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 WITH A COPIOUS APPENDIX, 
 
 AND 
 
 A DISQUISITION 
 
 CONCERNING 
 
 THE EXPEDITION OF SESOSTRIS 
 OTO INDIA. 
 
 BY MAJOR WILLIAM STIRLING. 
 
 RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 AND WILLIAM ROBERTS, BROAD GATE, EXETER. 
 
 1855.
 
 IDS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I WILL not presume to disturb any of the many suppo- 
 sitions respecting the site of the Garden of Eden, far less to 
 pronounce whether it was indeed a garden, or the whole 
 creation, when man was in the image of his Maker, pure 
 and undefiled when the morning stars sang together, and 
 all the sons of God shouted for joy : but I feel myself more 
 at liberty to speak of the localities of the rivers of Paradise, 
 as something has been revealed to us respecting them ; and 
 we shall find, that the regions represented by the rivers 
 which I shall name, were the scenes of such important 
 events, as to give them in Sacred History a very prominent 
 distinction. 
 
 In naming the Euphrates, and the Tigris, or perhaps 
 the Jordan, 1 * as the rivers^of the 14th verse of the 2nd 
 
 * By, I may say, a known geological convulsion, the Dead Sea is 1300 
 feet below the level of the Mediterraneau, and the course of the Jordan east- 
 ward and towards Assyria stopped Boat and Caravan. 
 
 Gen. xi. 10. In the mystical language of the East, the Brahmins, at 
 the temple of Mahabelishwar, assert that a certain number of the rivers of 
 the surrounding country, including the Kistna, have their sources within the 
 precincts of the temple ; but they could not show them all to me, some not 
 being visible to the natural eye. See Mandoo in the Appendix. 
 
 Maha-great, Bel-Belus. Ishwar-Lord. The great god Belus. I re- 
 quested the Brahmins to show me the image of the great god Bel, on which 
 they pointed to the emblem of Siva, the lingam. They are one and the 
 
 1968324
 
 RIVEE PISON. 
 
 chapter of Genesis, I may refer to the numerous events 
 recorded of Babylon, Nineveh, Mesopotamia, Canaan, and 
 Judaea ; and when I name the Nile as the Gihon* which 
 compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia,t we will remember 
 how much Egypt and all the regions of Gush partook of 
 the Scriptural events. I now come to the Pison, a river 
 which commentators have hitherto scarcely ventured to 
 guess at, but which will receive from me, I hope, a befit- 
 ting notice; in which I shall endeavour to prove that the 
 region of the Nerbudda, one of the great and sacred rivers 
 of India, was the ancient dwelling-place of the children of 
 Shem, and the birth-place of Abraham, and that that river 
 was the Pison. I will endeavour to show also that Ophir 
 and Havilah, and Tarshish, were in the same region. 
 
 * See the Map of Africa for the great extent of the land compassed 
 by the Nile. Brnce's sources are in Abyssinia, which they literally almost 
 compass round, while the white river, the true Nile, has its sources near the 
 Equator, and traverses the Ethiopia of the ancients. 
 
 t Gush in the Hebrew. 
 
 Gush, Misraim, Phut, and Canaan, the sons of Ham, the wicked son of 
 Noah, peopled, besides other regions, that of Ethiopia. See the part fulfil- 
 ment of the curse in the degraded state of its people as recorded in Scripture. 
 Jeremiah xxrviii. 7. Now when Ebedmelech, the Ethiopian, one of the 
 eunuchs Acts viii. 27. Behold a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of. autho- 
 rity. By Amos, ix. 7. The children of the Ethiopians are of value in the 
 sight of God (like the rest of His creatures).
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE river Nerbudda, the Pison of the antediluvian world, 
 rises near the tropic of Cancer, and trending slightly to the 
 southward in its westerly course of seven hundred miles, has 
 its confluence with the sea,* twenty-six miles beyond the 
 Baroach of the moderns and the Barygaza of the Greeks. 
 Although the Deluge swept over it, and many geological 
 changes have taken place in its course, yet its fountains and 
 its bed seem to be the same as in the beginning. The deep 
 rich diluvium of the banks of its estuary, and its cliffs,t 
 higher up, of large rounded stones, pebbles, sand, fossils, 
 and other diluvial remains prove the catastrophe, and show 
 how well the mighty river has striven for, and obtained, its 
 own, again. 
 
 I shall afterwards speak of the region of the Nerbudda as 
 the birth-place of Abram ; and I will now proceed to show 
 on what grounds I conclude that that river was the Pison. 
 
 * Forbes' Oriental Memoirs. 
 
 t In the Transactions of the Bombay Branch of the Koyal Geographical 
 Society for Feb. 1 841, some notices by me of the geological features of the 
 Nerbudda near Mheshur are published. The fertility of the rich black deep 
 soil around Baroach is known to all who take an interest in those countries. 
 The Surat's cotton of commerce is mostly grown towards Baroach and the 
 estuary of the Nerbudda. The large rounded stones of the cliffs and of the 
 river are like those of Budleigh Salterton, Devonshire, but of closer grain. 
 There is a fine specimen, highly polished, in my cabinet.
 
 6 MESHA. 
 
 " The name of the first is Pison, that is it which compasseth 
 the whole land of Havilah where there is gold." Gen. ii. 11. 
 
 It will be seen, by the 1 Oth chapter of Genesis, that a 
 grandson of Shem was Mash, the same who, in i Chronicles, 
 1st chapter, 17th verse, is written Meshech. In the 30th 
 verse of the former chapter it is said, that the children of 
 Shem had their dwelling from Mesha, as thou goest unto 
 Sephar, a mount of the east, and it will further be seen 
 by the 10th chapter that Ophir and Havilah, and Mash, 
 or Meshec, the children or descendants of Shem gave 
 names to countries or districts, as was the custom in early 
 days.* 
 
 We know that Ophir and Havilah were gold countries, 
 and that there is a most ancient city of Mheyshurt on the 
 Nerbudda. I think from what I have written and from 
 what will follow, it will be admitted that Mheyshur is the 
 Mesha of Scripture, and that Ophir and Havilah, the loca- 
 tions of the children of Shem, were thereabouts. 
 
 Baroach, the BarigazaJ of the Greeks, was the port of 
 
 * Psalm kii. 11. They call their lands after their own names. 
 
 f The name of Meshur is variously written, thus 
 By Sir John Malcolm Mheysh-ur Mheys-ur and Mheys-ir. 
 By Colonel Tod Mahais-ur Mahes-war. 
 By Colonel Blacker Mheys-ur. 
 By Colonel Dow Mahoiss-ur. 
 By the Bombay Calendar Myhesur. 
 
 Mundlais-ur, or Mundlais-ir, a considerable town is near Mheshur. 
 
 It is likely that Ur Chasdim simply means " The City of the Chal- 
 deans ; " Ur being the Babylonian for Ir. Nineveh and its Palaces, page 
 41. 
 
 \ Barigaza signifies the water of wealth Bari water, gaza wealth 
 riches, treasure, or treasury. Sanscrit or Persian. A. Hamilton.
 
 BAROACH. 
 
 those parts, and a considerable emporium;* and I have no 
 hesitation in pointing to it as the Tarshisht of Scripture 
 the port of Ophir,J whence Solomon's ships brought almug 
 trees and precious stones, gold and silver, ivory, apes, and 
 peacocks. 1 1 
 
 * Vincent's Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. 
 
 f It will be seen by Genesis, 10th chapter, that Tarshish was one 
 of the descendants of Japheth, who were mostly traders ; he went to the 
 Nerbudda, to found an emporium and to enjoy the traffic of the princedoms 
 of Ophir and Havilah. A subtle Greek ! ! 
 
 The word Tarshish signifies " precious stone." Cruden. 
 
 * Protz, in Hebrew, signifies a port, a haven, a creek, a shore. Cor- 
 rupt the P into B, and place emphasis on r, and it will be Barotz, nearer to 
 the true pronunciation than the Englified name Broach. A Hebrew name 
 could only have been given by Hebrews, and there can be no reasonable 
 doubt that Barotz was the port of Ophir and Havila, and Eber, the children 
 of Shem. Judges v. 17. 
 
 II Chron. ix. 9 21. and I Kings, x. 22. The neighbourhood of 
 Baroach abounds in bloodstones, agates, and many coloured stones ; while 
 higher np the river the onyx and jasper, and large and beautiful chrystals are 
 found iu great profusion. The onyx was one of the exports from Baroach 
 to Egypt in the time of Arrian (the periplus). Some have supposed that the 
 Baroach stones were called " onyx," but that is an error, for onyx signifies 
 in Greek the human nail, the shades and colours of which are well represent- 
 ed in the onyx of the neighbourhood of Meshur and Ougein. The Greek 
 author of the Periplus of course knew the onyx from the bloodstone. 
 
 || Apes and peacocks are peculiarly abundant about Baroach. As an 
 Indian emporium, ivory must have been had there, besides the gold of Ophir. 
 There does not appear to me to be any authority in Scripture to sustain the 
 very general impression that Solomon's fleet took three years to make the 
 voyage to and from Tarshish ; for (i Kings x. 22.) it is stated, that '' once 
 in three years came the navy of Tarshish," and in II Chroii. ix. 21. " Every 
 three years once came the ships of Tarshish." Those verses surely do not 
 sanction the impression They came once in three years. The ships sztHed 
 in fleets for protection against the pirates which then, perhaps as now, in-
 
 8 MANDOO. 
 
 In continuation of the llth and 12th verses of the 
 2nd chapter of Genesis, viz. " the whole land of Havilah 
 where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good," 
 we know ( but it was not known to the world at large, 
 nor to Sir John Malcolm when he wrote,) that gold is 
 found, as probably it was in places now exhausted in an- 
 cient times, in great abundance, on or near the surface of 
 the earth. We shall see by the following extract from Sir 
 John Malcolm's History of Central India, that according to 
 Hindoo fable gold was found near Maheshur. Hindoo fa- 
 ble was probably traditional fact. A few miles from Mahe- 
 shur stands the ruined mountain fortress and city of Man- 
 doo, 1944 feet above the sea, its walls and battlements still 
 existing, upwards of thirty miles in circumference. It may, 
 or may not, be " Sephar,* a mount of the east/' for there 
 
 fested those seas. Job speaks of " the swift ships ; as the eagle that hasteth 
 to the prey : " probably the Pirates. Chap. ii. 26. A model of a remark- 
 ably swift pirate vessel from the western shore of the Persian Gulph was in 
 the great Chrystal Palace of 1851. Job's knowledge of ships could only 
 have been derived from the Persian Gulph or Red Sea. 
 
 * I have before pointed to the 30th verse of the 10th chapter of Ge- 
 nesis, "And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar, a 
 mount of the east." The river Sceprah rises 20 or 30 miles to the east- 
 ward of Mesha, over the mountains, and at its source, or that of one of its 
 tributaries, there is a remarkable temple of the sun called Deo Geraria, at 
 the foot of a considerable hill. I have not been able to ascertain whether 
 there is a mount called Sephar in these parts, but I find by Dow's History of 
 Hindoostan that there is a village of Sipiri near to them. The name of the 
 river is written, by Col. Blacker, Seeprah ; by Hamilton, Sopra, Sipra ; by 
 Sir J. Malcolm, Sepra and Seepra. Perhaps the temple of the sun, at its 
 source, at the foot of a hill, is the Sephar of Scripture. In Calmet, article 
 East, Sepher is also written Sippara. 
 
 I will refer my readers to Taylor's Calmet for some ingenious reasoning
 
 MANDOO. 
 
 are many lofty and remarkable mounts eastward from Man- 
 doo to Juggernaut.* 
 
 " Mandoo was built by a prince of the name of Jye 
 Siugh Deo. This prince, according to Hindoo fable, was 
 assisted in accomplishing his work by the possession of the 
 philosopher's stone, which was found during his reign by a 
 grass-cutter. Its properties were discovered by a blacksmith, 
 who carried it to Jye Singh Deo, who, after using it to 
 make gold enough to defray the expenses of building Man- 
 doo, is said to have given it to the priest of his family, who, 
 displeased at receiving a stone, threw it, before its value was 
 explained, into the Nerbudda ; when sensible of what he 
 had done, he sprang into the river in hope of recovering it, 
 but his efforts to reach the bottom were in vain. Credulous 
 Hindoos believe that at the place where this occurred the 
 Nerbudda became, and continues to be, unfathomable." f 
 
 Herodotus tells us that the richest and best Satrapy of 
 
 (Article East) respecting Sephar, and will content myself with the following 
 most remarkable extracts. " Berosus (a priest of the temple of Belus 
 at Babylon, who wrote a history of Chaldea 300 years B. C.,) says, 
 Sethusus, previous to the flood, was ordered to bury some writings, in the city 
 of the sun, at Sippara (the Sepher Sephareh of the mount Sephar of Moses); 
 afterwards, his descendants were ordered to dig up these writings from Sip- 
 para, and to communicate their contents, which they did." " The verbal 
 import of Kedem is, ancient, primary, the origin, in which sense it is applied 
 geographically ; and in that acceptation implies the primary province ; that 
 where mankind was first settled." I hope to convince my readers that 
 " from Mesha to Sippara" was in the land of Ur of the Chaldees. 
 
 5 A Hebrew word often translated " the east." 
 
 * Juggernaut signifies Lord of the Creation. 
 
 t This fable is better given in the Ayeen Akbery of Abul Fazil, writ- 
 ten 300 years ago.
 
 10 HINDOO SATRAPY. 
 
 Darius, the Persian, was the Indian. It yielded annually 
 a tribute of 360 talents of gold.* 
 
 * The gold which Solomon received in one year from Ophir was 666 
 talents, and in another 420 talents. The withdrawal by Solomon, by sea, of 
 so much gold interfered with the Persian tribute, and no doubt raised the ire of 
 the Persians, and occasioned the invasions of India by that nation, which 
 took place about the period in question. We read in Dow that the Hindoos 
 withheld the Persian tribute whenever circumstances tempted them to do so, 
 and that Persian invasions followed. 
 
 We are not informed of what Solomon gave in exchange for the gold of 
 Ophir. Perhaps his people went to the diggings (it might be up the country) 
 as people do at the present day, and gave a portion of the gold found to the 
 king for the permission to dig. That would better explain the three years' 
 absence of the fleets of Tarshish than the hitherto supposed distance, or peri- 
 odical winds. Bruce writes a great deal on the subject. 
 
 Historians in describing the ancient invasions of India, speak of conquests 
 which extended " from the Indus to the Ganges ; " but it should be remem- 
 bered that all great and many small rivers of India are called the Ganges 
 (Guuga), so that the meaning in each case should be taken on its own merits. 
 The Nerbudda should sometimes be written for the Ganges. From the Pun- 
 jab to the Nerbudda there are numerous remains of Greek and other foreign 
 architecture, and coins found, while nothing of the kind can be traced towards 
 the Ganges. I myself discovered a pillar in Mandoo, on which were sculp- 
 tured figures of men wearing the Macedonian hat, satyrs dancing, &c. 
 
 According to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Parthian Kingdom 
 extended from the Indus to the Nerbudda in the second century. Strabo 
 and others state that the Bactrian Kingdom of the Greeks extended to the 
 month of the Indus. Coins of Bactria, of Menander, and Appollo-dotus, 
 as figured in Sir Alexander Burnes' Travels to Bokhara, have been dug up 
 at Broach. 
 
 The ancient Persians never made permanent settlements in India, 
 only invasions to enforce tribute. Sir John Malcolm's History of Persia. 
 Ahasuerus reigned from India to Ethiopia. Esther i. 1. Even in the present 
 century revenue could not be collected in many districts of India without an 
 armed force. 
 
 I look upon Megasthenes' story of digging up gold in India as founded 
 on the fact that gold was dug up there. 
 
 See Ezekiel xxvii. 22. Eamah and Sheba (Sheva?) were Indian
 
 THE ASWA MEDA. 11 
 
 There is another proof that gold was, about the time 
 of Solomon, or rather before it, found in India. It is stated 
 in the sacred records that at the sacrifice of the Horse or 
 Aswa Meda (about 1200 years B. C.), " The rite conclud- 
 ed with gifts of land to the sacrificing priests and augurs ; 
 but the holy men preferring gold, ten millions of Jambu 
 Nudu were bestowed on them; "* and Sophocles, 470 B. C. 
 makes Creon, in the Antigone, say, " Go and buy if you 
 will the electrum of Sardis and the gold of India/' 
 
 princes (Gen. x. 7.) who gave their names to countries. Who was queen of 
 Sheba ? Of the region where Sheva was the supreme god ? She heard of 
 Solomon through his servants at the diggings of Ophir. She gave him gold 
 and spices, and precious stones, the productions of India, such as his fleet 
 brought thence. See i Kings x. and the three verses preceding. 
 
 India is only mentioned in Scripture once, but its productions are often 
 referred to. The wise men presented unto Jesus gifts, gold, frankincense, 
 and myrrh ; the most precious gifts of India ; and they were accepted. So 
 will her people be in the fulness of time. 
 
