?rqm the Ancient Books of the Hindus. 349 



find accordingly a part of Ethiopia named JEtberia by the Greeks* who called 

 its inhabitants JEtheru-, and Straeo confines this appellation to^ a particular 

 tribe, who feem to be the Attiri of Ptolemy, and lived near the confluence 

 of the Tacazze and the Mareb : (a) they were Aireyas or defcended from 

 Atri; but the Greeks* as ufual, referred a foreign epithet to a word in their 

 own language. In the Dionyfiacks of Nonnus we read of 'As&qtoe Metfwr 

 which is tranllated Meroe with perpetual fum?ner -, but, furely, the word can 

 have no fuch meaning j and Meroe muft have been fo named, becaufe it was 

 once the capital of Mthcria, {b) 



It appears from the Purdns, that the Sanchayanas, or old Shangallas, were 

 not deftitute of knowledge; and the Brdhmens admit, that they pofieffed a 

 part at leaft of the Vidas. 



IV. The hiftory of "the Cut H Ha- cefas, or men with cur fed hair, is dif~ 

 guifed in the following legend. Sagara, an ancient monarch, who gave 

 his name to the /agar a, or ocean, was going to perform the Aswamedba, 

 or facrifice of a borje; when Indra defcended and ftole the victim, which 

 he conveyed to a place, near the mouth of the Ganga, where the fage 

 Capila was intent on his religious aufterities : the God of the firmament 

 there tied the horfe by the fide of the holy man,- and retired unperceived by 

 him. The monarch, miffing the confecrated horfe, difpatched his Jixty 

 thoufand fons, or defcendants, in fearch of him : they roved over the whole 

 earth, and, finding him at laft near the manfion of Capiea, accufed him 

 of the facrilege, and began to treat him with violence ; but a flame iffued' 

 from the eyes of the faint, which confumed them all in an inftant. Their 



- I ' ' ' ' I ■ I' M 



{<?) Strabo, B. u. p. Sz. (&) Dionyf. B. 17. v. 396, 



