w^ere jndi.fputably of a Chaldaick, ox Arabkk, ongxn, ,"> 



