64 Notes Antiquarian and Mythical. [no. 7, new series. 



dered the aforesaid king, after which they were held impure by the 

 other Indians, and the earth refused to let them abide longer in 

 these regions, for she destroyed all seeds that were sown, refused 

 nourishment to the nocks and cattle, caused abortions, and if a 

 town was commenced, she sank and overthrew the houses. More- 

 over the shade of Ganges followed them whithersoever they went, 

 driving them in terror, and they were not freed from this curse till 

 they had buried his murderers alive. Now Ganges was ten cubits 

 tall, and the goodliest man ever seen, and the son of the river Ganges. 

 "Wherefore as his father would sometimes inundate India, he turned 

 his course towards the Red Sea and caused him to become propi- 

 tious to the land of India. Hence the earth returned him abun- 

 dance when he was alive but avenged his murder. He built 60 

 cities, the most splendid in the country, and also drove back the 

 Scythians, who had marched an army over the Caucasus into these 

 regions ; and he buried seven adamantine swords in the ground to 

 the end that no danger or panic should ever invade this country." 

 This seems a very Indian legend ; its very indistinctness smacks 

 of a Hindu origin. Some great religious feud and consequent 

 emigration* may be veiled by it. The great stature of Ganges 

 should not be lost sight of in connection with the national tallness of 

 the Ethiopians, ancient and modern : the legend also contains one 

 of the few direct allusions to a Scythian invasion of India. Again 



* The Puranas have a tradition of the migration of Charma or Ham, with his 

 family and followers, driven from his country by the curse of Noah ; that hav- 

 ing quitted their own land they arrived after a toilsome journey on the banks of 

 the Nile. Where by command of the goddess Padma Devi, Charma and his as- 

 sociates erected a pyramid in her honour. There is another migration spoken of 

 in the Puranas, the result of a general war between the worshippers of Vishnu 

 and Iswara, under which names water and fire were respectively typified (in 

 Ireland Osar— Ishwara was the god who kindles fire). This it said to have com- 

 menced in India in the earliest ages, and thence to have spread over the whole 

 world. In this struggle the Yoinjees — Earth-born — were worsted and by the 

 direct interposition of the deity whose worship they opposed, were compelled to 

 quit the country. These also took refuge in Egypt carrying with them the 

 ground-work of the Egyptian scheme of mythology."— Fraser's Magazine, No. 

 237, p. 323. 



The Arabs themselves call their numerals " 7iindi"— Indian. The story of the 

 Sepoys, who prostrated themselves at the sight of the gods of Egypt, is well 

 known. This cobra de capello with expanded hood, peculiar to India, abounds 

 as a mortuary emblem in the tombs called Biban ul Muluk near Thebes, and in 

 the temple at Dendera* " Abi, Assa, Galla, Nil, are African words derived from 

 an Asiatic language." " The Sboan women tattoo their foreheads with a Geez 

 letter (T> which I am told is an ancient Egyptian symbol of the unity of the 

 deity" Johnson's Travels. Is it not the Hindu trident-shaped Vishnu caste- 

 mark reversed? Sembe is an African and also Indian name of a -village at 

 this day. 



