452 On Egypt and the Nile 



prey along the banks of the Call; but, having once attempted to fwallow 

 a Brahmen deeply learned in the Vedas, he felt a fcorching flame in his 

 throat, and was obliged to difgorge the fage alive, by contact with whom 

 his own intellects, which had been obfcured by his fall, became irradiated; 

 and he remembered with penitence his crime and its punifhment. He 

 ceafed from that day to devour human creatures, and, having recovered 

 his articulation together with his underftanding, he wandered through the 

 regions adjacent to the Nile t in fearch of fome holy Brahmen, who could 

 predict the termination of his deferved mifery : with this view he put ma- 

 ny artful questions to all, whom he met, and at length received informa- 

 tion, that he would be reftored to his priftine fhape by the fons of Pandu. 

 He had no refource, therefore, but patience, and again traverfed the world, 

 vifiting all the temples and places of pilgrimage, which he had named frorri 

 himfelf in his more fortunate expedition ; at laft he came to the fnowy moun-. 

 tains of Himalaya , where he waited with refignation for the arrival of the 

 Pan'davas, whofe adventures are the fubject of Vyasa's great Epick 

 Poem* 



This fable of De'va-nahusha, who is always called Deo-naush in 

 the popular dialects, is clearly the fame in part with that of Dionysus, 

 whether it allude to any fingle perfonage, or to a whole colony ; and we fee 

 in it the origin of the Grecian fiction, that Dionysus was fevved up in the 

 Mkrosy or thigb, of Jupiter; for Miru, on which Peva-naiiusha re- 

 fided for, a time, was the feat of In dr a, or Zeus Ombrios : by the way, 

 we mull; not confound the celeftial Mem with a mountain of the fame ap- 

 pellation near Cabul, which the natives, according to ^he late Mr, Fo ra- 

 ster, ft ill call Mer-cohy and the Hindus, who coniider it as a fplinter of 

 the heavenly mountain, and fuppofe, that the Gods occafionally defcend 



