LETTER 54 Javan's sons appear to have larger relations with Europe. Elisha is identified with Hellas in Greece ;52 Tarshish with Tartessus in Spain;53 Kittim is considered to designate Italy; the other son's name having been written with a variation in the commencing letter, can be less certainly fixed.55 I may conclude these derivations by adding, that to Japhet L. i. c. 6. The name would lead us most naturally to connect the posterity of Ripath with the Riphean mountains; but the difficulty on this would be, that altho these mountains are mentioned in Strabo, at p. 452-8, and by Dionys. v. 315, and others, yet it is not certain where they were situated. Posidonius mentions them as the Alps; others as part of Caucasus. Dionysius places them at the Borysthenes. Ptolemy, as those from which the Tanais sprang, and Pliny, as rathe: beyond the Scythians, and among the Arimaspi or Hyperboreans, (1. v.. c. 14); and in another passage he connects them with Caucasus, and brings them toward the Pontus. L. vi. c. 5. That they were some ɔf the mountains in those northern regions where Asia and Europe join, seems to be all that we can safely infer about them; and of the tribes in those parts, Riphath may have been the ancestor. 6 52 Elisa, sine dubio est Græcorum Hellas, ut Michaelis in Spec. p. 79, ostendit.' Rosen. 83. It has a correspondence with this that Ezekiel speaks of 'blue and purple from the isles of Elisha' to Tyre, xxvii. 7; and that Pausanias mentions that the shores of Laconia furnish shells most adapted, after those in the Phenician Sea, for the purple dye.' Paus. in Lacon. 53 Sine dubio est Hispania called Tarshish, from the port and sland Tartessus, formerly so famous, in the mouth of the Baetis, as Bochart. Phal. 1. iii. c. 7, and Mich. Spic. p. 82, show.' The coast is called Tarscion by Polybius. L. iii. Rosen. p. 83. 54 Bochart. iii. 5. and Mich. p. 103, agree that it is undoubtedly the name of the middle part of Italy, about Rome. A city in Latium was called Ketra. About Cuma was a river called Ketos.' Dion. Hal. Eusebius says that the Latins sprang from the Kitioi, and the Romans also. Suidas mentions, Latini, now Romans, for Telephus, the son of Hercules, who was called Latius, changed the name of those, who before that were denominated Ketii, into Latini.' Suidas. Voc. Latinoi. v. ii. p. 13. 55 Some MSS. have Rhodanim, which name induces Bochart to refer him to the inhabitants of Galliæ Rhodanensis on the Rhone. L. iii. c. 6. But the best MSS. call it Dodanim; and on this word, Michaelis thinks we should recollect the Dodona of Epirus, where the most ancient oracle of Greece was so famous. Spic. p. 120. XXIV. and his offspring are ascribed generally, by the LETTER Mosaic record, all the insular or maritime populations and colonies of the Gentile nations.56 These outlines comprise the principal points that you need attend to in your general studies. You can enlarge upon them at your leisure, if you like to exercise yourself in further investigations; only keep your mind from having any favorite idea or speculations, that may seduce it beyond the paths of sound and steady judgment. 56 By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands ; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.' Gen. x. 5. LETTER XXV. OUTLINES OF THE STATE OF THE EARLIEST CIVILIZED XXV. MY DEAR son, LETTER THE most civilized nations which have appeared in the world, are so many links of a connected chain, which has been extending and enlarging from the deluge to our own time. The family of Ham stand prominent at the commencement as its founders; and as he was sufficiently mature in age, when the old world ceased, to have imbibed its social and mental acquisitions, and had the benefit of his father's larger acquaintance with them, and also had the companionship of his elder brothers, we may assume, that the settlement of his children represented, generally, the state and progress of the civilization and attainments of the antediluvian world. The renewed world, therefore, began with a population as much civilized, as the cultivation of mind and manners in the destroyed races, had enabled the preserved survivors to acquire and transmit; and as this extended to the invention of such musical instruments as the harp and connected pipes of melodious sound, and to the discovery and use of brass and iron, and to various arts of working in them, and to the building of