IV. INDIA is a country of immense extent, about 2400 miles long, and 2000 broad; between 1 and 40 deg. N. lat. and

against him the refentment of the priests, who procured a Kat-fberif, or warrant of the Sultan, for cutting off his head. Fortunately Abdallah received timely warning, and efcaped into Lebanon, where his life was in fafety.

The manners of the Syrians, and of the eastern nations in general, are very different from ours. We wear fhort and close dreffes; theirs are long and ample. We fuffer our hair to grow, and shave the beard; they let the beard grow, and have the head. With us, to uncover the head is a mark of refpect; with them a naked head is a fign of folly. We falute in an inclined posture; they upright. We país our lives erect; they are almost continually feated. They fit and eat upon the ground; we upon raised feats. With refpect to their language, likewife, their manner of writing is directly contrary to ours, and the greatest number of mafculine nouns in French, for instance, are feminine with them. The Turks express in their countenances, words, and gestures, an appearance of devotion, which proceeds not from true re igion, but from ignorance and a fanatic superstition, and is the source of innumerable diforders, Inftead of that open and chearful countenance, which we either naturally poffefs or affume, their behaviour is ferious, auftere, and melancholy: they rarely laugh, and the gaiety of fome Europeans appears to them a fit of delirium. When they fpeak, it is with deliberation, without geftures, and without paffion; they liften without interrupting you; they are filent for whole days together, and have no defire to fupport a converfation. If they walk, it is always leifurely, and on business: they have no idea of walking backwards and forwards for amufement. Continually feated, they pafs whole days mufing, with their legs cruffed, their pipes in their mouths, and almost without changing their attitude. It should feem as if motion were a punishment to them, and that, like the Indians, they regard inaction as essential to happiness.

The indolence of the oriental and fouthern nations, and the defpotifm to which they have been usually subjected, are generally afcribed to the heat of the climate, which enervates the vigour both of mind and body. But this does not hold univer fally. The character of nations depends not merely on the climate, but also on the nature of their government and religion, their progrefs in refinernent, and improvements in knowledge, and on various other circumstances. Hence the character of the inhabitants of the fame country has been found to be very different at different times. The immoderate ufe of opium is thought to encrease the indolence of the Turks.

Syria has undergone various revolutions, which have confounded the different races of its inhabitants. They at prefent may be divided into three claffes; the pofterity of the Greeks, the Arabs, and Turks. The Turks did not exterminate the former inhabitants, but having embraced their religion, incorporated with them.

There are feveral wandering tribes, which inhabit part of Syria and the ad. joining countries, very different in their manners from thofe who poffefs fixed fettlements and cultivate the ground. The wandering or fhepherd tribes, are the Turkmen, the Curds, and Arabs.-The TURKMEN are of the number of thofe Tartar hordes, who, on the great revolution of the empire of the Caliphs, emigrated from the eastward of the Cafpian sea, and spread themselves over the vaft plains of Armenia and Afia Minor. The CURDS are defcended from the Card-uchi, mentioned by Xenophon in his Anabafis, who inhabited the mountains of Armenia, and oppofed the retreat of the Ten Thousand; and who, though fhut in on all fides by the Perfian empire, had conftantly braved the power of the Great King, and the arms of his Satraps. The ARABS, called

Bedouins,

and 66 and 109 deg. E. lon. containing above 100 millions of inhabitants.

India is commonly divided into India within or on this fide the Ganges, called alfo Indoftan, or Hindooftan, or the empire of the Great Mogul; and India beyond the Ganges.

I. IN

Bedouins, or Bedouin Arabs, i e. inhabitants of the defert, poffefs an immenfe extent of country, extending from Aleppo to the Arabian fea, and from Egypt to the Perfian gulph, nearly one thoufand eight hundred miles in length, and nine hundred in breadth. They with reafon boast of being the pureft of the Arab tribes, as having never been conquered, nor having mixed with any other people by making conquests. The Arabs who rendered themselves fo illuftrious under Mahomet and his fucceffors, dwelt along the Red Sea, were cultivators of land, poffeffed cities, and were fubject The Arabs in the interior or defert had no concern in the to regular governments. great revolutions which the former produced. The Bedouin Arabs retain the fame customs, manners, language, and even religious opinions, with their ancestors in the moft remote ages.