 " This was native gold of a peculiarly dark and brilliant hue, which 
 was compared to the froit Jambu, not unlike a damson." Tod's Rajosthan^ 
 Jambu is an ancient name of India. Jambu Nudu perhaps signified native 
 gold nuggets of India. The word " nugget," now used in Australia, is the 
 common Indian word for coin ready money. The most ancient coin known 
 is of Miletus, about 800 B. C., now in the British Museum. Some concede 
 to the Persians the honour of having coined money first (which they might 
 have done by means of the Indian tribute), but it is probable that India, a 
 gold region, where arts and sciences flourished so early, has a fair claim to it. 
 The Jews had no coined money till the time of the Maccabees ; but I possess 
 a large silver coin of Antigonus, king of Asia, killed 301 years B. C., and prior 
 to them. Obverse, head of Jupiter with the word IOTAAIA (Judsea) ; 
 reverse, a prow of a vessel with Apollo seated and BA2IAEH2 ANTI- 
 FONOT (money of king Antigonus). 
 
 "Among all gifts ( by a Hindoo) the greatest is the gift of land. The 
 giver of land gives, as it were, gold, silver, copper, gems, and pearls." The 
 most awful denunciations fall on those who resume such a gift. From a
 
 12 BDELLIUM AND ONYX. 
 
 I will now speak respecting the latter part of the 12th 
 verse of the 2nd chapter of Genesis, " and the gold of that 
 land was good : there was bdellium and the onyx stone." 
 
 Gold and the onyx stone are again associated together 
 in the 16th verse of the 27th chapter of Job. It (wisdom) 
 cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious 
 onyx, or the sapphire. 
 
 I can state from my own knowledge, that the country 
 from Meshur to the Seepra, particularly to the north of 
 the Yhindhya mountains, which rise like a wall facing the 
 south between them, abounds in the onyx stone. I have 
 in my possession scores of beautiful specimens which I 
 collected during my course of military service in Malwa, in 
 the direction of Ougein and Indore. The ground is li- 
 terally spotted with them in some parts near Mhow and 
 those places, a fact which goes to prove that Baroach was 
 the Barygaza of the Greeks, and that their Ozene was 
 Ougein, one of the exports from Barygaza having been 
 onyx stones, stated to have been brought from Ozene. 
 If bdellium signifies jasper,* it is plenty and beautiful in 
 
 copper-plate, dated corresponding with A. D. 1121, dug up near Bombay, 
 and published by Major Jervis, H.E.I.C. Engineers. 
 
 * I discovered a jasper rock of rich green and purple protruding 
 through the surface of the ground to the north of the Vindhyas. I also 
 discovered the frankincense tree growing extensively on the Vindhyas, which 
 I reported to the Chamber of Commerce of Bombay, and sent specimens of 
 the gum, which they submitted to the dealers, who recognised it as the true 
 frankincense. The tree is remarkably tenacious of life. I cut a bough from 
 one when leafless in the cold season, it was put away in the corner of an un- 
 occupied room, and when I weut for it some weeks afterwards I found it in 
 leaf. I had it sawn into planks which I have now by me ; it is white, and
 
 BDELLIUM. 18 
 
 the Yindhyas ; and if it signifies a gum, these mountains 
 will meet the case, as frankincense and other odoriferous 
 gums grow on them. Even if bdellium signifies a pearl, 
 as some say, the Nerbudda may, in ancient times, have pro- 
 duced pearls, as I found two water-worn pearl oyster shells, 
 in its bed near Mundleysur. If bdellium signifies chrystal, 
 large and beautiful chrystals are abundant in the Yhindhyas 
 and the adjacent country.* 
 
 I think that in the absence of positive revelation I 
 have proved, as well as can be, the Nerbudda to be the Pi- 
 son " which compasseth the whole land of Havilah,f where 
 there is gold/' that Ophir, and Mesha were on its banks, 
 and that Baroach was Tharshish, their port. 
 
 not very valuable : it is mostly used as fire-wood, and when burning its 
 odour is very agreeable. 
 
 The frankincense of India was more valuable than that of Arabia. 
 Nlebuhr and Robertson. At present the frankincense of Arabia is more 
 valuable than that of India, whose hills are covered with the neglected plant. 
 How easy for the Government of India to send to Arabia and Africa for 
 grafts and cuttings, and so restore to India its superiority. The climate and 
 soil of India must be favourable to the plant, since even in its wild or neg- 
 lected state, as I have already mentioned, it produces true and good frankin- 
 cense, though, of course, in small quantities. Myrrh and other indigenous 
 similar plants might be treated in the same way ; and the Bheels, the wild 
 untamed inhabitants of the hills, would get their bread and become industri- 
 ous subjects by labouring in keeping and dressing their own at present un- 
 productive, because neglected, fastnesses. 
 
 * See article " Bdellium " in Calmet. 
 
 f In the Indian languages Haweli signifies a house a dwelling house, 
 also the districts attached to, and in the vicinity of, the capital of a province. 
 Shakespeare's Hind. Diet. 
 
 The Havilah (or Haweli) of Scripture was probably the house and dis- 
 tricts of the head of the family of Havila.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MHEYSHUR THE BIRTH-PLACE OF ABRAM. 
 
 COEVAL with Nimrod the mighty hunter, and with Misraim 
 who led a colony into Egypt, and before Abram was, the 
 Hindoos date the foundation of two kingdoms in the east, 
 the one at Adjoodia, beyond the Ganges, and the other at 
 Meshur on the Nerbudda. Modern chronologists believe 
 in them, and the Bible, that true source of our knowledge 
 of the origin of nations casts a ray of light on that other- 
 wise doubtful subject. 
 
 In the Hindoo mythology or history, Raman,* one of 
 the demigods or kings of Adjoodia, is represented as the 
 fifth in descent from the founder of that monarchy, said to 
 have been Ham; and in the 7th verse of the 10th chapter 
 of Genesis we find Ramah named as the fourth son of Gush 
 andffth from Ham. I have said that Mheysh-ur is believ- 
 ed to have been founded coeval with Adjoodia ; so in the 
 23rd verse of the 10th chapter of Genesis, we find Mash, 
 the Meschech of the 1st Chronicles, named as the fourth son 
 of Aram, the fifth from Shem. The people of Adjoodia 
 were the Sooryas or children of the sun, and those of Mheshur 
 were the Chandras or children of the moon ; and when we 
 
 * I am aware that there are different opinions as to the period of Ra- 
 mah, but there were several Ramahs ; in the Bible too there are more than 
 one Ram, or Aram, and Ramah, mentioned.
 
 MHEYSH-UE. 15 
 
 remember that the Sooryas were of the same stock as the 
 Egyptians who worshipped the sun, and that the Chandras 
 were descended through Mash from Shem, from whom 
 Christ was descended in the flesh, and whose church is 
 compared to the moon,* we may consider that we have good 
 authority for admitting the remote antiquity of Mheysh-ur, 
 and that in it and its vicinity we may reasonably look for 
 the locations of the children of Shem, Ophir, and Havilah,t 
 and Mash, and Eber, and for the birth-place of Abram, 
 the TJr of the Chaldees. It is not improbable that Abram's 
 name was originally Earn, a very common name, both an- 
 cient and modern, in India, and that the prefix Eber (with 
 which Abram is pronounced by the Orientals to this day,) 
 indicated that he was not Earn of Soorya, but of Eber. 
 
 Many oriental scholars, I presume, know that Shiva or 
 Mahadeo, the great god of the Hindoos, is known also by 
 the names of Mahoiss-ur and of Khaal ; J and that in the 
 languages of the east Des signifies a country, a territory, 
 a region. By putting Khaal and Des together, we instantly 
 recognise the country in which Khaal was worshipped as the 
 paramount lord ; and in Mhesh-ur, the Ur of Khaaldes, or 
 the Ur of the Chaldees of Scripture the city of Mesh.|| 
 
 * Song of Solomon vi. 10. Cruden : article " Moon." 
 
 By tradition Melchisedick's mother was the moon. Calmet. 
 
 f Josephus says, Hist. Ant., that the children of Shem, including 
 Havilah, were located on the banks of an Indian river. 
 
 \ See Col. Dow's catalogue of the gods of the Hindoos prefixed to his 
 History of India. 
 
 See Shakespeare's Hindostanee and English Dictionary. 
 
 || See note page 6, Ur, a city.
 
 16 KHAAL. 
 
 In order that my readers may not suppose that Khaal 
 is a creation of my own, or that what I have said has been 
 aided by a forced construction, I will refer them to the in- 
 troduction to Dow's History of India, viz. 
 
 " Bicker-Majet is one of the most renowned characters 
 of Indian History. To engage the attention of the vulgar 
 to religion, he set up the great image of Ma-Cal,* or Time, 
 in the city of Ugein which he rebuilt, while he himself wor- 
 shipped only the infinite and invisible God." 
 
 I may here remark, that the sera of Bicker-Majet is the 
 57th B. C. He only set up the image of Cal in Ougein. 
 That name and image existed of old. 
 
 Having, as I believe, clearly proved the existence of a 
 Khaaldes in Malwa or on the Nerbudda, the difficulty res- 
 pecting the distance between Abram's native place and Ha- 
 ran, expressed by some writers, will be removed.f 
 
 It is generally admitted, that Abraham's native place 
 was in the east: a very indefinite term; and it must 
 be evident, that when we cannot fix a place stated to be in 
 the " east," we must proceed onwards towards the sun-ris- 
 ing, till we find it. Taking the lower part of Mesopotamia 
 as a centre, the limits of the Old Testament history ly the 
 land journey, will be nearly equidistant from it, the Ner- 
 budda towards the rising sun, and Egypt or Ethiopia to- 
 
 * Ma ( Maha) signifies " great," and Cal, or Khaal, is the name of 
 the god Ma-Cal, The great god Cal. The Chaldeans highly considered, if 
 they did not worship, Saturn Time. Calmet, Article Chaldeans. 
 
 f See Calmet, article "Abraham."
 
 ABRAHAM. 
 
 17 
 
 wards the going down of the same. Abraham probably 
 travelled over the whole from east to west. 
 
 Let us see what the Bible says. Genesis xv. 7. " I am 
 the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees/'* 
 
 Genesis xii. 1. "Now the Lord had said unto Abram, 
 Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from 
 thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee." 
 
 Genesis xi. 31. " And Terah took Abram his son, and 
 Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter- 
 in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with 
 them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Ca- 
 naan : and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there/' 
 
 Acts vii. 2, 3. " The God of glory appeared unto our 
 father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he 
 dwelt in Charran [Haran], verse 3, and said, Get thee 
 out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into 
 the land which I shall shew thee." 
 
 Joshua xxiv. 2. "And Joshua said unto all the people, 
 Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, your fathers dwelt on 
 the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah the father 
 of Abraham, and the father of Nachor : and they served 
 other gods/' 
 
 "With reference to the foregoing verses of the Bible, it 
 is certain that Abram was called out of Ur of the Chaldees,t 
 
 * On the Sutledge stands Hooper, and between that river and the 
 Jumna is Tuneshwr. The idol of that country, or Des, probably made an 
 " Ur " of Us own name and country, which will explain the necessity of 
 saying Ur " of the Chaldees." 
 
 t The cradle of the people who journeyed from the east and found a 
 plain in the land of Shinar and dwelt there. It was the first Mesopotamia.
 
 18 
 
 THE DOAB. 
 
 and I cannot but feel satisfied that I have found its place. 
 The Hindoos call the countries between all two rivers by 
 the same name, Doab,* and consider the spot at the junc- 
 tion holy. Mesopotamia signifies the same in Greek, " the 
 country between two rivers ; " and the word would apply 
 in a larger or smaller sense to any country so situated. I 
 have said that Mheyshur formerly stood on the south side 
 of the Nerbudda, which would place, it between that river 
 and the Taptee; or if it stood on the north side, as the 
 temple doubtless always did, it would have been between 
 the Nerbudda and the Indus.f 
 
 It is known, as already stated by me, that in former 
 times at least one empire extended from the Indus to the 
 Nerbudda, and being compact between them, it might not 
 improperly have borne the name of " The Doab " by way 
 of eminence, or the country between those two great and sa- 
 cred rivers. A person writing or speaking of it in Greek, 
 if he knew its boundaries, would doubtless call it, at least, 
 a Mesopotamia. J 
 
 Joshua then, in Canaan, says, by command of God, 
 " your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old 
 time." 
 
 The name, Punjaub, or the country of five rivers, is more familiar 
 to English readers. 
 
 f The Nerbndda has from the earliest times been a geographical boun- 
 dary, like the Indus. 
 
 \ The Hindoos and Greeks were alike close observers of natural ob- 
 jects. They both noted by a name the countries between rivers as above ; 
 and Arrian (Hist, of Alexander,) says, that " Patala," in the delta of the 
 Indus, signified in the Indian tongue, the same as Delta in Greek.
 
 TEMPLE AT MHEYSHUR. 19 
 
 That may mean the Euphrates, as some suppose; but 
 let any one cast his eye over the map from Canaan, where 
 Joshua spoke, to the Nerbudda, and he will at once see the 
 greater flood which intervenes, and be pleased to find in it 
 another proof of the accuracy of Scripture teaching.* 
 
 Having conducted my readers into Khaaldes, I will now 
 raise the veil higher, and show other things in the vicinity 
 of Mhesh-ur, from Mesha to Sephar, which proclaim the 
 native land of Abram. 
 
 " Even Terah the father of Abraham and the father of 
 Nahor, and they served other gods." And where will you 
 find so many other gods ? Mheyshur is the strong hold of 
 other gods. 
 
 When I visited Mheyshur, in 1841, the great temple 
 was not then finished, and as the Brahmins and the archi- 
 tect conducted me through it, they told me that it had been 
 then building about forty years. As the temple was far 
 from being finished, I asked the architect to show me his 
 plan ; he said that he had no plan, that he carried it all in 
 his belly. t In fact, he was in constant superintendence, and 
 directed the placing of every stone. It is an enormous and 
 noble building of hewn stone, facing the Nerbudda, and 
 communicates with the river, there a mile wide, by flights 
 of beautiful stone steps of a length and depth so great that 
 I am afraid to describe them.J 
 
 * " The Israelites went through the flood on foot," [the Red Sea, 
 not long before Joshua spoke.] Psalm Ixvi. 6. 
 
 t By a singular accident the English word pate (head) is almost the 
 same in sound as the Hindostanee word for belly. 
 
 \ Among other monstrosities in this temple are enormous stone statues
 
 20 TARAHPOOR. 
 
 In Malcolm's map of Central India we see Tarahpoor, 
 or, perhaps, Terahpoor (the town of Abram's father,) a few 
 miles north of Mheyshur. If you ask the name of the ri- 
 ver, the people will tell you that its most ancient name was 
 Rewa* ( Eeu the great grandfather of Abram), and that its 
 present name is Nerbudda (^V^orbudda, the name of the 
 brother and of the grandfather of Abram). Josh. xxiv. 2. 
 
 If you say, Abram was rich in cattle, you will learn that 
 Neemaur, the district round Mheshur, is famous for its 
 breed of cattle, particularly draft bullocks, those probably 
 most prized by Abram for his long journeys. If you say, 
 Abram was rich in gold, remember Ophir and the philoso- 
 pher's stone of Mandoo. 
 
 Around the villages you will see, particularly between 
 Mandoo and Mhow, and Deogeraria, numerous stone pil- 
 lars set up, some small and very ancient, but many seven or 
 eight feet high (slightly cruciform), with an arm and hand 
 raised and pointing up to heaven, sculptured on them.f On 
 
 of Europeans exhibited in the practice of their national vice the bottle in 
 one hand and something equally derogatory in the other. 
 
 It was the custom of the Spartans to make their slaves drunk and ex- 
 pose them before their children, in order to give them an abhorrence for so 
 shameful and odious a vice. Hist, of Greece. 
 
 Among the decorations of Hindoo temples the most disgusting objects 
 are frequently introduced. Roberts' Oriental Illustrations of Scripture on 
 Ezek. xxiii. 14. 
 
 * The spring from which the Nerbudda rises is said to be enclosed by 
 a circular wall which was built by a man of the name of Rewa, aud on that 
 account the river is called Maht Rewa. Forbes' Oriental Memoirs. 
 
 t The hieroglyphics on the obelisks, says Cassidorus, lib. iii., are 
 Chaldaic signs of words, which were used as letters are, for the purpose of 
 information. Calmet, Article, Chaldeans.
 
 TEMPLE AT DEO. 
 
 enquiring what those pillars and hieroglyphics mean, you 
 will learn that they are sacrificial monuments, denoting the 
 fulfilment of an oath or vow of a human sacrifice a suttee ! 
 Abraham is there again recalled to your memory. Genesis 
 xiv. 22. "And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have 
 lift up mine hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the 
 possessor of heaven and earth." 
 
 If you observe with surprise that these Hindoos amidst 
 their idolatries and abominations have a knowledge of the 
 true God,* you should remember, that after Abraham had 
 been instructed in the knowledge of the true God, he sent 
 his sons, by his concubines, " eastward unto the east coun- 
 try/' by which means the people of India probably obtained 
 the imperfect knowledge of Him which they possess.f Gen. 
 xxv. 6. 
 
