from the Ancient Books of the Hindus. 



323 



are found at prefent in India. The famed Rh adamant bus, to whom Homer 

 gives the epithet yeJow, and his brother Minos, were, it fjems, of Phoenician 

 extraction : they are faid to have reigned in Arabia, and were, probably^ 

 P.a His defcended from Pinga'csha, who, as we have obferved, were 

 named alfo Cimias, whence the weft-era ifland, in which Minos or his 

 progeny fettled, might have derived its appellations of Curetis [a) and 

 Crete. In faipture w<e find the Pdcti and Kerethi named as having 

 fettled in Pale/line-; but the fecond name was pronounced Krethi by the 

 Gmek interpreters, as it is by feveral modern commentators: hence we 

 meet with Krita, a diftri£t of Pale/line, and at Gaza with a Jupiter 

 Cri'tceus, who feems to be the Critefwara of the Hindus. In the fpoken 

 Indun dialects, Paltta is u fed for Palli, aherdfman; and the Egyptians 

 bad the fame word: for their pried s told Herodotus ? that their -country 

 had once been invaded by Piiiliti us the Shepherd, who ufed t& .drive his 

 cattle along the Nile, and afterwards built the pyramids. (l>) The Phyi/itm 

 of Ptolemy, who are called Bulloits by Captain R. Covert, had their 

 name from Bhiiata, which in India, means a place inhabited by Pal/is or 

 Bhiis : the ancient Shepherds made fo confpicuous a figure in Egypt, that 

 k is needlefs to expatiate on their hiflory ; and for an account of the Shep- 

 herds in or near Abyjfinia, I refer to the Travels of Mr. Bruce. Let us 

 return to Me roc. 



The writers of the Purdnas, and of other books efteemed facred by trie 

 Hindus, were f :r from wiming to point out the origin of mere cities, how 

 diftinguiaied foever in civil tranfactions : their object was to account for 



(c) Fun. lib. 4. cap. 12. Cuntis was named, according to An axim ander, from the Curetts under 

 their king l'minnoa. 



(i) Herod. B. 2. 148. 



Rl 2 



