135 
sages of Greece visited them, rather to acquire, than to 
impart, knowledge : nor is it likely that the self-sufficient 
Brahmans would have received them as their preceptors." 
(' Jones On the Gods of Greece, India, &c.') 
Considering, that the resemblance between the Indians 
and Egyptians extends to so many points, it will be useful to 
indicate a few dates in the history of the latter, for the 
purpose of future comparison. The commercial intercourse 
between the two countries is well known to have been 
most active, subsequent to the reign of the Ptolemies ; espe- 
cially after Alexandria had been founded expressly for its 
encouragement. Previous to this, Egypt had been 
conquered by the Persian Cambyses, B.C. 525, and by the 
Kings of Meroe about 800 B.C. ; from which to about 
700 B.C. is considered the most flourishing period of the 
Ethiopian, but from the former to B.C. 1600, that of 
the Egyptian kingdom. This was during the reign of 
the 18th to the 23d dynasty of Diospolitans from Thebes, 
or that of the Sesostridae, of whom Rameses the Great, 
the Sesostris of Herodotus, was the most distinguished. 
During this period the principal edifices are supposed 
to have been erected, and the Israelites to have departed 
from Egypt B.C. 1491, or 430 years after the arrival of 
Abraham. The Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, who conquered 
and held possession of Lower Egypt from about 1800 to 
16*00 B.C., are supposed, by some authors, to have been 
an Arabian, and by others a still more eastern Asiatic 
(the Pali) race. 
India seems, in the remotest antiquity, to have been famed 
for the variety and richness of its peculiar products ; nothing, 
indeed, can be so strong a proof of their value, or of the 
great antiquity of the people, than finding even when the 
position of the country was unknown, that its products were 
familiar to, and desired by, all the most ancient and civi- 