 If you go to the temple at Deo, Geran'a,t you will see 
 
 * The Hindoos, like the Jews, never use the name of God as Jehovah 
 the Almighty. 
 
 f The Supreme is called Om, by the Hindoos ; which word no one 
 pretends to explain. "When the priest presents the lighted lamp to his idol, 
 he moves it in such a way as to trace or form the word Om. No strict 
 Hindoo will repeat the word. Roberts' Oriental Illustrations of Scripture, 
 Scandan, the Son of the Supreme Siva, or Sheva, or Sheo, is called " The 
 Word." Ibid. 
 
 \ Deo Geraria the god of GERARiA. The Philistines were strangers 
 in Philistia, as the word implies, and I should think from the context they had 
 not been long settled there when Abraham arrived at Gerar. It is evident 
 from Amos ix. 7. that they had been brought there miraculously " Have 
 not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt ? and the Philistines from 
 Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir ? " I have obtained several traces of the 
 Philistines in India and on their return. They were descendants of Ham, 
 went to India, and were brought back again. Botta (in Nineveh and its 
 palaces) gives a drawing of Dagon, the great god of the Philistines, from
 
 22 CASSEE RAM. 
 
 the image of the sun,* one of the gods of the Philistines, and 
 you will remember that Abraham sojourned in Gerar when 
 in Canaan. If you have ever heard, which any one in India 
 may hear daily, a man in authority order his servant, say 
 by name, " Cassee Earn" ( literally Benaris Ram), to come 
 to him, or to " get thee out," he will remember that a 
 greater than he ordered Abram ( Eber Earn ) to " get thee 
 out"t also. 
 
 a slab found in Korsabad, and with his arm and hand held up as described 
 by me on the sacrificial pillars of Kaaldes. Dagon is represented on the 
 slab as half man and half fish, perhaps in record of a sea voyage. The Phi- 
 listines worshipped many gods Goliath cursed David by his gods. 
 
 Dagon his name, sea monster, upward man and downward fish. Para- 
 dise Lost. 
 
 * Baal Bel, the sun, was adored all over the east, and was the most 
 ancient deity among the heathen. Calmet. The Egyptians worshipped the 
 sun as god, the Persians as his emblem. 
 
 f In India an inferior is always addressed in the singular. 
 
 NOTE. There is a Mesha, king of Moab, and Sephar and Sepharvaim 
 mentioned in Scripture, but tike in other cases these were the old names 
 given to new places, and people, and things.
 
 1MAG1 OF TIME SUM 
 
 WORSHIPPED AT DEO GERARIA, 
 
 SKETCHED AT THE BEQUEST OF MAJOR STIRLING 
 BY H. SINGLE TON, ESQ.. 
 Oct r 23 rd 1 8 4-1 . 
 
 ''And lie (King Josiah) took away the horses which the Kings of Judah had given 
 to the Sun ******** and turned the Chariots of the Sufi with fire." 
 
 77. Rings. XXI2I. 11. 
 
 The Hindoos have not for at least a Thousand years used horses for draaght. 
 These horses having no harness may confirm the opinion of some, that 
 the "horses given to the Sun were not real horses.

 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 THE ONYX STONE. 
 
 I HAVE spoken decidedly in the preceding pages of the 
 Onyx Stone.* Commentators have different opinions res- 
 pecting the onyx of Scripture ; but we are, at all events, 
 informed by the 12th verse of the 2nd chapter of Genesis, 
 that it was a stone the onyx stone. It is also called a 
 stone in Exodus xxviii. 20. 
 
 I am aware that geologists and mineralogists may 
 differ with me as to the Malwa stone, to which I have re- 
 ferred, being the onyx stone ; but it must be remembered, 
 that I have not spoken of it as the onyx of the moderns, 
 but the onyx stone of Scripture, and of the Greeks ; at least 
 of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. 
 
 Onyx signifies, in Greek, the human nail ; and the stone 
 was named from its real or fanciful resemblance to it. The 
 stones in my possession have more than a fanciful resem- 
 blance; the marking and colouring, and other arrange- 
 
 * I sent specimens of the onyx to the Chamber of Commerce at Bom- 
 bay. Some of them were taken by the American Consul who transmitted 
 them to the Museums of New Haven and Washington, in the United States ; 
 the remainder were shipped for England to be reported on as an article of 
 commerce, but through some mistake they never reached their destination.
 
 24 THE ONYX. 
 
 ments, giving the stone a very fair claim to the name of 
 onyx, far beyond what can be claimed for the onyx of the 
 moderns. One of the exports from Barygaza, or Baroach, 
 at least about the second century of the Christian sera, was 
 the onyx stone brought from Ozene (Ougein) the mart of 
 trade in the interior ; and at this day the stones I allude to 
 are, in some places thereabouts, " thick as autumnal leaves 
 that strow the brooks in Vallombrosa." 
 
 We have very little more to guide us as to what the 
 onyx stone was, but stones such as I refer to being found in 
 a region showing forth so many extraordinary facts, 1 trust 
 that a reasonable public will not dispute the point with me. 
 If I have not revealed truth to appeal to in favour of my 
 opinion, it cannot be said by others that they have any 
 against it. 
 
 It may be asked, how it is that the onyx stone of Malwa 
 has not been better known in England before ? It has been 
 known to the English who have visited those parts, and my 
 only merit is, that I have been the first to bring it promi- 
 nently to notice, not only in masses of many pounds weight 
 and downwards, which I possess, as rough specimens, but 
 in slabs and polished and cut brooch stones and trinkets of 
 surpassing beauty. 
 
 One of the exports from Ozene via Barygaza was " porce- 
 lain," which some suppose to have been the Murrhine* 
 
 * Murrhine made of a stone which the ancients call Murra ; also 
 applied to a delicate porcelain brought, as Pliny says, from Persia Smart's 
 Pronouncing Dictionary. 
 
 How easy the transit from India to Persia !
 
 THE ONYX. 25 
 
 vessels of the ancients, one of which held three pints, and 
 for it the emperor Nero gave three hundred talents. 
 
 Seneca observes of it, " The fragility exalted its price 
 in the eyes of opulence, and the very odour it exhaled quite 
 as much." The onyx of Ozene might have been used as 
 English flints are used in China, in the manufacture of their 
 porcelain, or ground and mixed with other, perhaps, odori- 
 ferous substances. The Murrhine vase, some think, might 
 have been built of pieces of the onyx and other coloured 
 stones of the Yindhyas, so as to make it large and beauti- 
 ful, and pieces of porous substances might have been let 
 in to render it a cool drinking vessel. 
 
 If the Murrhine vase was merely a cup formed of the 
 Ozene or Ougein onyx, I can tell, having one in my pos- 
 session, and which I have used for my wine, that I have 
 not found it more agreeable than a wine glass, although 
 some might fancy it otherwise. Pliny seems to have thought 
 that it was a production of Caramania in Parthia. 
 
 These onyx stones are found on the ground like a lump 
 of pudding that had fallen in a damp state with force on the 
 ground. They are generally quite flat next the ground and 
 roundish on the top, imperfectly covered with a coarse whit- 
 ish crust, sometimes running into quartz chrystals under 
 the upper crust. The layers of the stone, when it has not 
 been disturbed, are almost always parallel to the ground and 
 the bottom has frequently vegetable and other impressions, 
 the whole giving the idea of an electric or meteoric origin. 
 Some of the stones have a very glassy appearance, and many 
 have interior cracks or flaws as if from contraction in cooling
 
 26 REPORT. 
 
 or hardening. Although at first sight their appearance 
 might lead to the supposition that they are amygdaloidal 
 or stalagmitic, I am more inclined to trace them to an elec- 
 tric origin. If this particular kind of onyx is not well 
 known to European mineralogists they would do well to 
 give it a distinguishing name, as soon as possible. 
 
 To show how able men in search of knowledge may pass 
 by such things, I will relate that when I sent a written re- 
 port to the Geographical Society of my discovery of a very 
 remarkable granite rock in the bed of the river Nerbudda, 
 at Mundlaisur, with specimens, it was something surprising 
 to them. Dr. Heddle, the Secretary, told me that he, and 
 Sir John Malcolm, and many other men of eminence, 
 had visited Mundlaisur and the valley of the Nerbudda 
 some years before in search of information, but the granite 
 rock had escaped them. The following is my report. 
 
 " In the middle of the Nerbudda opposite to Mundleysur, 
 there is a saddle-shaped rock of trap, the highest part of the 
 arch or saddle rising fifteen or twenty feet above the bed of 
 the river. The rock is rather coarse but compact black 
 trap, and in some places inclining to porphyritic, but no 
 where exhibiting an approach to columns, nor is there any 
 appearance of much disturbance of the strata. 
 
 " On the northern edge of the saddle, I found a huge 
 isolated block of granite, about forty feet in length, twenty 
 in breadth, and seven in thickness, the trap in some places 
 firmly adhering in pieces even to its upper edge, the two 
 rocks shewing the colours of deep black and grey, as dis- 
 tinctly and contrastingly as if they had been painted. The
 
 REPORT. 27 
 
 trap in some places penetrates the granite in veins, or it may 
 be vice versa. 
 
 "At first it appeared to me that the granite block was of 
 the nature of a boulder brought by some unknown power, 
 at least in this country, from a distance ; but further exami- 
 nation proved that not to be the case, for I ascertained it to 
 rest on a solid foundation of granite not much larger than 
 itself, distinctly protruding through the trap, which encir- 
 cled it as firmly and closely as if it had been applied by hu- 
 man means. In some places where the granite and trap are 
 in contact, the latter exhibits strong appearances of the ac- 
 tion of fire, or at least of decay. 
 
 " The large block, which is rent in several places, appears 
 to me to have originally stood erect, and that it has fallen 
 into its present position by the force of the current, but in 
 either case the adhesion of pieces of trap at the upper edge 
 of the granite, seven or eight feet from the ground, is a very 
 curious circumstance, and will not fail to give support to 
 existing theories on the subject. 
 
 " Sir John Malcolm's work on Central India, as well as 
 every other authority published and unpublished, that I am 
 aware of, have led me to believe that there is no granite in 
 Western India, between the latitude, of Goa and the Vind- 
 hya mountains ; I am therefore inclined to hope that the 
 information now afforded may prove new and interesting. 
 
 " I may here mention that Mundleysur stands on the 
 north bank of the Nerbudda in the county of Nemaur, about 
 fifteen miles south of the Vindhyas, a range understood to 
 be composed entirely of trap. The bed of the Nerbudda,
 
 28 REPORT. 
 
 and its banks, which are thirty or forty feet high, are also 
 composed at Mundleysur of trap, and I have not been able 
 in any part to discover any granite but what I have describ- 
 ed, and a few detached fragments of no great magnitude in 
 its immediate neighbourhood.* 
 
 " I beg to forward specimens of the granite and its ad- 
 hering trap. 
 
 " The above communication may appear to be more of a 
 geological than a geographical character, but trusting to the 
 known desire of our Society to extend its usefulness in every 
 way, I have, in the absence of a Geological Society, taken 
 this early opportunity to make it known. 
 
 " Mundleysur, 9th Feb., 1841." 
 
 * Near this spot I found some beautiful ribbon jasper, and an immense 
 petrified tooth rounded by attrition, so large, that till I had broken a piece 
 off, I took it for a stone boulder. I have preserved specimens.
 
 NOTES ON INDIA AND ITS PEOPLE. 
 
 SOME have supposed, but on very ill-supported grounds, that 
 the Brahmins and the people known by the name of Hin- 
 doos are not the aboriginal inhabitants of India. If they 
 were foreigners, they entered India in very remote antiquity 
 and established a government and a nation on a grand scale 
 probably soon after the flood. That will not appear extra- 
 ordinary, when we admit beyond doubt that in little more 
 than a century or two after the flood, Egypt and Assyria 
 had become great and populous kingdoms, sending forth 
 colonies into the most distant regions, even into India itself. 
 While Egypt and Assyria so quickly teemed with popu- 
 lation, it cannot be supposed that India, an equally favoured 
 region, progressed less rapidly : in fact, we have reason to 
 believe that it advanced with even greater rapidity. It not 
 only teemed with population, but it invented an idol wor- 
 ship and a mythology, gave attention to arts and sciences, 
 to peace and war, and established laws and institutions* 
 which extended their influence beyond their own frontier, 
 and became a model for all Central Asia, including the king- 
 
 * Philostratns says, The Indi are the wisest of all mankind. The 
 Oriental Ethiopeans are a colony from them, and they inherit the wisdom 
 of their fathers. Viet Appolon lib. iii. Calmet. 
 
 " The Hindoo religion probably spread over the whole earth." Asiatic 
 Researches.
 
 30 POPULATION OF INDIA. 
 
 dora of the Medes and Persians, whose laws, like those of 
 India, " altereth not." 
 
 Under such circumstances of peace and prosperity, it 
 might be expected that while India received colonies, as we 
 have seen of Soorya and Chandra, her own increased popu- 
 lation would seek an outlet ; and we accordingly find, that 
 " as they journeyed from the east they found a plain in the 
 land of Shinar, and dwelt there/' Who did these things ? 
 Very probably the people from over-crowded Kaal-des* 
 Central India. We find too, the people of India, in early 
 times, in foreign armies. The Indu Scythian troops of Da- 
 rius formed the elite of his army ; and we read in Gibbonf 
 that in later times " the Great King [of Persia] advanced 
 a third time towards Nisibis at the head of the united for- 
 ces of Persia and India" It is evident also, that at least 
 soon after the invasion of Alexander, the Hindoos had es- 
 tablished themselves in Central AsiaJ and in the Punjaub 
 beyond the Indus ; for Graeco Scythian, or Grseco Indian 
 
 The Chaldeans are descended from the most ancient families of Ba- 
 bylon. D. Siculus. 
 
 In the course of time the Chaldeans, as a nation, changed their place 
 from Babylon, where they first settled, to a new country, which they named 
 after their old Khaaldes, consequently claimed descent from the families of 
 Babylon. 
 
 t Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 
 
 \ A century before the Christian sera there were powerful nations of 
 Hindoos in Central Asia : the Heungnoo, Heentoo, and Shintoo ; emigra- 
 tions from India. At that period the Chinese empire, or at least its influ- 
 ence, extended over those regions. M. Abel Remusat. 
 
 Alexander is supposed to have carried a mint in his train, which 
 will account for the disappearance of nearly all the Persian coins, and the 
 abundance of his own dug up even now in the countries which he conquered.
 
 PRODUCTIONS OF INDIA. 31 
 
 Indo Scythian, and pure Indian coins (these last the 
 most ancient), are abundantly found there. We also find 
 the legends on some of the coins, giving the name and 
 titles of the god Siva, and of the kings whose names they 
 bear, in nearly the same form and language as at the present 
 day.* 
 
 The productions of India were of the most precious as 
 well as of the most trifling description ; equally suited to a 
 luxurious or a simple people. It is probable that the Hin- 
 doos did not make long voyages to sea, but the Arabians and 
 other foreigners visited their shores, established emporia, 
 and monopolized the maritime trade; while Hindoos set- 
 tled in every advantageous place abroad as brokers, agents, 
 and bankers.t 
 
 The discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good 
 Hope introduced the Europeans to the direct trade with 
 India ; and Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, has said, that 
 God planted an acorn in England and a pepper-corn in In- 
 dia to bring the two nations together ; it may also be said, 
 that an acorn was planted in England and the tea tree in 
 China for the same purpose. 
 
 When Bruce wrote as above, the time had not arrived 
 
 * Wilson, Prinsep, and Burnes' Travels into Bokhara. 
 
 f It is one of the erroneous opinions prevalent among Europeans, that 
 Hindoos do not make voyages to sea, nor voluntarily reside abroad. The 
 Rajpoots of Cuteh man the vessels that trade between Mandavie and Mozam- 
 bique. Lieut. Postans. 
 
 Hindoos of good caste Banians are to be found settled along the east 
 coast of Africa, in the heart of Arabia, on the shores of the Red Sea, the 
 Persian Gulph, the Caspian Sea, in many parts of the intervening countries, 
 and there are hundreds resident in Bokhara.
 
 32 RELIGION OF INDIA. 
 
 for him to see what probably we see, that God's providence 
 had a higher object than bringing those countries into com- 
 mercial intercourse : India and China are, we hope, on the 
 eve of being brought into Christ's fold through the activity 
 and zeal of His missionaries under the protection of the 
 " highly favoured " British Government.* 
 
 The Hindoo religion does not admit of proselytes ; and 
 it is an extraordinary fact, that although that people have 
 been persecuted even to death, from age to age, and their 
 temples desecrated and destroyed, they have never been 
 known to retaliate on their fanatical oppressors. Such sys- 
 tematic submission probably shielded them from extermina- 
 tion, f 
 
 * Isaiah, 41st chapter. There are different opinions as to who is 
 meant by " the righteous man : " many believe him to have been Abraham. 
 A very interesting and valuable work has been published, entitled " The 
 Kings of the East," and " the righteous man " (nation) is therein supposed 
 to be the British Government of India. Certainly the nations were given to 
 it it rules over many kings. And " he pursued them and passed safely ; 
 even by the way that he had not gone by his feet ; " while all former con- 
 querors had gone by land. The 6th verse, perhaps, alludes to the well 
 known village system of India. The king of Bengal is styled " The King of 
 the East," in Dow's Ferishta, 400 years ago. At the battle of Plassy, which 
 gave Bengal to us as a stepping-stone to all the rest, we had 3000 men, while 
 the native prince had 70,000. The 39th Regt. the first that fought in In- 
 dia, bears on its colours and appointments " Primus in Indis." 
 