The Arabs feem to be condemned to a wandering life from the very nature of their deferts; covered with a sky, almost perpetually enflamed, and without clouds; confifting of immenfe and boundless plains, without houfes, trees, rivulets, or hills; where the eye frequently meets nothing but an extenfive and uniform horizon, like the fea; though in fome places the ground is uneven and ftony. Almost invariably naked on every fide, the earth prefents nothing but a few wild plants, thinly fcat tered, and thickets, whofe folitude is rarely disturbed but by antelopes, hares, locuits,

and rats.

a

The Turkmen, Curds, and Arabs, although they agree on the whole, in their manner of life, as being pastors and wanderers, and fubfifting chiefly on the produce of their herds, yet differ in feveral particulars. They all profefs the Mahometan religion, but pay little regard to its ceremonies. They have neither priests, temples, or regular worship. In this refpect every one acts and thinks as he pleases. The marriage-dowry; the Curds receive a Turkmen and Arabs give their daughters premium for them. The Turkmen pay no respect to that antiquity of extraction which we call nobility; the Curds and Arabs honour it greatly. The tribes of the Arabs are diftinguished from each other, by the name of their refpective chiefs, or by that of the ruling family; and when they fpeak of any of the individuals who compose them, they call them the children of fuch a chief, though they may not be all really of his blood, and the chief himfelf may have been long fince dead; as the poets in ancient times: See Homer, Virgil, Ovid, &c. paffim.; alfo the Poms of Ofian. The Arabs apply this mode of expreffion even to the names of countries. The Turkmen do not steal or plunder. The Curds and Arabs are noted plunderers; but excufe their depredations, as being exercised on thofe whom they confider as enemies,

The government of these tribes, particularly of the Arabs, is at once republican, ariftocratical, and even defpotic. Nothing can be tranfacted without the confent of the majority of the people; but the fhaiks or chiefs have great influence; and the principal haik has an indefinite and almost abfolute authority, which however he cannot very much abuse. The manners of the Arabs agree precifely with the defcriptions in Homer, and the hiftory of Abraham and the other patriarchs in Genelis. They are remarkable for their generofity and hofpitality. If an Arab confent to eat bread and falt with a guest, nothing in the world can induce him to betray him. To oblerve how they conduct themtrives to one another, one would Nevertheless they are no imagine that they poffeffed all their goods in common. But it has none of that felfishness, which the increase of the ftrangers to property. imaginary wants of luxury has given it among polished na ions. The Arabs have

6

ΠΟ

I. INDIA within the Ganges, or Indoftan, is about 2000 miles long, and 1500 broad; between 7 and 40 deg. N. lat. and 66 and 92 deg. E. lon.

It is divided into two parts, the CONTINENT and PENINSULA. 1. On the CONTINENT, towards the mouth of the Ganges, is the rich province of BENGAL, belonging to the English. Their chief city, where the Governor-General of India refides, is CALCUTTA, 22° 33′ N. lat. 88° 28′ E. long. from Greenwich; fituate on the western arm of the Ganges, about one hundred miles from the fea, where about ninety years ago there was only the village of Govindpour; fuppofed at present to contain at least five hundred thousand inhabitants. Its citadel is called FORT-WILLIAM, which was begun to be built immediately after the victory at Plaffey. It is fuperior in point of ftrength

and

no books: and few even of their fhaiks can read. All their literature confists in reciting tales and hiftories in the manner of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, of which they are remarkably fond.

The fame fimilarity and diverfity is obfervable in the descriptions given of the wandering Scythians, (Errantes, profugi, et campeftres Scythæ,) by ancient authors. Some of them, as of the modern Tartars and Arabs, were cultivators of the ground, and others of them shepherds. Herodot. iv. 16.-83. Strab. vii. 302. &c. Juftin. ii. 2. Horat. od. iii. 249. &c. Mela, iii. 5. Curt. vii. 8. &c.

Hiftorical Account of the PRINCIPAL REVOLUTIONS and TRADE of INDIA.

The geography, as well as the hiftory of India, was very imperfectly known, before the modern conquefts of the Europeans in that part of the world. The first foreign prince we read of, that made himself mafter of any part of India, was DARIUS, the fon of Hyftafpes, king of Perfia, who extended his conquests to the Indus; and derived from that country a tribute nearly equal to the third part of the revenue of his other dominions, Herodot, iii. 90.-96-It deferves remark, that the Indians paid Daring their tribute in gold, and the other Satrapies in filver. The account of the invasion of India by Semiramis, Diodor. ii. 74. appears fabulous.

