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182 182 Memnon. that belongs both to the obscurity of the subject and to my own very imperfect means of forming an opinion on it. The relation between the Egyptians and the Indians is a question that has long exercised the curiosity of the learned. That the former were an Ethiopian colony, seems now to be placed almost beyond dispute by the concurrence of tra- dition with arguments drawn from the nature and history of the two countries. But the origin of the Ethiopians them- selves has long appeared to be buried in impenetrable darkness. They claimed, like many other nations, the honour of being autochthons "^^ When the Macedonians became masters of Egypt, and Greek travellers began to explore Ethiopia, and sometimes made a long stay at Meroe '^5 it is probable that many conjectures were formed on this point. But it is scarcely before the Roman period that we hear of a tradition that the Ethiopians were of Indian origin : and the writers who report it are not of the highest authority. Philostratus in- troduces an Indian Bramin larchas, relating that the Ethio- pians of Meroe were once inhabitants of India ; but having killed their King Ganges, they were pursued by his spectre, and could find no resting place : (before, we are to suppose, they quitted the country'^). Elsewhere he brings in an Egyptian saying, that he had heard from his father that the Indians were the wisest of men, and the Ethiopians a colony of the Indians, who preserved many of the institutions of their ancestors '^ It seems evident that, beside the sus- picious character of the author, these accounts deserve not t>he slightest attention as an Indian tradition, and that they cannot have been an Ethiopian one. We find however the same fact more simply stated by Africanus, in a passage abruptly inserted after the mention of Amenophthis-Memnon in a list of Egyptian kings, under a title : " concerning the Ethiopians, whence they were, and where they settled ;'' which is explained as follows: " The Ethiopians migrated from the 71 Diodor. III. 2. otl ovk eTDJXvSe^ eXOoWes, aXX* eyyei/ets oi/res ttJ? X^P^^* OLKaico^ avTox^oves ovofxdX^ovn-aiy crxe^ov irapd Trdcn avjULCfiMi/eln-ai. 72 Pliny N. H. vi. Primus Dalion ultra Meroen loiige subvectus: mox Aristo- creon et Bion et Basilis : Simonides minor etiam quinquennio in Meroe moratus cum de Aethiopia scriberet. 73 Vit. Apoll. III. (i. 7» V,. jc;.