366 On Egypt and toe Nile 



3. The middle fed, however, which is bow veiy prevalent in India, was 

 generally difFufed over ancient Europe ; and was introduced by the Pelargi, 

 who were the fame, as we learn from Herodotus, with the Pelafgi; the 

 very word Pelargos was probably derived from P'hala and Argha, thofe myfte- 

 rious types, which the later mythologifls difguifed under the names of Pal- 

 las and Argo; and this conjecture is confirmed by the rites of a deity, 

 named Pelarga, who was worshipped near Thebes in Bceotia, and to whom, 

 fays Pausanias, no victim was offered but a female recently covered and im- 

 pregnated '-, a cruel facrifice, which the Indian law pofitively forbids, but which 

 clearly mows the character of the goddefs, to whom it was thought accepta- 

 ble. We are told, that her parents were Potneus and Is th mi as, or Bac- 

 chus and Ino, (for the Bacchantes were called alfo Potniades) by whom we 

 cannot but understand Osiris and Isis, or the Iswara and Isi v of the Hin- 

 dus. The three words Amba, Nab hi, and Argha feem to have caufed great 

 confufion among the Greek Mythologifls, who even afcribed to the Earth all 

 the fanciful fhapes of the Argha, which was intended at firfl as a mere emblem: 

 hence they reprefented it in the ihape of a boat, of a cup, or of a quoit with 

 a bofs in the centre Hoping toward the circumference, where they placed the 

 ocean ; others defcribed it as a fquare or a parallelogram, (a) and Greece was 

 fuppofed to lie on the fummit, with Delphi in the navel, or central part, of 

 the whole j (b) as the Jews, and even the firfl Chrijlians, infilled, that the 

 true navel o? the earth was Jerufalem; and as the Mufelmans hold Mecca to be 

 the Mother of Cities and the nafi zemln, or Earth's navel. All thefe notions 

 appear to have arifen from the worfhip, of which we have been treating: the 

 yoni and ndbhi, or navel, are together denominated amid, or mother-, but 

 gradually the words amba, nabhi, and argha have become fynonymous ; and 



(a) Agathem. B. s. C. I. {I) Find. Pytlu 6. Eurip. Ion. v. 233. 