 Dr. Gumming says, that " Kings of the East " is an incorrect transla. 
 tion, and that it should be the Royal Ones from the sun rising. 
 
 The word Metzarach, used in the 41st of Isaiah, is translated the east, 
 denoting a remote region : the land of the rising sun. 
 
 f In 1739, the intemperate zeal and forcible attempts of the Portu- 
 guese to convert the Hindoos to the Roman Catholic faith, with their threats 
 to subject them to the terrors of the inquisition, brought upon them the 
 whole powers of the Mahratta empire, who, after a contest of three years,
 
 ARMY OP INDIA. 33 
 
 From the earliest times India was divided into many 
 hundreds of independent kingdoms,* but as a proof of the 
 wisdom of their rulers, however often these kingdoms might 
 have been at war with each other, they, perhaps always, but 
 certainly on occasions of danger, set aside their differences, 
 and elected one of themselves as a paramount lord, who was 
 entrusted with the power to unite and control the numerous 
 parts of the great whole, for the general safety and tranqui- 
 lity of the empire. 
 
 From the Mahabarit and the other ancient writings of 
 the Hindoos we gather, that the people cultivated the bless- 
 ings of peace and the arts of war in the most remote ages ; 
 and the historians of Alexander tell us, that upwards of 
 three centuries before Christ, Porus, their king, brought in- 
 to the field a well equipped and powerful army of horse and 
 foot, with hundreds of war chariots and elephants. The 
 opposition too was considerable, not only from the army of 
 India, but from the cities, and although Alexander sub- 
 finally expelled them from their outer provinces, and detained their best 
 troops as prisoners of war for nine years, when they were released by treaty. 
 Major Jervis. 
 
 The above must be looked on not as a popular retaliation or a religious 
 contest, but a Government measure for the defence and protection of its sub- 
 jects, and to resist an aggression. 
 
 " The Persian Satrap, and the Tartar Khan, 
 
 The temples of their gods shall overthrow ; 
 And all the hundred thrones of Hindoostan 
 Before the west's pale warriors shall bow." 
 
 A Poem by Miss Emma "Roberts. 
 
 * The Porus (Puars) of Ougein is said to have sent an embassy to Au- 
 gustus, and he was styled the ruler over 600 kings.
 
 34 ARMY OF INDIA. 
 
 dued them all, their being able to make any resistance to 
 the victorious Macedonians argues well for their skill and 
 courage. The bearing of Porus and his officers, with 
 whom the Greeks came in contact, would appear to have 
 had nothing of the barbarian in it, though it partook of the 
 peculiar manners and customs of the Hindoos of the pre- 
 sent day.* 
 
 * It is said by some, that the Brahmins look to Media, or the region 
 of the Caspian Sea, as their cradle. Those who have seen the painted Hin- 
 doos on the banks of the Gauges will, perhaps, see an affinity. At the battle 
 of Carrhoe, where Crassus and the Roman army were overthrown by the 
 Parthians, " Surena (the Parthian general) handsome, well made, of an 
 advantageous stature, and of a much greater reputation for valour than the 
 effeminency of his mind seemed to promise, for he was painted after the fa- 
 shion of the Medes, and like them wore his hair curled and dressed with 
 art." Rollin. 
 
 "Whether originating in immigrations or invasions from Central Asia I 
 know not, but the names of Mithridat^j and Phraatee Rao (Phraates) have a 
 place in the Bengal Army. 
 
 The war chariot appears to have been continued in use by the Hindoos 
 till the Mahomedan conquest, when it was finally set aside. 
 
 When I speak of the Hindoos, I speak of the people of India from the 
 earliest period, without eutering on their disputed titles. I however agree 
 with the elegant and correct historian Orme, who says, " Hindoostan has 
 been inhabited from the earliest antiquity by a people who have no resem- 
 blance either in their figure or manners with any of the nations contiguous 
 to them ; and that, although conquerors, have established themselves, at dif- 
 ferent times, in various parts of India, yet the original inhabitants have lost 
 very little of their original character." 
 
 Elephants were not used in war by the nations west of the Indus before 
 Alexander's conquest ; after that event, but before Christ, they were exten- 
 sively used, even in Syria and Judaea, n Maccabees vi. 37. And upon the 
 beasts [elephants] were the strong towers of wood which covered every one 
 of them, and were girt fast to them with devices ; there were also upon 
 every one two and thirty strong men that fought upon them, besides the 
 Indian that ruled him : a proof of continued intercourse with India.
 
 THE HINDOOS. 35 
 
 In speaking of the Hindoos, how few understand them ! 
 They are a mixture of the most glaring contradictions; 
 even the Brahmins differ from each other according to their 
 country, or college, or district. While they in general ab- 
 stain from animal food, the Concanee Brahmins eat fish, and 
 those of Bengal, Hindoostan and Cashmere eat the meat of 
 whatever is slain in sacrifice. Almost all the military classes, 
 including the Rajapoots, eat animal food, excepting beef. 
 
 The Teertees, a good caste of Hindoo females, in Mala- 
 bar, appear in public naked from the waist upwards, their 
 hair dressed neatly, and they are remarkably clean and ele- 
 gant in their persons. The Mapillas, who live amongst 
 them, a tribe of Mahomedans generally very wealthy, are 
 muffled up so as to quite conceal their persons and even 
 their faces, while their filthy state (they consider that a 
 token of their virtue,) is beyond all conception.* 
 
 The women in some parts are secluded, while in other 
 parts they go with their pitchers to the well or the river for 
 water, ride on horseback astraddle, bathe in the river in pub- 
 lic (with their clothes on,t and which they change in the 
 water with much cleverness and decency,) and close to 
 hundreds of men bathing at the same time.J Some are 
 queens of countries and command armies, and no women 
 are more chaste. 
 
 Some missionaries tell us they have laboured in vain 
 for years and never made a convert, others tell us that they 
 
 * Moore's Narrative of the Operations of Captain Little's Detachment, 
 t Their clothes dry in the sun and air as they walk home. 
 % Forbes' Oriental Memoirs.
 
 36 THE HINDOOS. 
 
 have converted many ; and a third, a resident in India for 
 many years, will declare that he never heard of a convert ; 
 and yet they all tell the truth. 
 
 Some say the Hindoos are liars, as they perhaps are ; 
 yet some of their works and sayings represent a falsehood 
 as almost the unpardonable sin.* 
 
 One traveller will tell us, that the Hindoos live on rice, 
 while another will tell us that a Hindoo never touches it 
 but lives on corn bread; and both tell truth according 
 to their having seen the people on the sea coast or in the 
 interior. 
 
 One will tell you that a Hindoo will not go to sea, while 
 another will tell you that the Rajpoots of Cutch make an- 
 nual voyages as far as Zanzibar, on the coast of Africa, 
 and that the Hindoos have crossed the sea to Java and 
 made settlements there ; and they both tell the truth. 
 
 One will tell you that Brahmins are priests, another will 
 tell you that Brahmins are princes, merchants, physicians,t 
 clerks, soldiers, cooks to the Hindoos of all classes, and 
 even labourers ; and both tell the truth : for although all 
 priests are Brahmins, all Brahmins are not priests. 
 
 It is a generally received opinion in Europe, that the 
 Brahmins possess an unbounded influence over the minds 
 of the people. This supposition is quite erroneous ; but 
 at the same time there is a degree of deference and respect 
 shewn to them by all other castes. They are punished when 
 delinquents : some even have been put to death by order 
 
 * Roberts' Oriental Illustrations of Scripture, on Revelations xxi. 8. 
 f Memoir of Mr. Wilson of Bombay.
 
 THE BRAHMINS. 37 
 
 of the prince. It is true, that the blood of a Brahmin is 
 never shed, but they are dispatched by other means. The 
 late Tuckojee Holkar, who was a Mahratta, put his minis- 
 ter (a Brahmin) to death, by wrapping him in clothes steep- 
 ed in oil and setting fire to them. The most common mode 
 is, to keep the limbs immersed in cold water till they swell, 
 which carries them off in a few days. The punishments of 
 the Hindoos are very severe and barbarous ; yet that people 
 are said to be mild and gentle, and tender hearted.* They 
 are very tender hearted in some cases, particularly to the 
 afflicted and towards their parents, whom they maintain if 
 necessary, and to the brute creation, for which last they for- 
 merly maintained infirmaries both in Baroach and Surat,t 
 two places noted in my " sketch." It is, however, very 
 remarkable, that they feed and treat their milch cows and 
 bullocks in the most disgusting and cruel manner. 
 
 One will tell you that the Hindoos follow the trade or 
 profession of their fathers from one generation to another, 
 while you find that the sepoy by your side is the son of a 
 Brahmin, or a carpenter, or a tailor, or any other tradesman, 
 and that the son of the sepoy becomes a servant in the 
 hospital, or your groom, or your cowherd, or a labourer, or 
 a waterman ; yet the rule above quoted is generally adhered 
 to in the villages. 
 
 Some will tell you that the Brahmins are intolerant and 
 
 * Tone's Illustrations of the Mahratta people. 
 
 f In Surat there is an extensive establishment for sick or maimed ani- 
 mals. It is full of infirm and decrepit cows, sheep, rabbits, hens, pigeons, 
 &c., &c. See Art. Surat, Brookes' Gazetteer.
 
 38 THE BRAHMINS. 
 
 repulsive in their religious as well as in all their habits. I 
 can say, that I have ever entered their pagodas at iny plea- 
 sure without any one taking offence, and that when the 
 sketch of the image of the sun was being taken, the Brah- 
 mins and others in the temple at Deo Geraria flocked round 
 us and seemed amused and well pleased that we took an in- 
 terest in, to them, so every day a thing. They generally, 
 however, treat Europeans with a cold indifference. 
 
 Forbes, in his Oriental Memoirs, says, " I seldom enter- 
 ed their temples, but often read or made a sketch under the 
 same banyan tree with the officiating Brahmin and his asso- 
 ciates without giving the least offence/ 5 
 
 The same author, a man of great experience of them, 
 adds, " allowing to the Brahmins all their pretensions, the 
 Hindoo religion, when opposed to the philanthropy and be- 
 nevolence of the Gospel, is unsocial, proud, and uncharita- 
 ble/' / must add, that the poor and the afflicted have the 
 pity and compassionate aid of all Hindoos. With their 
 many faults, they have many virtues. 
 
 Some will tell you that one Hindoo caste never inter- 
 marries with another. That is quite true: but we learn 
 that a marriage took place between the families of Seleucus 
 (one of Alexander's successors,) and Sandracottus, or Chan- 
 dragupta, the Hindoo king of India ; and we know that the 
 Mogul Emperors of Delhi took wives from the daughters of 
 the noble Eajapoots. Those marriages, perhaps, were of 
 the nature of that of the first Napoleon with "Austria's 
 mournful flower ; " and it should at the same time be re- 
 membered, that they were not of one Hindoo caste with
 
 THE HINDOOS. 39 
 
 another, but with foreigners of high rank which entirely 
 altered the case. 
 
 Some complain that the Hindoos have no gratitude. 
 Gratitude is, I fear, a scarce commodity everywhere ; but I 
 can say, that I have met with some affecting instances of it 
 in India. One day a Hindoo of North India, of high caste, 
 called at my house in plain clothes, and on my asking him 
 his business, he said, " Sir, I was in your regiment twelve 
 years ago, and you befriended me when in some trouble. I 
 have long left the army on a small pension, but while I ne- 
 ver forgot your kindness I feared I should never have an 
 opportunity of thanking you." He then presented me with 
 a handsome brass or belhnetal dish or censer, which he re- 
 quested me to accept as a token of his gratitude, adding, 
 that it was the workmanship of his native town. It was 
 some time before I could recollect the man or the circum- 
 stance which he referred to, and I have never seen or heard 
 of him since during a period of twenty-three years. 
 
 Alexander the Great is spoken of as the conqueror of 
 India, but the English have also claimed that honour ; and 
 it is very remarkable, that until within the last very few 
 years, the English never set foot on any part of Alexander's 
 conquests, nor had Alexander penetrated into any part sub- 
 sequently conquered by the English. Alexander only reach- 
 ed the Eauvee, while the English never passed the Sutledge, 
 thereby leaving a large space between their respective limits, 
 known, but left unappropriated by them, for at least two 
 thousand years. 
 
 The fact is, that India is a very extensive country, con-
 
 40 RELIGION OF THE HINDOOS. 
 
 taining a great variety of people, of manners and customs ; 
 and a traveller when he speaks of them, must be understood 
 to speak to the extent of his knowledge. One may have 
 had neither opportunity nor observation enough to see and 
 learn as his neighbour had. 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE HINDOOS does not only refuse 
 to admit of proselytes, but their Governments have protected 
 the persecuted of all religions from the earliest times. 
 
 Soon after the commencement of the Christian sera, and 
 in succeeding years, a number of Christians fled from the per- 
 secution of the Romans, and perhaps of the Saracens, and 
 landing on the Malabar coast, they found a hospitable asylum 
 there. The reigning princes appear to have not only re- 
 ceived and protected them, but in the exercise of a liberal 
 and wise policy, to have permitted them to possess lands 
 and all the rights and privileges of their own subjects ; and 
 they had their reward ; for the Christians of those parts be- 
 came good and industrious subjects, and their descendants 
 are there to this day in prosperity.* 
 
 Soon after the destruction of Jerusalem, a colony of 
 Jews arrived at Cochin on the same coast and were received 
 
 * I do not know the origin of the Christian College at Cotyam in Ma- 
 labar, or when it was founded, but it is one of the most interesting institu- 
 tions in the east. The Syrian Church, to which it belongs, has been estab- 
 lished ever since the persecution and dispersion of the Christians at Antioch, 
 from whence they emigrated. The Native Government has always been so 
 tolerant, that even Jews, original Christians, and Roman Catholics have alike 
 found a kind reception and a secure asylum. Col. Welsh's Military Remi-
 
 THE PARSEES. 41 
 
 and protected like the Christians before them. The prince 
 then, too, had his reward ; for the industry and good con- 
 duct of the Indian Jews are proverbial. They have greatly 
 increased in number and extended themselves up and down 
 the coast, and many now serve as sepoys in the Bombay 
 army with great credit to themselves and advantage to the 
 state.* 
 
 About twelve hundred years ago, the Parsees, or ancient 
 Persians, the fire worshippers, driven by the invasions of 
 their country and consequent persecution by the Saracens, 
 took shipping, sailed for India, and arrived on the coast 
 between Bombay and Surat. They were received and pro- 
 tected by the Hindoo Government on some very slight con- 
 ditions, and as in the case of the early Christiaiis, the Jews, 
 the Moors, and all the modern Christians, they have lived 
 up to the present time in peace and prosperity, in the en- 
 joyment of their peculiar religion, manners, and customs. 
 The Parsees are most intelligent merchants, ship builders, 
 artisans, sutlers with the army, and engage in the greatest 
 as well as the smallest speculations with surprising enter- 
 prise and success. Being free from the Hindoo prejudices 
 
 * About a mile inland to the south east of Cochin is a town built 
 and inhabited exclusively by Jews. They form a separate community and 
 have a synagogue of tbeir own. They are mostly descended from the original 
 immigrants supposed to have fled from Jerusalem when it fell into the hands 
 of the Romans. They have a grant or license from the sovereign of Mala- 
 bar engraven on copper, dated answering to the 388 year of the Christian 
 sera. Col. Welsh's Mil. Reminiscences. 
 
 At Cochin, on the coast of Malabar, is a colony of Jews. Scott and 
 Henry on Genesis x.
 
 42 PORTUGUESE OPPRESSION. 
 
 of caste, their intercourse with Europeans is considerable, 
 so much so that it it has become a saying, that the Parsees 
 cannot do without Englishmen, and that Englishmen can- 
 not do without Parsees. The Parsees, however, do not serve 
 in the army, their religious reverence for fire being an ob- 
 stacle.* 
 
 On the arrival of the Portuguese in India, they found 
 the Moors or Arabians in possession of the maritime trade 
 and in the free exercise of their religion. The Portuguese 
 no sooner got a footing on the coast than they exercised the 
 greatest atrocities towards the religion of the Hindoos. THE 
 Hindoos did not retaliate, t but suffered them to build, 
 churches, erect crosses, and make religious demonstrations 
 without molestation.^ 
 
 * For an account of the Parsees see Hamilton's East India Gazetteer, 
 article Guzeratte. 
 
 t I have referred to this subject before. 
 
