146 



ancient Sanscrit, and particularly with the in- 

 scriptions in the caves of Canara, the construc- 

 tion of which preceded all the known periods of 

 Indian history % The arts appear to have 

 flourished at Meroe, and at Axoum, one of the 

 most ancient cities of Ethiopia, before Egypt 

 rose from a state of barbarism. A celebrated 

 writer, deeply versed in the history of India, 

 Sir William Jones f, believed, that he had 

 traced the same people in the Ethiopians of 

 Meroe, the first Egyptian^, and the Hindoos. 

 Yet it is almost certain, that the Abyssinians, 

 whom we must not confound with the autoch- 

 thones of Ethiopia, were an Arabian tribe ; 

 and, according to the observation of M. Lan- 

 gles, the same hamyaritic characters, which we 

 discover in the east of Africa, still decorated, 

 in the fourteenth century of the vulgar era, 

 the gates of the city of Samarcand. Some 

 connexion therefore undoubtedly existed be- 

 tween Habesch, or ancient Ethiopia, and the 

 elevated plain of central Asia. 



A long struggle between two religious sects, 

 the Brahmans and the Bouddhists, terminated 

 by the emigration of the Ghamans to Thibet, 

 Mongolia, China, and Japan. If tribes of the 



* Notes, by M. Langles, to Norden's Travels, vol. 3, 

 p. 299, 349. 



f Asiatic Researches, vol. 3, p. 6. 



