jlpril — sept. 1858.] Notes Antiquarian and Mythical. 63 



features." Rumours of this giant race have floated down from the 

 remotest times. They are the famous Ethiopians most blameless 

 of mortals, whose banquets, as Homer reports, were graced by the 

 presence of the Olympian gods themselves, and who five centuries 

 after were spoken of by Herodotus as " the tallest and most beau- 

 tiful of the human race." They were the " mighty men," and 

 " Sabseans, men of stature" of the Hebrew prophets, and it was their 

 king Zerah who marched against Solomon's great-grandson Asa with 

 a thousand thousand men and three hundred chariots.* 5 Later still 

 Agatharchides, and after him Diodorus Siculus, speak of them un- 

 der the same appellation as that used by the German explorer of 

 the present day, namely, the Megabari — so unchangeable are pri- 

 mitive names. Scripture and ancient authors abound with testimo- 

 nies to the power, civilization, and commerce of the Ethiopians who 

 founded Meroe, and dwelt in the countries about the upper streams 

 of the Nile, and who, as Egyptian arts and civilization certainly 

 descended the Nile-valley, may perhaps have been the progenitors 

 of the wonderful monarchy of the Pharaohs. The origin of this 

 people which in the remotest ages developed arts and commerce in 

 the heart of Africa, whither we are only now beginning to pene- 

 trate, has awakened much speculation, and India has been pointed 

 to a£ their probable cradle. Heeren favours the theory of their 

 Indian origin, and there are a few incidental testimonies to it, 

 which, though not conclusive, may be brought forward in the ab- 

 sence of more weighty proof, and have also been not generally 

 noticed. In the life of that problematical character Apollonius 

 Tyaneeus, a book of little authority or value, except as a repertory 

 of travellers' stories and legends current in antiquity, the philoso- 

 pher, after reaching India, and when conversing with the Brah- 

 mans, is told the following story by Jarchas, their chief. "There 

 was a time when the Ethiopians inhabited those regions, for in 

 truth they are an Indian race, but Ethiopia was then unknown. 

 Egypt then commenced at Meroe and the Cataracts and terminated 

 at the mouths of the Nile. At that time the Ethiopians dwelt in 

 these countries under the rule of king Ganges ; the earth was 

 fruitful, and they were in favour with the gods. But they mur- 



* II. Chronicles xiv. 9. 



Vol. xx. o. s. Vol. it. n. s. 



