3*2 On Egypt andthe Nile 



Raptii or Rapsii to its inhabitants : it is generally fuppofed, that only one 

 town in that country was named Rapta-, but Stephanus of Byzantium 

 positively aiTerts, that there were two of the name j (a) one, the capital of 

 Ethiopia, and another a fmall town or village, confifting of huts inhabited 

 by fea-faring men, near a harbour at the mouth of the river Raptus, The 

 former is the Rupavati of the Pur anas, in which it is declared to have to 

 flood near the Call % we cannot perfectly afcertain its pofition; but it was, 

 I think, fituated near the fouthern extremity of the divine Lake, now called 

 Zambre or • Maravi; for Ptolemy places the Raptii about the fources of the 

 J$ih ?i that is y thirteen or fourteen degrees from the city, whence, as he fup- 

 pofes,; that people was named. No further defcription can juftly be ex- 

 pected of a {Country fo : little known; but we may obferve, that the Nubian 

 geographer mentions, a mountain near the Lake of the Gods, called the 

 Mount of the Painted [Temple ; becaufe, probably, it contained hierogly- 

 phicks cut on ftone and painted, fuch as are to be feen at this day in fome 

 parts of Egypt: he adds, that, on the bank of the fecond lake, was the ftatue 

 of a certain Mafia, fuppofed to be Jiis body itfelf petrified, as a punifhment 

 lor his crimes. ; ; — f - 



I. It is related in the Padmcl-purdn, that Satyav rata, whofe miraculous 

 prefervalion from a general deluge is told at length in the Mdtjya, had 

 three fons, the eldeft of whom was named Jya'peti, or Lord of the Earth; 

 the others were G*h arm a and Sharma, which laft words are, in the 

 vulgar dialects, ufually pronounced Cham and Sham ; as we frequently 

 hear Kijhn for Crishna. The royal patriarch, for fuch is his charaaer 



(a) Steph. Byzant, on the word Rapta, 



