from the Ancient Books of the Hindus. 3?? 



refer to a geographical and hiftorical defcription of the Ganges and the coun- 

 tries adjacent to it, which I have nearly completed. 



The people named Cut ila-cefas are held by fome Brdhmens to be the fame 

 with the Hafyasilas, or at leaft a branch of them ; and fome fuppofe, that 

 the Hafyasilas are the before-mentioned remnant of the Cut 'ila-cefas ■, who 

 iirft fettled on the banks of the Nile, and, after their expulnon from Egypt by 

 De'va-nahusha, were fcattered over the African deferts :,. the Gaituli, or, 

 Gaityli,^ were- of old the moft powerful nation in Africa, and I mould fuppofe 

 them to be defcendants of the fir-ft Cutilas or Cutils (forfo they are frequently 

 called, efpecially in converfation) who fettled iirft near the Call river, and 

 were alfo named Hafyasilas ; but they muft have dwelt formerly in Bengal, if 

 there be: any hiftorical bafis for the legend of Capila, who was performing 

 acts of religious aufterity at the mouth of the Ganges near old Sdgar, or Gangd 

 in the Sunderbans. They were black and had curled hair, like the Egyptians 

 in the time of Herodotus; but at prefent there are no fuch negros , in 

 India, except in the Andaman illands, which are now faid to be peopled by 

 cannibals, as they were, according to Ptolemy, at leaft eighteen hundred 

 years ago : from Anda?nan the Greeks made Eudaimon, and conceived it to be 

 the refidence of a good genius. It is certain, that very ancient ftatues of Gods 

 in India have crifp hair and the features of negros ; fome have caps, or tiaras, 

 with curls depending over their foreheads > according to the precife meaning of 

 the epithet Cutildlaca; others, indeed, feem to have their locks curled by art 

 and braided above in a thick knot; but I have feen many idols, on which 

 the woolly appearance of the hair was fo well reprefented as to preclude all 

 doubt ; and we may naturally fuppofe, that they were made by the Cut ila-cefas, 

 when they prevailed in this country. The Brdhmens afcribe thofe idols to 

 the Bauddhas, and nothing can hurt them more, than to fay that any of their 



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