 \ It is very generally believed that the Portuguese obtained all their pos- 
 sessions from Buhadoor Shah of Goojrat by the valour of their first settlers. 
 Nothing however is further from the truth ; for I have found by searching 
 the Portuguese state records that they were ceded at the instance of the 
 EMPERORS Akbar and Shah Jehan on the representation of the celebrated 
 beauty in the imperial seraglio, the lady Donna Juliana Diez, who was cap- 
 tured by a corsair on her voyage to Terceira, and came by purchase into the 
 possession of Sultan Selim, the Grand Signor, from the slave market of Con- 
 stantinople. By him she was sent with other presents under a trusty convoy 
 to Akbar, the youthful monarch of Delhi. Her case being desperate and no 
 way of escape practicable, she still adverted to her obligations to the land 
 of her fathers to her people and her religion. Having won the emperor's 
 aifection, she applied herself with singular adroitness and success to promote 
 the interests of her country and religion in India : what success she had in 
 the latter, may be learnt on referring to the very curious particulars of Ak- 
 bar's secession from the Mahomedan faith, and the new religion he proposed
 
 RELIGION OF THE HINDOOS. 43 
 
 The Hindoos are, as I have said, tolerant of all religi- 
 ons, but the martyrdom of St. Thomas near Madras, if true, 
 would at first sight appear to contradict that assertion.* It 
 may have been, that St. Thomas' mission to India, with the 
 many successive arrivals of Christians, up to our missions 
 of the present time, were so many witnesses and messages 
 to a nation of idolaters. When the Hindoos become con- 
 verted to Christianity, as assuredly they will be, the mean- 
 ing of St. Thomas' martyrdom among their forefathers, and 
 
 to set up. The explanation of this I believe has as yet remained a perfect 
 mystery. This lady's history and her state correspondence with the court of 
 Portugal through the Jesuits were first pointed out to me by Don Manuel de 
 Portugal, then viceroy of Goa. I have since obtained a manuscript memoir 
 in Persian from the late Capt. Macan's library. Her fate is implicated in 
 the earliest settlements of the British people also. Major T. B. Jervis, 
 Bombay Engineers. 
 
 * At the end of the ninth century, King Allred sent ambassadors to 
 the shrine of St. Thomas near Madras. 
 
 When the Portuguese first opened the navigation of India the Christians 
 of St. Thomas had been seated for ages on the coast of Malabar. In arms, 
 in arts, and possibly in virtue, they excelled the natives of Hindoostan, and 
 their hereditary privileges were respected by the gratitude or the fear of the 
 King of Cochin and the Zamorin himself. They acknowledged a Hindoo 
 sovereign, but they were governed, even in temporal concerns, by their own 
 bishop. 
 
 The Portuguese could not leave those Christians in the enjoyment of 
 their religion in peace, and the inquisitiou was called into operation. When 
 they presented the image of the Virgin Mary to the disciples of St. Thomas, 
 they indignantly exclaimed " We are Christians, and not idolaters," Their 
 separation from the western world had left them in ignorance of the im- 
 provements or corruptions of a thousand years. Gibbon's Decline and Fall 
 of the Roman Empire, which see. 
 
 In the kingdoms of Travaucore and Cochin, the Christians have been 
 born and bred such, and they are moreover remarkably tolerant Governments. 
 Col. Welsh.
 
 44 RELIGION OF THE BRAHMINS. 
 
 the periodical arrival of Christians on their shores, will per- 
 haps be revealed to them, and they will then reflect and be 
 thankful, that although the Lord had permitted them so 
 long to serve other gods, He had not always been unmind- 
 ful of them.* 
 
 The language and phraseology of Scripture very much 
 resemble those of India, and when the hearts of the Hin- 
 doos have been turned, even in a small degree, to the wis- 
 dom of the just, the severe denouncements of the Bible 
 against idolatry and all their besetting sins will strike them 
 so much the more clearly, and will tend to hasten their 
 complete conversion. 
 
 * I am of opinion that their knowledge of the Supreme reached them 
 anterior to the Christian sera. As at the present day they would accept of 
 nothing from the Christians. 
 
 Valmiki, one of their most ancient sages, who wrote, probably, thirty 
 or forty centuries ago, says, with emphasis, that there were no " atheists" in 
 Adjoodia.
 
 THE SANSCBIT LANGUAGE. 
 
 IN its grammatical structure the language of India is abso- 
 lutely similar to the Greek and Latin, even to the minutest 
 particular ; but the grammatical forms of the Sanscrit are 
 far richer and more varied than those of the Latin tongue, 
 and more regular and systematic than those of the Greek. 
 In its words and roots the Sanscrit has a very strong and 
 remarkable affinity to the Persian and Germanic race of 
 languages. Schlegel's Philosophy of History. 
 
 The Sanscrit Language is a most wonderful structure ; 
 more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, 
 and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both 
 of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and 
 in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been 
 produced by accident ; so strong indeed that no philologer 
 could examine them all three without believing them to have 
 sprung from some common source, which perhaps no longer 
 exists. Sir William Jones.
 
 THE BULL. 
 
 THE Bull is venerated by the Hindoos, and a statue of a 
 bull generally accompanies the Lingam, the emblem of Siva 
 or Mahadeo. 
 
 Schlegel, in his Philosophy of History, says, " Mostly 
 the ancient nations of Asia and likewise of Europe were 
 led by a certain natural feeling and a not erroneous instinct 
 (totally independent of the nomenclature and classifications 
 of our natural history,) to regard the bull the most useful 
 and important of all the animals which man has domesti- 
 cated, as the representative of earthly fertility and (as it 
 were) the primary animal of the earth, and afterwards made 
 that animal the emblem of all earthly existence and earthly 
 energy."
 
 AN EXCURSION TO MESHUR AND 
 MANDOO. 
 
 DITRING 1839 40 41 I was employed in military service 
 in Malwa, the ancient Kaaldes, and my head quarters were 
 at Mhow. At different times I made excursions with my 
 family and friends to some of the places mentioned in this 
 little book, and marked on the sketch, particularly to Mun- 
 dlaisur and Meshur, Dhar, Mandoo, and Deogeraria, and 
 into the varied wild scenery of the Vindhyas. 
 
 At Mundlaisur there was a detachment of my own re- 
 giment posted, so that the local knowledge of the country 
 which the officers and men had gained, enabled us to enjoy 
 their society and see the sights to great advantage. We 
 roamed along the banks of the blue Nerbudda and had a 
 boating party on its waters. Among other things I disco- 
 vered a remarkable granite rock protruded to a considerable 
 height through the trap rock of the bed of the river, and 
 which was the more striking as the trap from which it was 
 rent still adhered to the upper part of the granite. Major 
 Sandys, political agent at Mundlaisur, was kind enough to 
 take a drawing for me of the granite rock, and which is 
 treasured in my portfolio. 
 
 From Mundlaisur we rode on to Meshur, visiting on 
 our way a great pile of well formed basaltic columns. Ma-
 
 48 VISIT TO MESHUR. 
 
 jor Sandys gave me an introduction to the Brahmin Gover- 
 nor, or chief authority, of Meshur, and next morning he 
 provided us with guides and attendants, so that we visited 
 the whole of the great temple, then in course of construc- 
 tion, without any inconvenience. We then went through 
 the castle which, like the temple, overlooks the Nerbudda, 
 there a mile wide, and enjoyed a splendid view from the 
 lofty battlements, but we at the same time witnessed a shock- 
 ing sight. One of the alligators in the river made a commo- 
 tion in the water which attracted our attention, and in an 
 instant we saw a corpse of a woman tossed out of the water 
 into the air, and almost instantaneously disappear in the jaws 
 of the monster. Corpses are sometimes thrown into the river 
 when not burned or buried, and that which we saw was- one 
 of them. It was wrapped or sewed up in a cloth, and al- 
 though we did not see anything of the features or person of 
 the deceased, there was something in the form so striking, 
 that we at once concluded rightly, as our attendants proved, 
 that it was the body of a female. 
 
 After breakfast the Brahmin governor called on me, at- 
 tended by a considerable retinue of horsemen and footmen, 
 and a troop of dancing girls. He was very kind and atten- 
 tive, and invited me to visit him in the afternoon, which I 
 did, when he presented me with a stqne image of the god 
 Hunoomaun.* 
 
 Next morning I sailed down the Nerbudda in a large 
 
 * The Hindoo pattern of the chairs in the Brahmin's house, reminded 
 me of those of the sitting Jupiter and of the sitting Hercules, on the reverses 
 of the coins of Alexander the Great.
 
 HINDOO WOMEN. 49 
 
 barge to inspect the falls of Seshra Darra, a few miles 
 below Mheyshur.* Seshra Arjoon,t a giant and mighty 
 warrior, the thousand armed, according to the romance of 
 the neighbourhood, not only founded Mheyshur, but dam- 
 med up the river to make the magnificent lake-like sheet of 
 water in front of the city. The mighty barrier is formed in 
 reality by an immense trap dyke, which crosses three fourths 
 of the breadth of the river, making a waterfall over it of 
 about twelve feet in height, while on the south side the re- 
 mainder of the water rushes through the confined space with 
 considerable velocity. 
 
 The Hindoo women, even of high rank, make it their 
 business and pleasure to go to the river or the well for wa- 
 ter, and to bathe publicly in their clothes. They generally 
 go in groups, or parties. They fetch the water in earthen 
 or metal pots, on their heads, sometimes four or five one 
 on to the top of the other. A gentleman mentioned to a 
 Brahmin that Rebecca carried her pitcher on her shoulder ; 
 to which he replied, " She must have been a princess, J as 
 they carry on the shoulder." 
 
 We then advanced to the Yindhya mountains, and en- 
 
 * There are some very remarkable mounds west of Mheshur which 
 should be explored. 
 
 t Mark the Canaanitish name of Seshra a warrior too, like his name- 
 sake Sisera. Seshra Arjoon, king of Meshur, is said to have been killed in 
 au invasion by the Sooryas of Adjoodia. There is some obscurity as to the 
 founder of Meshur. In the old maps of India there is a place named in large 
 letters AI. D'Anville points to Aicotta, near Cochin, as its probable rem- 
 nant, Ai not being known at the present day. 
 
 | Forbes' Oriental Memoirs.
 
 50 THE BHEELS. 
 
 camped at the base of them. The fine old trees were thickly 
 inhabited by green pigeons and squirrels. I sent into the 
 jungle for some of the Bheels, the remnant of the ancient 
 lords of Chandravatti,* but now a subdued people, driven 
 to the mountains. They are quite wild, and though fierce 
 and brave, are very simple, and, except when on forays, very 
 harmless. I asked them why they did not enlist in the 
 Company's service, as they were invited to do ; to which 
 they answered that they were afraid to do so, as they under- 
 stood it was intended to send them all out to sea and sink 
 thein.f They are depredators, and live in the jungles, hav- 
 ing little intercourse with the towns. They are a diminu- 
 tive people, and always appear armed with bows and arrows 
 of a small size,J and with swords. The Bheel draws his 
 arrow to the shoulder like the ancient Assyrian. Locksley 
 drew his to his ear. || 
 
 I made them shoot at a mark, but I found them poor 
 marksmen. They exert a certain degree of industry to 
 supply themselves with the necessaries of life, and gather 
 frankincense and other gums, firewood, grass, and the many 
 more spontaneous productions of the jungles, to barter them 
 for flour and other comforts with the villagers of the plains. 
 The Bheels live in the recesses of the mountains, something 
 
 * Tod's Rajasthan. 
 
 t Their consciences perhaps told them that they had recently commit- 
 ted several serious depredations. 
 
 | " Short was the shaft, and weak the bow, 
 
 To that which England bore. Marmion. 
 Slabs from the ruins of Nimroud and Korsabad. 
 Ivanhoe.
 
 VINDHYAN MOUNTAINS. 51 
 
 like Rob Roy, levying black mail on the districts around. 
 The English poet writes thus : 
 
 " 'Twas thus he lived amid his rocks 
 
 Through summer's heat and winter' snow ; 
 The eagle he was lord above, 
 But Rob was lord below." 
 
 That is very fine, but how simply beautiful is the following 
 to the same effect by the people of India, speaking of a fa- 
 mous freebooter, whose exploits in the regions of the Ner- 
 budda, called forth the admiration and dread of the inhabi- 
 tants : 
 
 " Oopur Ulla above God. 
 
 Neechee Sheikh Dulla." Below Sheikh Dutta. 
 
 Next day we ascended the Vindhyan range of mountains 
 and went to Nalcha, an ancient city. These mountains be- 
 ing near the Tropic, the Hindoos say they form a barrier to 
 the sun in its northern declination. We found no difficulty 
 in ascending, as a tolerable road had been recently made 
 over the mountains. From one of the cuttings I obtained 
 some fine zeolites and some very large and beautiful speci- 
 mens of white and of clear wine-yellow rhombodial double 
 refracting spar. 
 
 Prom Nalcha we went on to Mandoo, where I found my 
 esteemed friend Colonel Sir Claude Wade, who entertained 
 me hospitably, and lent me an elephant to ride on during 
 my excursions. Sir Claude here introduced me to Ram 
 Chuuder Rao Rappoojee, minister of the Rajah of Dhar,
 
 52 ORIENTAL ETIQUETTE. 
 
 and next day the Rajah himself sent me an invitation to vi- 
 sit him, which I gladly availed myself of a few days after- 
 wards. It was between Nalcha and Dhar that I discovered 
 the rock of green and purple jasper previously mentioned. 
 
 My readers, I dare say, have all heard that oriental eti- 
 quette is carried very far. It will be remembered that I had 
 made the acquaintance of the Brahmin Governor of Mhey- 
 shur, and that some civilities passed between us. Mheyshur, 
 Nalcha, and Mandoo are all in the territory of the Rajah 
 of Dhar; and it so happened that the Brahmin came to 
 Mandoo when I was there, to pay his respects to Sir Claude 
 Wade and to the Rajah's minister. He unfortunately came 
 to call upon me when the minister was sitting with me in 
 the great tomb of one of the kings, where I resided for the 
 time. As he entered I hastened to receive him, but not 
 being sufficiently attentive to etiquette, I was giving him a 
 chair, which he was about to accept, but to my dismay 
 and pain the minister darted a stern frown upon him that 
 brought to his remembrance in whose presence he stood, 
 so that instead of seating himself in the chair, he sank 
 quietly into his proper place on the carpet. 
 
 After passing some pleasant days at Maudoo, exploring 
 the ruins and admiring the remains of Baz Bahadour's mag- 
 nificence, I went to pay my visit to the Rajah at Dhar.* He 
 
 * There are at Dhar and Nalcha many remains of ancient and hand- 
 some buildings. At Dhar there are the ruins of a colonnaded college, close 
 to which is a Castalian well. The minister who accompanied me pointed it 
 out with a classical smile. In the pulpit of the mosque at Nalcha the Maho- 
 medan preacher's standing place is on a Hindoo god.
 
 VISIT TO THE RAJAH AT DHAR. 53 
 
 entertained me with a Nautch, ram fights, wrestling matches, 
 and feats of arms, which were all very good of their kind ; 
 and my wife, who had accompanied me with her baby in all my 
 excursions, and fully entered into all I did with much plea- 
 sure, was, while I remained with the Rajah and his minis- 
 ter, invited into the zenana to visit the ladies. She was 
 treated with great attention, and the ladies were in just ad- 
 miration of my little Ellen, who was very interesting, parti- 
 cularly to them who had never seen so fair a child. They 
 gave Ellen some toys, and my wife wishing to return the 
 civility, made some reticule bags for them, which were ac- 
 knowledged by a letter from the minister, which I annex 
 as an agreeable specimen of a Hindoo's composition in 
 English. 
 
 Having spent a fortnight rambling about the Nerbudda, 
 the Vindhyas, and Dhar, with as much enjoyment as I ever 
 remember to have experienced during a similar period, I re- 
 turned to my duties at Mhow. On the way between Dhar 
 and Mhow there were numerous sepulchral and sacrificial 
 pillars round the villages, such as I have before mentioned. 
 The sepulchral monuments often bore, rudely sculptured in 
 relief, the mode in which the departed lost his life. One 
 man's monument, who had been killed by a bear, bore a re- 
 presentation of the fact; while the sacrificial monuments 
 bore an uplifted heavenward pointed female hand. 
 
 THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF MANDOO is very obscure, but 
 no doubt it is a place of great antiquity. The Hindoos say it 
 was founded about the same time as Mheshur, soon after the
 
 54 SCULPTURES AT MANDOO. 
 
 flood, which is very likely ; for its insulated extensive sur- 
 face rendered it at all times a safe and easily defensible re- 
 treat and stronghold for the people of an infant ^kingdom 
 struggling for existence. Within the walls, the most ancient 
 parts of which are of cyclopsean architecture, there are some 
 vestiges of its having been extensively inhabited, anterior to 
 its occupation, 500 years ago, by the Affghans, consisting 
 of water tanks, one of which occupies many acres, with 
 massive stone steps leading into it; large stone Hindoo 
 images, and stone pillars, on one of which at least there 
 are groups sculptured in relief of men and women, and 
 satyrs, dancing, all in attitudes and drapery more re-sem- 
 bling the mythology of the west than of Asia. There are 
 also horsemen sculptured with the long stirrup* and seat 
 of the European cavalry of the present day. In Wilks' 
 History of the South of India, similar horsemen are describ- 
 ed as sculptured at the ruins of Durrnasoodra, in the Car- 
 natic, a place which was destroyed by the Mahomedans in 
 the fourteenth century. Within the walls of Mandoo there 
 is a considerable plain, or sort of neutral ground, between 
 the two great parts of the fort in which the Rajpoots and 
 the Mahomedans used to be respectively quartered, and 
 
 * It will be remembered that neither the Greeks nor .Romans used 
 stirrups, and these sculptures are probably as ancient as they. Stirrups 
 were used in Europe in the 5th century, but were not common even in the 
 12th. Haydn's Dictionary of Dates. 
 
