from the Ancient Books of the Hindus. 335 



the dwipas of Cusha and Sanc'ha, yet it is generally confidered as part of 

 the latter. The Nile, on leaving the burning fands of Barbara, enters the 

 country of Sanc'ha proper, and forces its way through the Ilema-cuta, or 

 Golden Mountains ; an appellation, which they retain to this day : the mountain 

 called Panchryfos by the Greeks, was part of that range, which is named 01- 

 laki by the Arabs-, and the Nubian geographer fpeaks of the Golden Moun- 

 tains, which are a little above Cfwdn. Having paffed that ridge, the Nila 

 enters Cardama-Ji'hdn, or the Land of Mud; which obvioufly means the fer- 

 tile Egyptian valley, fo long covered with Mud after every inundation : the 

 "Pur anas give a dreadful idea of that muddy land, and arlert that no mortal 

 durft approach it ; but this we muft underftand as the opinion formed of it 

 by the firfl: colonifts, who were alarmed by the reptiles and monfters abound- 

 ing in it, and had not yet feen the beauty and richnefs of its fertile ftate. 

 It is expreflry declared to be in Mlsra-fi'hdn, or the Country of a mixed People; 

 for fuch is the meaning in Sanfcrit of the word' Mi-sra: fometimes the com- 

 pound word Misra-JFbdn is applied to the Lower Egypt, and fometimes 

 (as in the hiftory of the wars of Capenafa) to the whole country -, in which 

 fenfe, I am told, the word Gupta-Jl' ban is ufed in ancient books, but I have 

 never yet feen it applied fo extenfively. Agupta certainly means guarded on 

 alljides ; and Gupta, or guarded, is the name of a place reputed holy; which 

 was, I doubt not, the famed Coptos of our ancient Geographers ; who mention 

 a tripartite arrangement of Egypt exactly conformable to the three divifions of 

 Misra-Jl'bdn particularly recorded in the Pur anas : the firft of them was 

 Tapovdna, the woodlands of Tap as, or aujtere devotion, which was probably 

 Upper Egypt, or Thcbais; the fecond, Mfsra Proper, called alfo Cantaca-disa, 

 or the Land of 1 horns, which anfwers to the Lower Egypt or Ueptonomis ; 

 and the third, Aranycr2.t\6. Atavz, or the Forejls emphatically fo named, which 

 were fituated at the months of the Nild, and formed what we call the Delta. 



