34£ On Egvpt an© the Nile 



a boatman had been ftationed to ferry over the fouls of mortals into die region 

 .©£Yama: the word vitarana, whence the name of the river is derived, al- 

 ludes to the fare given for the paffage over it. 



III. We mull now fpeak particularly of Sane ba~>dwipa Proper, or the 

 JJland of Shells s as the word literally fignifiesi for Sane ha means a fea-fhell, 

 and is generally applied to the large buccinum : the Red Sea, which abounds 

 with fhells of extraordinary fize and beauty, was confidered as part of the 

 Sanc'hdbdhi, or Sane hodadhi % and the natives of the country before us wore 

 large collars of fhells, according to St r a bo, both for ornament and as amu- 

 lets. In the Pur anas, however, it is deekfed, that the dwipa had the appel- 

 lation of Sam ha, beeaufe its inhabitants lived in fiells ) or in caverns of rocks 

 hollowed like fhells and with entrances like the mouths of them: others 

 Infift, that the mountains themfelves, in the hollows of which the people 

 fought fhelter, were no more than immenfe heaps of fhells thrown on fhore 

 by the waves and confolidated by time. The jftrange idea of an actual habi- 

 tation in a fhell was not unknown to the Greeks, who reprefent young Nerites, 

 and one of the two Cupids, living in fhells on the coaft of that very fea. 

 From all circumftances collected it appears, that Sane"ha-dwipa, in a confin- 

 ed fenfe, was the Troglodytica of the ancients, and included the whole Weftera 

 fhore of the Red Sea ; but that, in an extenfive acceptation, it comprifed all 

 Africa; the Troglodytes, or inhabitants of caves, are called in Scripture alfo Su* 

 Mm, beeaufe they dwelt in fucas, or dens', but it is probable, that thewordykvz 

 which means a den only in a fecondary fenfe, and fignines alfo an arbour, a 

 booth, or a tent, was originally taken, in the fenfe of a cave, from Sanc y ha\ a 

 name given by the firfl inhabitants of the Troglodytica to the rude places of 

 ihelter, which they found or contrived in the mountains, and which bore fome 

 fefemblance to the mouths of large fhells. The word Sancha-dwipa has alfo 