 Neither the Assyrians nor the Parthians used stirrups. See slabs of 
 Nimroud, and Korsabad, and Assyria, in British Museum. Who could 
 these ancient people be ? 
 
 The Parthian slab confirms the historical mention of that people's pecu- 
 liar archery.
 
 MANDOO. 55 
 
 which, in their quarrels, frequently became their battle field. 
 There are many mouldering heaps, showing where the Ma- 
 homedan dead were buried ; but in the middle of the plain, 
 beneath a ragged thorn, there is one, and only one, monu- 
 ment to the slain Rajpoots. The usual cairn to the Raj- 
 poots who fall in battle is raised, and on its side facing the 
 battle field lies the monumental slab. On it is sculptured 
 in relief, the warrior on his steed armed at all points, and 
 the sun and crescent moon over him ; emblematic of never- 
 dying fame.* 
 
 The most ancient parts of the battlements are much 
 more massive than those built by the Affghan kings, so 
 much so as to exhibit a remarkable contrast, many of the 
 latter being built of very small stones, particularly Baz Ba- 
 hauder's works. The tombs and mosques are magnificent. 
 
 In 1612 Sir Thomas Roe was sent to India by king 
 James 1st, as ambassador to the Great Mogul who then 
 held his court at Adjmere. Next year the emperor went 
 with all his court to Mandoo, and Sir Thomas accompanied 
 him. Sir Thomas wrote an account of his " Voyage to In- 
 dia/' in which he gives a full account of his journeys, and 
 of the manners and customs of the emperor and his cour- 
 tiers. 
 
 This Emperor Shah Jehan, or Jehan Geer, was, like 
 most of the Moguls, a magnificent prince : he built the ce- 
 
 * In my collection there is a silver coin of Sapor 1st, king of Persia 
 and son of the Artaxerxes of the Romans. Obverse, king's bust, and head 
 crowned, and over the shoulder the sun and crescent moon as above. Re- 
 verse : instead of the usual flame above the fire-altar, there is a portrait.
 
 56 COINS OF MANDOO. 
 
 lebrated Taj Mahal at Agra, and paid considerable attention 
 to the coinage. He had gold coins struck value 300 each, 
 and silver and copper, and gold, stamped with the signs of 
 the zodiac.* They are all figured and described in the in- 
 teresting narrative of Captain Little's Datachraent by Cap- 
 tain Moore. I believe many sets are extant, and I under- 
 stood my friend, the minister of Dhar to say, that he had 
 a very large gold coin which had been dug up in Mandoo, 
 but I did not see it. 
 
 I procured nine copper coins of the kings of Mandoo. 
 Like good Mahomedans, they did not make the likeness of 
 any thing in heaven or in the earth beneath on them. The 
 legends run in the names of the caliphs of Bagdad, in Ara- 
 bic, of good execution. 
 
 The kings of Mandoo were styled " Sultan," a title ori- 
 ginally invented by the caliph for the celebrated Mahmood 
 of Ghuznee in 1000 of the Christian aera.t 
 
 * From the appearance of the zodiacal coins, I am inclined to suspect 
 that they were the production of European artists. 
 
 t Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
 
 MANDOO. 
 
 THE following are extracts from a collection of historical 
 notices of Mandoo, the ruined capital of the ancient king- 
 dom of Malwa, made by me some years ago : 
 
 " Mandoo is now deserted and in ruins. It stands, or 
 stood, on the summit of the Vindhyan mountains, in lati- 
 tude 22 20' N, longitude 75 28' E, its tottering walls and 
 battlements forming an inclosure thirty-six miles in circum- 
 ference. 
 
 " The kingdom of Mandoo was founded by the Giljees 
 of Afghanistan about A. D. 1398, and existed as an inde- 
 pendent state till about 1533, a period of one hundred and 
 thirty-five years. 
 
 " It existed for nearly thirty years subsequently, including 
 the reign of Baz Bahadoor ; but it was more as a rebellious 
 dependency of the empire of Delhi than as an independent 
 kingdom. There are some fine monuments of Baz Baha- 
 door's taste, fancy, and magnificence, still to be seen at 
 Mandoo. His love for Roope Muttie, a celebrated Hindoo 
 beauty, has been celebrated in the popular tales and songs 
 of the country ; but the following is the best, as given in 
 the Thakoorine. I may here remark, that Baz Bahadoor 
 was a Mohammedan, while Boope Muttie was a Hindoo of 
 the Rajpoot tribe or caste/'
 
 58 A TALE OF MANDOO. 
 
 Baz Bahadoor, the last king of Malwa, a young and 
 gallant prince, passionately fond of music, was one day 
 hunting in the forest, bordering the right bank of Nerbudda. 
 Having outridden all his retinue, he was in eager pursuit, 
 when his ear was attracted by the most exquisite flood 
 of melody from a neighbouring glade. He followed the 
 sound, and soon reached a spot where, seated beneath a 
 Burgut tree, a young maiden was singing to the woods, and 
 to the wild deer and birds which had thronged thither, from 
 far and near, to listen to her voice. He was dazzled by her 
 beauty, and enchanted by her unrivalled vocal powers. Her 
 conversation rivetted his love. He strove to win her heart 
 and hand. The first was speedily his ; but the splendid lot 
 to which he wooed her could not tempt her to dishonour the 
 sacred race from which she had sprung. She replied to all 
 his overtures, "When the Nerbudda shall flow through 
 Mandoo, I will be your bride ; but not till then/' 
 
 Mandoo is elevated by precipices at least 1200 feet above 
 the Nerbudda ; nevertheless, Bahadoor determined that it 
 should obey the voice of love and climb this mountain 
 height. He assembled the strength of his kingdom, axe in 
 hand, to try the force of art. The river god, dreading to 
 measure his strength against the majesty of love, " rose be- 
 fore the astonished people in the form of a giant, whose 
 forehead was lost in the skies. " Desist," he cried, " from 
 your rash attempt ; but receive the well-merited reward of 
 your love. Repair to Mandoo, to a spot which overlooks 
 our flood ; search there for our sacred tamarisk, and dig 
 wherever it is found. Beneath it thou shalt come to a pure
 
 A TALE OF MANDOO. 
 
 59 
 
 spring, which, being tributary to us, is part of our divinity. 
 Thither bear thy bride, to live, as she has often sworn to 
 live, on the borders of her natal river." The king obeyed ; 
 he found the tamarisk, he dug the fountain, he built near it 
 a palace, and constructed a fine aqueduct to lead the waters 
 of the fountain to the baths of the palace.* 
 
 Roopee Muttie's father, who was the thakoor or chief 
 of Dhurumpooree, a town on the Nerbudda, having heard 
 of these doings, the maiden was condemned by him, who 
 fondly loved her, but in whose race pride of caste is the be- 
 setting sin, to drain the poisoned bowl of Doorga, the god- 
 dess of destruction, her corpse to be consumed by fire on 
 a funeral pile, and her ashes scattered over the sacred waters 
 of the Nerbudda. She thus chaunts the song of death : 
 
 WREATHE, wreathe the bowl with flowers for me ; 
 
 Let not my last, deep draught be sad ; 
 The butterfly, the summer bee, 
 
 The woodland bird, is glad, is glad ; 
 
 Like them, in smiles would I be clad, 
 (Creatures of one bright, sunny clime,) 
 
 Till the cold wave my couch be made, 
 
 Cut off in virgin prime. 
 
 Wreathe, wreathe with smiles the bowl for me 
 Bring clusters from each laughing flower, 
 
 Lord of the future, death shall be 
 My vassal till th' appointed hour ; 
 
 * In the Vayer Purana the Nerbudda is called Rewa, the child of Hi- 
 malaya the mountain of snow, although the Himalayas are several hundreds 
 of miles distant. See note to the first page of this work.
 
 60 A TALE OF MANDOO. 
 
 Then, seek nor tomb nor cypress bower. 
 Emotion's wealth, a smile may shrine ; 
 But muse thou o'er some lone, frail flower, 
 Cut off in virgin prime. 
 
 " King of the crystal depths ! ah ! where, 
 Nerbudda, shall thy sparkling wave 
 
 The young Rajpootnie's* ashes bear P 
 Leave them where thy ripples lave 
 The emerald marge, and lilies wave 
 
 Their deathless petals. Let the chime 
 Of thy glad wave sound o'er her grave, 
 Cut off in virgin prime. 
 
 " But bear not to a foreign land 
 
 The dust that hath no hall of rest 
 
 Beyond thine own paternal strand ; 
 And ah ! let not the wave unblest 
 Of the black ocean thrall her breast ; 
 
 But at the spring, the summer time, 
 
 Be her green grave with flow'rets dress'd 
 Cut off in virgin prime. 
 
 ' And when at morn the deer shall seek 
 m Her foot-print 'mid the early dews, 
 And find it not ; and when to break 
 The death-like silence, that imbues 
 The heart bereaved, no voice renews 
 The memory of the old loved time, 
 Tell him that peace her pillow strews, 
 Cut off in virgin prime. 
 
 " And if, perchance, of foreign blood 
 But kindred soul, a warrior come 
 To ponder o'er thy twilight flood, 
 
 And seek the form for ever gone, 
 Tell him the maid of Rajasthan, 
 True to her faith nor false to him, 
 Thus binds her bridal garland on, 
 Cut down in virgin prime." 
 * Feminine of Rajpoot.
 
 A TALE OF MANDOO. 61 
 
 Just as she had finished her song and was about to drink 
 the bowl, the prince of Mandoo rides up, and after a manly 
 defence against her father's powerful sword, he carries off 
 Roope Muttie to Mandoo, and she becomes his queen. 
 
 During the courtship, however, when Baz Bahadoor, the 
 Mahomedan prince of Mandoo, asks the noble Hindoo lady 
 to be his " bright his better star," she sings her reply, of 
 which the following lines are extracts : 
 
 " What reck I how Cashmeera's vale 
 
 With pomp of beauty glows, 
 
 Tis bliss enough to roam and sail 
 
 Where blue Nerbudda flows. 
 
 " What reck I of thy sceptred state, 
 
 Thy strange and alien love ? 
 Would'st thou with princely Rewa mate, 
 With eagle match the dove ? 
 
 " Nerbudda hymned the song that nurs'd 
 
 My peaceful infant rest, 
 'Twas to her glorious wave that first 
 I fluttered from the nest. 
 
 " In other lands be rivers bright 
 
 And beauties worth thy song ; 
 But Rewa's* wave glints back the light 
 I loved when hope was young. 
 
 " In other lands death's power is known, 
 
 As by Nerbudda's side ; 
 And could my dust repose, alone, 
 On any shore beside ? 
 
 " No ! whilst I live, sufficient bliss 
 
 On Eewa's margin grows ; 
 And when I die, I ask but this, 
 His waves my breath to close." 
 
 * The Nerbndda is also called Rewa.
 
 62 VISIT TO THE VINDHYAS. 
 
 The following few lines are quoted to illustrate the Eaj- 
 poot's pride of descent : 
 
 " Monarch," the Thackoor said, " whate'er 
 Thy sires, iii their blind zeal, did spare, 
 To the sad relics of a line 
 "Which reigned 'ere earth had note of thine" 
 
 I have now done with the Thakoorine and with Man- 
 doo, of which I have many delightful reminiscences, wishing 
 that I had space to do the intelligent author of the Thakoo- 
 rine more ample justice. For particulars respecting Man- 
 doo I will refer my readers to the book itself, and to Sir 
 John Malcolm's work on Central India. 
 
 On a subsequent visit to the Yindhyas, from the north 
 side which looks down into the wooded wild ravines, jun- 
 gles, and rugged watercourses of the mountains, I was ac- 
 companied by a party of ladies and gentlemen. The scene 
 was lovely, and the time sunset. In the enjoyment of the 
 hour and the scene we lingered till it was nearly dark. 
 Without thinking what might be a fact, I carelessly asked 
 the villagers who accompanied us as guides, whether there 
 were any wild beasts thereabouts ? " Wild beasts ! " they 
 replied, pointing to the well-trodden paths on the wild hill- 
 side. " Don't you see those paths ? they are the tracts of 
 wolves, tigers, jackals, hysenas, bears, and other wild beasts 
 innumerable. In half an hour they will swarm where we 
 now are, roaring and seeking for their food : our cattle are 
 now being shut up out of their reach." I need not say that 
 we beat a very quick retreat, but it became very dark before
 
 CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES. 63 
 
 we got to our tents, and we lost our way for some time. I 
 never read the 104th Psalm without having a lively recollec- 
 tion of that evening. 
 
 CHRISTIAN READER, do you wonder that I have not told 
 you something of the missionaries ? There are some mis- 
 sionaries at Broach, which was Tharshish, a Japhetan, or 
 Ionian Emporium ; but there are none all the way up the 
 Nerbudda, where the children of Shem were located of old. 
 I believe the name of Christian is scarcely known from the 
 Nerbudda to the Jumna, and that none whatever of the 
 natives of that vast region profess Christianity.* The 
 reason is, that those countries belong to native princes, 
 within whose dominions missionaries are not admitted ; but 
 I believe they have very free access to all the British terri- 
 tories. I never heard of a missionary having even visited 
 Meshur. Europeans are generally known throughout India 
 by the now reproachful name of Feringhee, but that name 
 was originally one of honour. 
 
 When Europeans first traded to India round the Cape, 
 they conducted their trade with much integrity and good 
 faith ; and when any of them entered the service of the na- 
 tive princes, or had transactions with them, they discharged 
 their duties and engagements with such fidelity and courage, 
 
 * Dialogue between a Christian Missionary and a well read Hindoo. 
 
 Missionary. " Did you ever hear of the Christian religion ? " 
 
 Hindoo. " Never till this morning, and what I heard was very reasonable. 
 
 Give me a copy of your Scriptures and I will investigate them." Appendix 
 
 to Wilkinson's Sketches of Christianity in North India, published in 1844.
 
 64 DEO GERABIA. 
 
 that the time-honoured name of Feringhee (Varangai),* 
 which had travelled from Constantinople into the far east, 
 was applied to them. But in later times, public and pri- 
 vate virtue declined, and the people of India, unwilling or 
 unable to withdraw the title which they had awarded in days 
 of old, and which had come into general use, continued it, 
 even to this day, but without its honourable meaning. 
 
 In October, 1841, my wife and I spent a week very 
 agreeably at Deo Geraria, in company with Colonel Sir 
 Claude Wade, the British resident at Indore, the capital of 
 the great Mahratta Prince Holcar, when Mr. Singleton, who 
 was of the party, kindly took the sketch attached to this 
 publication. I afterwards accompanied Sir Claude on a 
 formal visit to the prince, when I was presented to his 
 Highness. In the evening we dined at the palace in the 
 city, where his Highness, the Maha Rajah, had provided an 
 abundant entertainment for us, including a profusion of 
 choice European wines. I should mention, that his High- 
 ness (a Hindoo) did not appear at the dinner-table. 
 
 * See Varangai in Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
 
 LETTER 
 
 FROM THE MINISTER OF HIS HIGHNESS THE RAJAH OF DHAR 
 TO MAJOR STIRLING. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " I have been favoured with your kind letter dated 
 13th instant, and received all articles Mem Sahib sent for 
 the Rajah's ladies and for my Mother and daughter. 
 
 "Agreeable to your desire I have presented with Mem 
 Sahib's compliments, the three bags to the ladies, the Mo- 
 ther and wives of the Rajah Sahib. 
 
 " I also gave a small china bungalow to my Step Mother 
 and some toys for my daughter. 
 
 " Many thanks for your sending me the book, also one 
 for my scholar. 
 
 " The ladies and my Mother and wife send their Salam 
 to the Mem Sahib. 
 
 " I am very happy in hearing of the welfare of your 
 child, I hope she will continue better. 
 
 " With my kind remembrance to you and the Mem 
 Sahib, believe me, 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Dh ar> | RAM CHUNDER RAO, 
 
 15th April, 1841. j Bappoojee, Minister of Dhar. 
 
 " To Major Wm. Stirling, 
 
 Commanding 17th Regiment, Mhow."
 
 A VISIT TO THE PALLS OF SESHRADAERA,* 
 BY MAJOR STIRLING. 
 
 THE Palls of Seshradarra are a few miles below the city of 
 Meshur in Nemaur, where the river Nerbudda falls over 
 and forces its way through a rocky barrier a mile in breadth. 
 Immediately above the barrier the Nerbudda resembles a 
 lake about a mile wide. It passes the barrier in two chan- 
 nels, that on the southern side being only about one hun- 
 dred yards wide, and it can scarcely be called a fall, but a 
 foaming impetuous rapid ; while the other, near the middle 
 of the bed of the river, is the great fall, where two thirds of 
 this great river, contracted to a breadth of two or three hun- 
 dred yards, rushes over its rough and rocky bed, and finally 
 precipitates itself over ten or twelve feet of perpendicular 
 rock into a chasm below. The chasm runs parrallel to the 
 fall, receiving the whole of its waters as in a trough, and, 
 as it is only about twenty feet wide, it must be of great 
 depth to contain them. Its rocky sides bound it like a 
 wall, but although they are in some parts rent and broken, 
 and formed into fantastic shapes, by the violence of the 
 stream and its whirling eddies, in none do the waters escape 
 from it till conveyed, unbroken and entire, to a wider and 
 more gentle channel. Below the barrier the two channels 
 
 * Referred to in page 5.
 
