of immense blocks, thirty and forty feet in length, having been separated from the rock." p. 69. Before I close my remarks on Mr. Hamilton's work, I must beg to observe that, from that gentleman's having been so fortunate as to discover amid the ruins of SAN, (the ancient Sais) a colossal statue of a male sphinx, evident, by the beard which it exhibits, an opinion suggested by astronomical reasons respecting that symbol in p. 94 of this Appendix, is greatly strengthened; for, to use his own words, "it may be considered as affording a reasonable presumption against the common idea, that the combination of the woman's head with the lion's body was emblematic of the rising of the Nile when the sun was passing from Leo to Virgo. Herodotus says, that Amasis placed in or near the temple of Minerva at Sais several Androsphinxes, of an enormous height. They probably resembled this which we saw at San. As yet I do not know that any travellers have discovered any remains of them among the ruins of Sais." p. 382. The reason of my noticing this fact so particularly is, that it carries us on one step farther in tracing out the analogy already hinted at as subsisting between the Indian and Egyptian mythology, since the MAN-LION is well known to my Indian readers, as forming the fourth of the nine avatars; and having, as I flatter myself, demonstrated the identity of the Matsya and Dagon emblematical figures; having shewn the near resemblance between the Vara, or boar avatar, and the Canis Anubis of Egypt, and ADDENDA TO PREFACE. XV also the possible connection of Veeshnu in the Courma or tortoise, and Hermes with his Testudo, of which the strings, it will be remembered, were made out of the sinews of Typhon (deluge), -a symbol compounded of a male of the human species and that monster, like the Androsphinx, was alone wanting to complete the parallel of nearly all the Indian incarnations. For that the arrogant Bali of the fifth avatar was the great Assyrian Belus, the lord of the Higher Asia, additional proofs to those formerly adduced by me, will be found in the subsequent pages; and in respect to the two RAMAS, the renowned conquerors of the sixth and seventh Avatars, their history under the names of Cush and Rama, and of the colonies descended from them, is perhaps better known in Egypt (the Cushadweepa of the Puranas) than even in India itself. The adventures of the wonderful Creeshna in the eighth are now, by the best mythologists, for the most part, referred to the Sun contending, like Osiris, with the monsters constellated in and near the zodiac; and the ninth avatar, or that of Buddha, has been demonstrated, I think, to have been the same person as the celebrated Egyptian SACYA, or Sesac, called, in Sanscrit, Sacya-Sinha, or the lion of Sacya, who flourished, as a conqueror and legislator, a thousand or twelve hundred years before Christ*. * See a Dissertation, by the President, on the Indian Chronology. Asiat. Research. vol. ii. p. 401. Much of ancient history, as before observed, but more of that extravagant allegory so congenial to the manners of the east, prevails through all these details, and under the names of Osiris, Ramesses, Dionysos, &c. we have not only the revolutions of the celestial orbs, but of the earliest terrestrial empires. Thus has the statement of Sir W. Jones, in his earlier dissertations, when discussing the subject of a colony of emigrated Egyptians having anciently settled at Tirhut, in North Bahar, been established, viz. that a considerable portion of the Assyrian and Egyptian history has been engrafted on that of the Hindoos, and his prediction in great part verified, "that, by means of the Puranas, we should in time discover all the learning of Egypt, without the necessity of decyphering her hieroglyphics*." *Discourse on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India, vol. i. p. 254. APPENDIX. OBSERVATIONS RESPECTING THE OBELISK SAID, BY ARGUMENTS ADDUCED FOR ITS HAVING BEEN USED BY THE ASTRONOMICAL RACE OF CHALDEA, AS A VAST OF the immense number of columnar structures, various in design and magnitude, erected in ancient times throughout the eastern world, but more particularly in Egypt, the OBELISK under consideration was probably the prototype; as the Tower of Belus undoubtedly was of those wonderful pyramidal masses that, even at this day, exalt their summits in awful, though decayed, grandeur. To the elder branch of the idolatrous sons of Ham, settled on the banks of the Euphrates, these honours (if honours they may be called) are decidedly due. That those of Egypt were employed, as the fabled pillars of Seth are said to have been, to contain the mystic hieroglyphical literature, of which they have indeed been A the faithful but inexplicable depositories to this remote period, cannot be denied; at the same time, that their form and engraved emblems prove them to be consecrated to the idolatrous worship of the country—to that sun, of whose beams we have already proved them to be symbolical-OBELISCOS, solis numini sacratos! The formidable race of Cuthites, the giants and Titans of pagan antiquity, from whom both the Egyptians and Chaldæans were descended, delighted in whatever was vast and astonishing. It was equally their glory and their occupation, as I have observed in another work, "to erect edifices of stupendous height and magnitude; to excavate long subterraneous passages from the living rock; to form vast lakes; to construct magnificent aqueducts and bridges; in short, to attempt whatever was hazardous and difficult; and to carry into execution whatever appeared to the rest of mankind impracticable. Asia and Africa were alike covered with these wonders in sculpture and prodigies in art, which their daring genius and persevering industry executed. It was they who built the Tower of Belus and raised the pyramids of Egypt; it was they who formed the grottoes near the Nile, and scooped out the caverns of Salsette and Elephanta. Their skill in mechanical powers, to this day, astonishes posterity, who are unable to conceive by what means stones, thirty, forty, and even sixty, feet in length and from twelve to twenty feet in breadth, could ever be reared to that wonderful point of elevation at which they were seen, by Pococke and Norden, in the superb but ruined temples of |