COMMERCE OF INDIA. 



203 



was no doubt prevalent a certain mania to connect India and 

 Egypt in a most arbitrary manner ; but the reaction against 

 these opinions has also been carried too far, and it is now 

 time to consider quietly the extent of the relations between 

 India, especially Southern India, and Egypt. There exists, 

 no doubt, up to this very day, a singularly striking affinity 

 between the non- Aryan elements of India, whether Kushite or 

 Dravidian on the one, and the old Turanian and Kushite 

 empires on the other part. The eastern nations are conser- 

 vative in their customs, and ancient fashions may be traced 

 in proportionally new institutions or structures. How can 

 we explain, for instance, the striking resemblance that exists 

 between the famous Pagodas of Tan j ore and Madura with 

 the Pyramids of Egypt without considering those connec- 

 tions ? 



The Egyptians not being, as we have seen before 

 a seafaring nation, employed in their naval expeditions 

 the Phoenicians. That the latter had been previously 

 demiciled on the Persian Gulf was a fact, with which 

 already Herodotos had become acquainted through the 

 archives of Tyre. Strabo mentions, that the islands of 

 Tyros and Arados, the Bahrein Islands of our days, 

 contained temples similar to those of the Phoenicians and 

 that the inhabitants of these islands regarded Tyros, Arados, 

 &c, in Syria, as their colonies. When the Kanaanites were 

 dislodged from the Persian Gulf, a part of them invaded 

 Egypt and the others settled in Syria. This country they 

 found in the possession of Semitic tribes, whom they expelled, 

 but whose language they adopted ; 3 this explains why the 



(3) The term Semitic applying to Hebrew, Arabic and other kindred 

 languages was first used by Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, and has been since 

 adopted generally in this sense. But it can hardly be regarded to be happily 

 chosen, as many Hamitic tribes spoke languages nearly related to those 

 so-called Semitic languages. The question as to the relationship between 

 Hamitic and Semitic languages has to bo one day thoroughly investigated. 