 FALLS OP SESHEADAEEA. 67 
 
 reunite and form a lake-like sheet of water like that above 
 it. 
 
 Standing on the rocky margin of the chasm and facing 
 the fall, the view is grand and imposing, although destitute 
 of many of those features which add beauty and interest to 
 waterfalls in other situations. There are no trees nothing 
 but black and naked rocks on either hand, but the ceaseless 
 thunder and deafening roar of the mighty river, its boiling 
 eddies, and its foaming waters as they rush towards you 
 only a few yards distant, are enough to fill the mind, and 
 render other objects superfluous. 
 
 The rocky barrier is composed of tabular trap, exhibiting 
 no signs of dislocation or disturbance except by the force of 
 the river ; nor did I see a single imbedded pebble or mine- 
 ral of any kind. The river has deposited a calcareous crust 
 on some of the rocks, but it is quite superficial. 
 
 The barrier was doubtless, at some remote period, com- 
 plete and on a level, or nearly so, with the present height 
 of the banks, so that before the river burst its barrier, the 
 site of Meshur was nearly the centre of a vast lake or 
 basin. By the bursting of the barrier that lake or basin has 
 been partially drained, its bed has sunk, assuming the cha- 
 racter of a river, and were the barrier entirely removed, 
 the Nerbudda at Meshur, instead of being a fine sheet of 
 water a mile wide, and four long, and twenty feet deep, as 
 it now is, would be diminished into a comparatively petty 
 stream. 
 
 The banks of the river, between Meshur and Seshra- 
 darra, particularly the right which I have examined, afford
 
 FALLS OF SESHRADARRA. 
 
 strong proof of the above. The bed of the river is trap, 
 and resting on the trap ; twenty or thirty feet of the bank 
 are composed of a more or less hard calcareous deposit, then 
 comes an irregular bed of loosely cemented round stones 
 chiefly of very hard quartz, ten or twelve feet thick, such as 
 abound in the Nerbudda above Mundleysir, and then two 
 distinct thick deposits of, I conceive, transported matter, of 
 a saline and calcareous nature, decidedly of a different com- 
 position from the soil of the country half a mile or a mile 
 from the river. These superior deposits rise into hillocks 
 and rugged eminences to a considerable height above the 
 neighbouring country, and their antiquity is proved by their 
 (in some places) affording support to large trees and ruined 
 buildings.* 
 
 I am inclined to believe that the volume of water in the 
 Nerbudda, in the fair season, has been much overrated, and 
 that its great breadth of six hundred, nine hundred, and 
 twelve hundred yards, as given by Sir J. Malcolm, has either 
 been estimated in the monsoon, or where its breadth is ow- 
 ing to barriers that dam it up, or to rocks and other impe- 
 diments which spread its water over a large surface. I have 
 come to this opinion from seeing the whole of the river below 
 Seshradarra, when not running with any extraordinary velo- 
 city, and three or four feet deep, within a channel of three 
 or four hundred yards. That was a fair place, I conceive, 
 to make a section of the river. 
 
 * These mounds and ruins deserve to be examined.
 
 A 
 
 DISQUISITION 
 
 CONCERNING 
 
 THE EXPEDITION OF SESOST1US 
 INTO INDIA. 
 
 IT will be sufficient for my present purpose to quote the 
 following passages from history. 
 
 " He (Sesostris*) fitted out a fleet of three hundred ships 
 in the Red Sea, by the aid of which he took possession of 
 all the islands and strong places on the eastern coast, and 
 passed through the straits of Babel Mandeb to the shores of 
 India." The Antiquities of Egypt. 
 
 " He (Sesostris) subdued the countries beyond the Gan- 
 ges and advanced as far as the eastern ocean." Robertson. 
 
 " In his expeditions some nations bravely defended their 
 liberties, and others yielded them up without making the 
 least resistance. This disparity was noted by him in hiero- 
 glyphic figures on the monuments erected to perpetuate, the 
 remembrance of his victories." Rollin. 
 
 " He contented himself with the glory of having sub- 
 dued and despoiled so many nations." Rollin. 
 
 " He returned therefore laden with the spoils of the van- 
 * Sesostris is understood to have begun to reigu 1571 B. C.
 
 70 EXPEDITION OF SESOSTRIS. 
 
 quished nations, dragging after him a numberless multitude 
 of captives." Rollin. 
 
 " The strength of Sesostris' land army is stated at six 
 hundred thousand infantry,* twenty-four thousand cavalry,t 
 and twenty-seven thousand armed chariotsj." Diodorus Si- 
 culus. Robertson. 
 
 Some historians modify, or reject, or keep silence res- 
 pecting the expedition of Sesostris ; but I am inclined to 
 believe in it as far as it relates to his naval armament, and 
 that he invaded India by land ; but the statement that he 
 subdued the countries beyond the Ganges and advanced to 
 the eastern ocean must be rejected by every one who looks 
 at the map of Asia, particularly as his fleet was to co-operate 
 with him on the western coast. 
 
 * "We should pause before we disbelieve that enumeration of Sesostris' 
 army ; but in which we must, perhaps, include followers. When General 
 Harris advanced against Seringapatam, in 1799, his army was composed of 
 .35,000 fighting men, and 120,000 attendants; and when the Marquis of 
 Hastings, in 1817, commenced the Mahratta war, his fighting force amount- 
 ed to 110,000 men, his camp followers to 500,000- Matte Brun, vol. iii. 
 p. 328. 
 
 As Sesostris' fighting men were mostly Egyptians, a better class of 
 men, probably the attendants were very numerous ; and as he employed no 
 Egyptians in works of drudgery, the working people would increase accord- 
 ingly- 
 
 f- Some authorities say that the art of riding the horse was unknown 
 to the early Egyptians. See what the Bible says : " I will sing unto the 
 Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously : the horse and his rider hath he 
 thrown into the sea." Exod. xv. 1. 21. 
 
 J Sesostris' chariots are said to have been armed. Many were, no 
 doubt, chariots of war, but probably some were merely guarded carriages. 
 
 Bernier, in his account of the Court of Auruugzebe, calls the bullock 
 carriages " chariots." They were always escorted by armed men, and are 
 very numerous with a royal army. English Translation.
 
 EXPEDITION OF SESOSTRIS. 71 
 
 Ship-building was practised on the Indian Ocean and 
 its gulphs long before it was known in the Mediterranean 
 Sea. The first ship seen in Greece was in 1485 B.C., 
 while Job, who lived long anterior to that date, speaks fa- 
 miliarly and comparatively of the swift ships (of the Indian 
 seas) ; and Jacob, who dwelt near the Mediterranean, says 
 prophetically, in 1689 B. C. that " Zebulon shall be for an 
 haven of ships;" by which we gather, that Jacob knew 
 of ships, but probably by name only. 
 
 However scanty the above may appear, it gives us 
 grounds for believing in the possibility of Sesostris' expedi- 
 tion, and in his being able to collect or build three or four 
 hundred vessels in the Red Sea.* The statement too, that 
 he took possession of all the islands and strong places on 
 the eastern coast, is very corroborative ; for it is clear, that 
 if he had not possession of them, neither the commerce of 
 Egypt nor the navigation of the Red Sea could be safe. 
 
 We hear of the exploits of Sesostris in Mesopotamia, 
 and the vast design on the walls of the cave of Ipsambul in 
 Nubia relates them ;t but the question arises, where was 
 Mesopotamia ? In the 18th page of this work I have endea- 
 
 * The immense quantity of petrified wood found strewed over the de- 
 sert, and the following passages of Scripture, prove that Egypt, which is now 
 destitute of wood, was in ancient times a wooded country, and might have 
 furnished timber for ship-building. Exodus ix. 26. " And the hail smote 
 throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, and brake every 
 tree of the field." Psalm cv. 33. " He smote their vines also, and their fig- 
 trees, and hrake the trees of their coasts." 
 
 f The word Naharaim is frequently repeated in the hieroglyphic in- 
 scriptions of this cave. Antiquities of Egypt by the Religious Tract 
 Society.
 
 72 EXPEDITION OF SESOSTRIS. 
 
 voured to establish the existence of a Mesopotamia between 
 the Indus and the Nerbudda, and although Sesostris' march 
 towards India led him through Mesopotamia Syria?, I believe 
 his real object was to reach the Mesopotamia of the east, in 
 whose bosom or vicinity lay the rich regions of Ophir and 
 Havilah ; and that his great exploits were not performed 
 between the Euphrates and the Tigris, but between the In- 
 dus and the Nerbudda. 
 
 Mesopotamia is a translation of the Hebrew word Naha- 
 raim, into Greek; and which word, as well as the word 
 " Doab," of the Hindoos, signifies the country of the two 
 rivers. We have Naharaim in Scripture before the Greek 
 was a language, and in Acts vii. 2, 3. (the New Testa- 
 ment having been written in Greek as well as the Septua- 
 giut,) we have the word Mesopotamia used for the country 
 in which Abram was before he dwelt in Haran, a place in 
 the Syrian Mesopotamia.* 
 
 There was from the earliest times an intercourse between 
 Egypt and India by sea and by land.f We may particular- 
 ize the invasion of India by the Sooryas from Egypt, and of 
 the visit of Abram from India to Egypt ; J and we read of an 
 
 * The word Aram being sometimes placed before Naharaim indicates 
 that there were other countries of that name. 
 
 f When the early Christians and Jews fled from Egypt and Syria for 
 refuge to the extreme south of India, the good name and hospitality of that 
 country must have been previously known to them. In the 1st century 120 
 vessels sailed annually from Myhoshormis in the Red Sea for Malabar and 
 Ceylon. Asiatic Annual Register. 
 
 \ Abram was evidently heaven-directed in his journies, and was pro- 
 bably so in languages, as he appears to have had no difficulty in that respect 
 anywhere.
 
 EXPEDITION OF SESOSTBIS. 73 
 
 invasion of Egypt by the Pali* from India shortly before 
 the Exodus. We first hear of Pharaoh on the occasion of 
 Abram's visit; and it is remarkable, that the title Pha- 
 raoh is the same as the Indian title of King, or Rajah, or 
 Rao.t Ph is the Egyptian definitive article " The " Rao. 
 The Indian title Rao has been in use from time immemorial. 
 On coins of about the time of Augustus, Rao may be read. 
 
 In the time of Abram there was a nation established in 
 Naharaim, the Ur of the Khaldees, and it is very probable that 
 the Egyptians heard from Abram himself, who had come 
 thence, of the gold of Ophir (for Abram was very rich in gold); 
 and when we read that Sesostris subdued the countries be- 
 yond the Ganges and advanced as far as the ocean, it would 
 have been more intelligible and more probable if the trans- 
 lation had given the word Nerbudda for the Gauges, J as I 
 think it ought, for then the true object of Sesostris' invasion 
 by land and sea would have been exhibited to us. The two 
 
 * There is a district in the Concan of the name of Pali. This inva- 
 sion might have been a patriotic effort of the Indian colony in behalf of the 
 mother country, against the shepherd kings, who about this time overran 
 Egypt. 
 
 t Might not Abram have been the first to salute the king of Egypt 
 by that title ? Abram was probably a prince of India, and was received evi- 
 dently as such by Pharaoh, and his " call " appears to have been known. 
 The children of Heth said " Hear us, my lord, thou art a mighty prince 
 among us." Heb. a prince of God. Gen. xxiii. 6. In Gen. xx. ?. " Now 
 therefore restore the man his wife : for he is a prophet." It would have 
 been worthy of the greatest monarch to accept a title from a prince of God 
 and a prophet. The Hindoo Rao of India at this day gives money and other 
 presents to holy men, even of other religions, to pray for him. 
 
 \ See 10th page. "While the Nerbudda has always been a geographi- 
 cal boundary of the Dukhun to the north, it has also been a boundary for 
 caste. The Rajpoots are not to be met with south of that river.
 
 74 EXPEDITION OP SESOSTRIS. 
 
 armaments would then have been understood to have been 
 destined to co-operate and meet, as I believe they did, near 
 the golden region of the Nerbudda, the object of their en- 
 terprise. 
 
 Diodorus Siculus gives a particular detail of the Indian 
 expedition of Sesostris, which he had on the authority of 
 the Egyptian priests, but his own opinion is, that many 
 things which they related flowed rather from a desire to 
 promote the honour of their country than from attention to 
 truth. We thereby see, that while Sesostris' expedition was 
 said to have been undertaken only from the love of glory, 
 the probability is, that the real object was the gold of Ophir 
 and Havilah, and the spoils of all the nations which he 
 could conquer. " He returned laden with the spoils of the 
 vanquished nations, dragging after him a numberless mul- 
 titude of captives." Rollin. 
 
 I will now endeavour to trace SOME MEMORIALS OP THE 
 
 EXPEDITION OF SESOSTRIS. 
 
 I will suppose that the land army has arrived in Meso- 
 potamia (Malwa). I hope to show afterwards, that Sesos- 
 tris had mercenary troops in his army, among the rest, Phi- 
 listines and Canaanites. If so, the image of the sun at Deo 
 Geraria with its accompaniments may be considered of Phi- 
 listine origin. It is very remarkable, that neither the car 
 nor the horses are of a real size, only sculptured miniature 
 likenesses, probably of something existing elsewhere a re- 
 miniscence of the reality in Gerar of Philistia. 
 
 Sesostris having made a triumphant campaign, he set 
 up monumental pillars ( historians say he did ), perhaps
 
 EXPEDITION OF SESOSTRIS. 75 
 
 similar to those in Malwa at the present day, and he 
 noted his easy conquest by the sculptured hieroglyphic of 
 a female hand, such as I have before described. It will be 
 remembered that I have spoken of these hieroglyphics as 
 existing in the time of Abram. They might have existed 
 then, and Sesostris might in his day have turned the idea to 
 his own purpose ; but they are now considered memorials 
 of human sacrifices, as they may have been in the time of 
 Abram, for we learn from the Bible that human sacrifice 
 was not unknown in Abram' s day, and pillars are repeatedly 
 mentioned as being set up by his descendants. If these 
 pillars did not exist in the time of Abrara, we may with the 
 more certainty attribute them to Sesostris. 
 
 In concluding the traces of the land expedition, I will 
 not omit to mention the Rajapoots who have, from time im- 
 memorial, occupied the Nahairam between the Indus and 
 the Nerbudda. 
 
 Founded on their peculiar combination of husbandman 
 and warrior, their admitted claim to remote descent, from 
 Earn ah, by tradition, but probably more correctly from Ram- 
 ses ; their high sense of honour and their location, their 
 features and forms, and their general bearing as high-born 
 men, but above all from their universally recognised title 
 of Rajpoot, or descendants of a king, I claim for them 
 a descent from Sesostris and the children born on his 
 birthday, all of whom accompanied their sovereign in his 
 expedition as the elite of his forces, and who most probably 
 enjoyed, even then, the name which they now bear so 
 proudly.
 
 76 EXPEDITION OF SESOSTRIS. 
 
 Many writers have attempted to trace the origin of the 
 Rajpoots, and few give them an existence before the fourth 
 or fifth century of our asra. I am not, however, able to 
 admit the force of their arguments; for however much they 
 affect changes of dynasty, successful revolutions, or the re- 
 covery of their power at intervals after periodical overthrows 
 by other tribes, they do not tell us of a new people, but only 
 of new rulers and local events. 
 
 Among the stories of their origin there is one which, 
 romantic as it may seem, has some support in history, and 
 I will refer to the historian of Rajasthan for it at length. 
 That story derives the origin of the Ranas of Oudipoor from 
 the beautiful Sira or Schirin, daughter of the Christian 
 emperor, Maurice, of Constantinople. 
 
 Gibbon says, " The life and liberty of Chosroes (king 
 of Persia) were saved, but he was reduced to the necessity 
 of imploring aid or refuge in some foreign land." He asked 
 and obtained a refuge with Maurice, who gave him his 
 daughter in marriage, and the story goes that a son of this 
 marriage found his way to India as an adventurer, and that 
 his descendants became Ranas of Ondipoor. Gibbon again 
 says, " The beauty of Sira or Schirin, her wit, and her mu- 
 sical talents, are still famous in the history, or rather in the 
 romances of, the East/'* 
 
 I need only add, that however true the story may be, it 
 only relates to the chief, and not to the people. 
 
 I will now leave the land expedition in the possession 
 
 * See Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
 
 EXPEDITION OP SESOSTRIS. 77 
 
 of Ophir and Havilah, on the Nerbudda, making captives 
 and accumulating gold and frankincense, and the spoil of 
 those favoured regions, through the possession of which Se- 
 sostris was able, on his return home, to adorn his country 
 with so many wonders. 
 
 Let us now endeavour to trace the MEMORIALS OF THE 
 NAVAL ARMAMENT. 
 
 Let the reader cast his eye over the map of Asia, and 
 he will see that the entrance of the Red sea is south wes- 
 terly from Bombay. Prom the middle of April to the end 
 of September or October the south west monsoon prevails 
 in the Arabian sea, and the passage from the straits of Babel 
 Mandeb is generally made right before the wind, and in 
 about ten days. 
 