cities,1 mankind could not have re See Genesis, iv. 17, 21, 22. commenced their human life in that brutal and bar- LETTER barous state which some of the ancients imagined.2 The four civilized nations which were founded by the children of Ham were the Ethiopians, the Egyp-1 tians, the Phenicians, and the Babylonians and these states preceded all others, which authentic history notices, in their intellectual attainments and activities. The Ethiopians have been already alluded to in our remarks on Cush. It is the opinion of some of our contemporaries, from the monumental remains and hieroglyphical inscriptions found in Nubia, so much resembling those of Egypt, that the ancient Egyptians had a Nubian or Ethiopian origin. But as some of the ancient kings of Egypt at times subdued and reigned over the Ethiopian Meroe, and formed columns, temples and inscriptions there, this fact will account for such edifices being now observable. At the same time we may remember, that as Cush and Mizraim were brothers, the arts which the one knew, the other could not be ignorant of. Their respective families would partake of these improvements, and when one branch settled in Nubian Ethi 4 2 Some represent the earth as generally in this state, others the particular countries they mention. Thus in Crete, their dwellings were in the woody parts of mountains, in the caves of vallies, or in places where nature gave them a shelter; for the building of houses was not yet found out.' Diod. Sic. 334. So in Greece, men were living on growing buds, herbs and roots, but Pelasgus taught them that acorns and beech mast were more healthful; he likewise led them to build huts to keep off the rain and cold, and to make coats of the skins of swine.' Pausan. Arc. 456. 3 See before, Lett. xxiv. p. 481. Strabo mentions the Ethiopian Tearcon's warlike expeditions into Europe, and as having extended to the strait of Gibraltar. L. xv. P. 1007. 'Lett. xxiv. p. 481. In Strabo's time they had fallen mostly into a nomadical and poor condition. L. xv. p. 1135. XXV. XXV. LETTER opia, and the other moved down the Nile to what became, under its settlement, Upper Egypt, each would have made its sacred edifices and public monuments for itself; and these, from their kindred origin, would, in their primitive forms, naturally resemble each other. But it is probable, that the Ethiopian line of Ham had connections or ramifications in the Indian Peninsula. As we have already remarked, they were deemed a colony from India." It is not improbable that the temples and idol figures excavated from the rock in the caves of Ellora, on the western side of India, near Bombay, may represent to us some of the works and rites of this branch of the ancient nations. There are several other caverned exca 'Lett. xxiv. p. 481. Apollonius Tyanæus, when he passed from Egypt into Ethiopia, is described by his biographer to have found Gymnosophists there, to whom he said, 'You praise the Indians because you were formerly Indians yourselves, and, urged by angry prodigies, came from their country hither; you would rather seem to be any thing than Ethiopians who have come from India; now you would rather worship in the Egyptian manner than in your own.' Philost. 1. vi. c. 6, p. 277. 6 Engravings from these may be conveniently seen in Fisher's Views in India. They are thought to be images of the Boodh kind. The grand cave there is the Bioma Kurm. It has been excavated with an arched roof, and with its lofty vaulted ceiling, solid octagonal pillars, long-vaulted aisle and colossal image, is very striking. The temple of Kylas is the most perfect; its central building rises in the midst of a wide area, all scooped out from the solid rock to the height of one hundred feet, being one immense block of isolated excavation, upwards of five hundred feet in circumference, containing many apartments; beyond are three galleries, supported upon pillars containing forty-two gigantic figures of gods and goddesses. The Rameswar temple consists of a fine hall seventy-two feet long and fifteen high. There is another temple thirty-one feet square in a recess of this. The principal apartment is supported by pillars and pilasters; the roof and walls are covered with figures of deities, in dance and revelry; the principal figures are skeletons; at their southern extremity they are terminated by the Dher Warra cave. The principal hall is one hundred feet long and |