 I suppose that Sesostris' armament crossed about the 
 end of April or beginning of May,* for then only is the sea 
 smooth and the wind fair and moderate ; and there would 
 be in that case at least six weeks of fine weather before the 
 setting in of the rains, to enable the expedition to proceed 
 with its object. The natives of the dry country of Egypt 
 could not, I presume, exist in the Concan in which 70 or 80 
 inches of rain fall in four months on the coast, arid on the 
 highest of the Ghauts, distant some 20 miles, the fall 
 amounted in 1884, within the same period, to the enormous 
 
 * I crossed the Arabian Sea from Bombay to Babel Mandeb early in 
 May. The weather was fine and the sea easy the whole way, although the 
 wind was against us. As we passed through the straits and within the Red 
 Sea there was a gentle swell, but the water was clear and so unruffled 
 that we could witness the gambols of a swift and playful dolphin under the 
 bows at a considerable depth.
 
 78 EXPEDITION OP SESOSTRIS. 
 
 quantity of 297 inches. Such a state of the seasons was 
 probably known to the Egyptians, which enabled them to 
 arrive in time either to hut themselves on the coast, or to 
 hasten to the interior before the monsoon, where compara- 
 tively little rain falls. 
 
 I conclude that the point of arrival was Bancoote, some- 
 times called Fort Victoria, between Bombay and Goa ;* for 
 it is thereabouts that traces of the expedition are mostly to 
 be found. Besides, that coast is high and easily seen, and 
 approached from a distance, and its rivers and the many 
 creeks near at hand would afford good and safe anchorage 
 for the fleet during the monsoon ; a matter of great conse- 
 quence, for it could not return to the Red Sea again owing 
 to the prevailing wind till after the rains. 
 
 The first trace which I will mention is in the massive 
 stone-work of the forts, on the coast as well as on the sum- 
 mit of the mountains, resembling in the size and shape, and 
 cut of the stones, those used in the ancient buildings of 
 Egypt. If the expedition landed on that coast at all, it 
 must have fortified itself; a fact which will account for the 
 many very ancient works of that nature in the Concan ; and 
 while many are at a loss to understand by what power such 
 
 * It might be asked, why did not the expedition make at once for the 
 mouth of the Nerbudda ? which would be within an easy distance from the 
 land army." Let any one read of the difficult navigation of that river iii the 
 Pereplus of the Erythraean Sea and he will be satisfied. Besides, looking to 
 such a probability, the mouth of that river would most likely be guarded and 
 prepared, and the pilots withdrawn. By landing at Bancoote, the armament 
 probably disembarked without opposition, if not in a friendly country. The 
 coast near the mouth of the Nerbudda is low and the tide strong.
 
 EXPEDITION OF SESOSTBIS. 79 
 
 prodigious masses and blocks were raised and put into their 
 places, we may call to mind that most probably the arma- 
 ment consisted partly of giants (the children of Anak,) and 
 the Philistines, men " great and tall," and of immense cou- 
 rage and strength, equal to such labours, and on which they 
 were probably employed. The native Egyptians having an 
 antipathy to the sea, and being the fighting men, most likely 
 formed the land army, while the auxiliaries, with the pioneers 
 and labourers who had not the same prejudice, were sent 
 by the shorter and less expensive sea voyage. That tends 
 to shew, that in forming the expedition there was a fixed 
 design (on Ophir and Havilah), and that it was not a mere 
 quixotic excursion in quest of glory. 
 
 From the following passages of the Bible we leafn that 
 the children of Anak were not only great and tall, but en- 
 gineers and builders, far advanced in arts and civilization. 
 Their habit of fortifying the mountains and fencing their 
 cities up to heaven, is strongly illustrated in the Concan 
 and the adjoining range of Ghauts, where the top of every 
 mountain and hill that has a table surface has been fortified 
 in remote ages with walls and battlements. Some of these 
 strong holds are three or four thousand feet above the plains, 
 far higher than anything in Canaan. 
 
 Deut. i. 28. " The people is greater and taller than 
 we ; the cities are great and walled up to heaven." 
 
 Deut. ix. i. 2. " Cities great and fenced up to heaven. 
 A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom 
 thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can 
 stand before the children of Anak ! "
 
 80 EXPEDITION OP SESOSTRIS. 
 
 Joshua xi. 21. "And at that time came Joshua and 
 cut off the Anakims from the mountains, from Hebron, from 
 Debir, from Anab, and from all the mountains of Judah, and 
 from all the mountains of Israel : Joshua destroyed them 
 utterly with their cities." 
 
 Joshua xiv. 12. "Now therefore uive me this moun- 
 tain [ Hebron] ; the Anakims were there, and 
 
 the cities were great and fenced/' 
 
 The second trace is in the Brahmins of the Concan, who 
 claim descent from those located there some thousands of 
 years ago by the demi-god or hero Rama,* and it is a re- 
 markable fact, that they eat fish, while no other Brahmins 
 do so.f We read in the ancient history of Egypt that 
 the least rigid of the priests ate fish. UEgypte anc. par 
 M. Origny. 
 
 The third trace is in the existence at Bancoote and its 
 vicinity of two peoples, the remnants of subdued nations, 
 bearing the significant names of Ramoshi and Paarai. The 
 former I will call the descendants of the soldiers of Ramses 
 (Sesostris), and the latter, whose names invariably end in 
 nak, the descendants of the children of Anak, who were 
 Philistines and giants. The former have degenerated into 
 a wild and fierce people of robbers, but they are sometimes 
 employed by the local governments as guards in the forts, and 
 
 * Many great events are attributed to Rama by tradition. In this 
 case may we not substitute Ramses, the true name of Sesostris for Rama ? 
 The Egyptian ape and Ramses might stand for Rama and Hunooman, the 
 monkey god. 
 
 f The Egyptian pole, lever, and bucket, are in use for raising water in 
 the Concan.
 
 EXPEDITION OF SESOSTRIS. 81 
 
 as watchmen, and other similar duties, on the principle of 
 " set a thief to catch a thief ; " but they possess lands and 
 property of their own which they have held from time im- 
 memorial, and their power is such that they occasionally give 
 the government considerable annoyance in retaliation, when 
 they think themselves illtreated or oppressed. 
 
 In the memoirs of Mrs. Wilson of Bombay, the wife of 
 an eminent missionary and oriental scholar, the caste of Ra- 
 moshi, is stated to take precedence of that of Paarai, which 
 is quite in keeping, as doubtless the immediate soldiers, or 
 subjects of Sesostris, would take precedence of the auxilia- 
 ries. When or why they were abandoned there we gather 
 from the fact in Egyptian history, that soon after the time 
 of Sesostris great misfortunes befell Egypt, rendering it pro- 
 bable that the state could not maintain the communication 
 with the colony, and that on its being abandoned by the 
 mother country, it was overpowered by the natives. 
 
 In the 23rd of n Samuel we find the name of Paarai 
 the Arbite, one of King David's mighty men ; and in Jo- 
 shua xiv. 15, we read that the name of Hebron before was 
 Kirjath Arba, which Arba was a great man among the Ana- 
 kirns. In Deut. ix. 2. they are described as " a people great 
 and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, 
 and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before 
 the children of Anak ! " Now we gather from the Scrip- 
 tures that the giants, the children of Anak, and the Philis- 
 tines were all of one stock, every where to be found as mer- 
 cenary warriors, champions, soldiers, porters, and guards, 
 but always trustworthy about the princes of Canaan and
 
 82 EXPEDITION OF SESOSTRIS. 
 
 Judea ; or as guards and porters at the cities. It is more 
 than probable that Sesostris availed himself of the services 
 of such " great and tall " mercenaries, and who were at the 
 same time kinsfolk of the Egyptians.* 
 
 Paarai, the Arbite, one of the children of Anak, was a 
 mighty mant in King David's service, and in i Chronicles 
 ix. 17. we find Talmon and Ahiman, names of the Anakims, 
 among the porters at Jerusalem who waited in the king's 
 (/ate ; and in Ezra we find among the children of the por- 
 ters who returned from the Babylonish captivity, those of 
 Talmon. 
 
 I have stated the occupations of the descendants of 
 Anak because they are, in a modified form, the occupations 
 a I this day of the Paarai in the Concan. 
 
 That Paarai, Ahiman, and Talmau, of King David's 
 time, were ancient family names of the Philistines we may 
 believe, for although we do not before that time find the 
 name of Paarai in Scripture, the names of Ahiman and Tal- 
 mai are among those of the children of Anak, whom Caleb 
 drove thence about 500 years before David. I have no 
 doubt that Paarai was a family name in the earliest period 
 of their existence, for we know that that name has been 
 perpetuated in the branch that left their father land in the 
 days of Sesostris for India up to the present time ; while in 
 the other branch or original stock, although it remained 
 dormant for some six centuries, it reappeared in the person 
 
 * Genesis x. 13, 14, 
 
 t Hebrew mighty one. Greek giant, Chald. mighty of strength. 
 Dan. iii. 20.
 
 EXPEDITION OP SESOSTRIS. 83 
 
 of Paarai, the Arbite, of the house of Anak. The Paarai 
 eat the flesh of all animals; and being prohibited, like 
 other persons, from killing kine, they eat the flesh of such 
 as die of themselves. It must be clear that such a practice 
 could not have had its origin with, nor could it be main- 
 tained by, any class having the most remote claim to be 
 Hindoo, and plainly stamps the Paarai as foreigners. 
 
 It would appear from Leviticus, xi. 39, 40, that the 
 practice of eating the flesh of animals that died existed in 
 Philistia and Judea, for there the Jews are not forbidden 
 to do so ; but how to make themselves clean afterwards is 
 declared. 
 
 The Paarai are very numerous in the Bombay Native 
 Infantry, and are known in the muster-roll by the frequent 
 recurrence of such names as Ramnak Balnak, or Ramnak 
 the son of Balnak. They are good and obedient soldiers, 
 somewhat dull in intellect at first, owing to their degraded 
 position in early life; but amid a blunt and independent 
 bearing, which they maintain even in our army, their innate 
 intelligence, courage, and manly aspect, develope themselves 
 (for they are a finer race than the Hindoos among whom they 
 are located), and justly and freely obtain for them a fair 
 share of promotion and general distinction. The present 
 condition of the Paarai among the Hindoos is not that of 
 their nature, but of degradation. 
 
 In complexion, the Paarai are blacker than the Hindoos, 
 and they have a slight thickness of the lip and flatness of 
 the nose, which remind us of their African descent, features 
 which a sojourn of perhaps four-and-thirty centuries in a
 
 84 EXPEDITION OP SESOSTRIS. 
 
 foreign clime has not entirely effaced. They are, as I have 
 said, a fine and, I will add, a more muscular and hardy race 
 than the Hindoos, and if they are not at the present day 
 giants and mighty men as of old, traces of their ancient 
 stature and courage, and strength, may be found even in 
 their fallen state. 
 
 In the cave temples of "Western India there is another 
 trace of the Philistine or Paarai, the children of Anak. In 
 some of the great caves, particularly Carlee and Adjunta, 
 many of the principal figures cut out of the rock have fully 
 developed African or Negro features, and they are represented 
 too as personages of distinction, which indicates that at the 
 period of their execution a people of the African race held 
 sway. I have supposed that the land army of Sesostris had 
 halted on the Upper Nerbudda, but if it advanced beyond it 
 to the ocean, or if the naval armament marched up to join 
 it, the route would be the same ; for the one, or the other, 
 or both, would necessarily, almost, take the route of Carlee 
 and Adjunta ; and we may find in those mighty excavations 
 the remains of the winter quarters of the armies of Africa. 
 The Egyptian caves and catacombs, and their interior paint- 
 ings and sculptures, are very much of a character with these, 
 and at least give them a claim to be considered of kindred 
 origin. "While we admire the temples of Thebes, we look 
 in vain for private edifices, so in these temples of smaller 
 dimensions but not of inferior merit, we see the remains of 
 the head quarters, and a monument of their state, but not a 
 vestige of the huts of the soldiers nor of the dwellings of 
 the great.
 
 EXPEDITION OF SESOSTRIS. 
 
 85 
 
 I am aware that inscriptions at Carlee give that temple 
 an origin only early in the Christian sera, but they may be 
 fairly considered, in the face of what I have advanced, as 
 referring to some portion of the work only, or as we find 
 in many of the cave temples, evidences of change from one 
 religion to another, with marks of defacement and of things 
 executed at different periods, while all the inscriptions have 
 not been deciphered, it may not be too mucli to suspect the 
 inscriptions, and suppose that they were made by impostors 
 or flattered upstarts, vainly hoping to do honour to their own 
 aames, at the expense of the true excavators.* 
 
 In concluding this interesting subject, I will just point 
 again to the wonderful facility which the Egyptians had, 
 from their geographical and hydrographical position, a posi- 
 tion which enabled them to transport to the shores of India, 
 a distance of 1800 miles, in ten or twelve days, a powerful 
 armament, and for which their enemies could scarcely be 
 prepared ; thereby saving all the toil, fatigue, and opposition 
 of a march perhaps of years, and which none but the most 
 powerful nation of the period could have ventured on under 
 every advantage. Indeed, the land army could never have 
 calculated on success without the aid of the naval arma- 
 ment ; the one, naval or military, was absolutely essential 
 to the other. 
 
 * One of the tombs of the kings at Thebes is so studiously defaced 
 that even the name of the Pharaoh, who had employed his whole life in pre- 
 paring it for his long home, is no longer legible. 
 
 Some of the old monuments in Egypt bear, comparatively, recent 
 names and inscriptions.
 
 86 EXPEDITION OF SESOSTRIS. 
 
 I have said that the temples of Carlee and Adjunta are 
 in the immediate vicinity respectively of the two great moun- 
 tain passes of the Bhore Ghaut and the Adjunta Ghaut, 
 through which an army would pass from the coast to the 
 Upper Nerbudda, or vice versa. The caves of Elephanta 
 and Salsette are also in the Concan, and only seventy miles 
 from Bancoote. 
 
 Elephanta does not contain any negro figures, and per- 
 haps Salsette does not. If their excavators formed a part 
 of the expedition of Sesostris, they were, no doubt, a dif- 
 ferent pec pie from the Paarai, perhaps a friendly Hindoo 
 nation, and therefore kept apart from them ; but if we look 
 at the map of India it will be seen that their passage into 
 the interior would be most convenient by the same pass by 
 which the Paarai from Bancoote would advance. 
 
 The united armies probably, on clearing the Bhore 
 Ghaut, divided into two columns, and marched for the Ner- 
 budda ; that of the Philistines towards the right by the way 
 of Adjunta, at which place we trace them, as at Carlee, by 
 their sculptured African figures ; while that from Elephanta, 
 on the left, took the route of Ellora, in whose caves, as in 
 Elephanta, no African figures are met with. 
 
 I believe I am correct respecting the African figures, 
 but a slight mixture would not materially affect the argu- 
 ment; for we see in our own days Englishmen and Indians 
 occasionally mixed, while their armies retain their respec- 
 tive nationalities, and it is usual for them to keep in separate 
 columns as far as the nature of the service will admit. We 
 have sometimes bodies of many thousands of Indian horse-
 
 EXPEDITION OF SESOSTRIS. 
 
 87 
 
 men, even in time of war, commanded and accompanied by 
 two or three, or perhaps half a dozen, Englishmen. 
 
 At the Bhore Pass, as at Adjunta, we have in the caves 
 the memorials of the occupation of the passes by the armies 
 of the Philistines, and in the many fortified passes and high 
 hills to the left we have memorials too of the cautious march 
 of the western column, and at Ellora of its resting place ; 
 the whole giving us a very exalted notion of the military 
 wisdom, energy, and enterprise of the warriors of those early 
 days, exhibiting to us, as they do, a complete system of for- 
 tification and precautionary details, so grand and so endur- 
 ing, that whether other nations have or have not imitated 
 them, none have ever surpassed them. 
 
 Besides the Ramoshi and the Paarai, there are several 
 subdued and degraded races. One of them, the Deher, 
 a people not unlike the Paarai in their social position, de- 
 serve our attention, as they extend northwards from the 
 borders of the Paarai across the Nerbudda into Guzeratte, 
 and because it is a very remarkable fact, that one of the 
 finest caves at Ellora bears the name of Deherwarra, or the 
 abode or cave of the Deher ; a fact which, as may be sup- 
 posed, greatly puzzles the Hindoos. It is probable that the 
 Deher are the poor remains of a great nation, a colony, or 
 an ally of Sesostris, and that while in power they at least 
 contributed, by their munificence, or their labour, or both, 
 to the excavation of the caves. 
 
 The Deher have some tracts from the Purauas, and 
 rude representations of the heroes of the Eamyana, but as I 
 have before stated, the great deeds of Rama and Ramses
 
 88 EXPEDITION OF SESOSTRIS. 
 
 have been confusedly transmitted to us by tradition, so that 
 we may be permitted to attribute them to the one or the 
 other as we can best do consistently ; and I shall be well 
 pleased if what I have written throw any light on a sub- 
 ject so interesting, but hitherto entered on with but little 
 success. 
 
 EXETEE : 
 W. BOBEETS, PRINTEE, OPPOSITE BEOAD GATE.
 
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