Darius, before he undertook his expedition, appointed one SCYLAX of Caryandra to fail down the Indus till he fhould reach the ocean, with fome ships which had been fitted out at Cafpatyrus, in the country of Patty, now Pehkely, towards the upper part of the navigable courfe of that river. This Scylax performed, though, it should feem, with much difficulty, and notwithstanding many obftacles; for he spent no less than two years and fix months in conducting his fquadron from the place where he embarked to the Arabian Gulph, Herodot. iv. 42. 45. See p. 610. The account which Scylax gave of his voyage was fo mingled with fable, that little regard was paid to it.

The next who invaded India was ALEXANDER the Great, who having crushed Beffus, the murderer of Darius, fet out from Bactria, and having pafled mount Imaus, or the fony girdle, as it is called by the Oriental geographers, croffed the Indus at Taxila, now Attack, the only place where the rapidity of that river permits an army to be conveniently tranfported. It is remarkable, that in after ages Timar or Tamerlane, and Nadir Shak or Thomas Kouli Khan, entered India by the fame route with Alexander. On the banks of the Hydafpes, now Betah or Chelum, Alexander was oppofed by PORUS; and he had advanced to the Hyphafis now Beyah, in his

way

and correctness of defign to any fort in India, but too extenfive. It is thought to have coft two millions fterling.-Indian cities are generally built on one plan; having very narrow, confined, and crooked streets, with an incredible number of refervoirs and ponds, and a great many gardens interfperfed. A few of the streets are paved with brick. The houses are variously built: Some of brick, others with mud, and a ftill greater proportion with bamboos and mats: and thefe different kinds of fabrics ftanding intermixed with each other, form a motley appearance. Thofe of the latter kinds are invariably of one itory, and covered with thatch: thofe of brick feldom exceed, two floors, and have flat, terraced roofs. The two former claffes far

out

way to the GANGES, when his army refused to go farther; fee p. 471. on account of the hardships which they had fustained in the rainy feafon, Strab. xv. 697. and not without juft caufe; for it had rained inceffantly on them for feventy days, Diodor. xvii. 94. Alexander, it seems, was ignorant of the periodical heavy rains, which fall in this country during great part of the S. W. monfoon, at least in the months of July, Auguft, and part of September: For he entered India in the spring, Arrian, iv. 22. when the rains were already begun in the mountains; and paffed the Hydafpes at Midfummer, about the height of the rainy feafon. This circumstance appears to have prevented him from completing the conqueft of India. and Nadir Shah conducted their military operations during the dry feafon. A defcription of the periodical rains and inundations in India is given by Arrian, v. 9. and Strabo, xv. 691. Strabo, on the authority of Arißobülus, mentions a curious. fat, that though heavy rains and fnow fell in the mountains and the country along the foot of them, yet not fo much as a fhower fell in the plains below, ib. & 693. The fame thing has been obferved by the moderns; fee Major Rennel's Memoir, P. 288.

Tamerlane

Alexander ordered fhips to be built on the Hydafpes to carry part of his army down the Indus to the ocean. The distance is fuppofed to have been about a thousand miles. The manners and cuftoms of the Indians in the time of Alexander, as defcribed by Arrian, were much the fame with thofe of the modern Hindoos.

Arrian mentions, among other particulars, the flender and delicate make of their bodies, their dark complexion, their black uncurled hair; their garments of cotton, of an extraordinary whitenefs; their living entirely on vegetable food; their dif tribution into fparate fects or clafies, and the perpetuation of trades in families; the marriages of women at feven years of age, and the prohibition of marriages between different claffes; the cuftom of wives burning themfelves with their decrafed hufbands; the men wearing ear-rings, parti-coloured fhoes, and veils coveling the head and great part of the fhoulders; daubing their faces with colours; only the principal people having umbrellas carried over them; their ufing two handed fwords, and bows drawn by the feet;. &c. de reb. Indic. Strabo mentions moit of thefe, and many other particulars, xv. 704. &c. The origin of the custom ot burning the favourite wife with her husband is traced by Dicdorus, xix. 33. & 34. Such as declined it, were held infamous, Strab. xv. 714. — -The account of Herodotus concerning India, though more imperfect and fabulous than thofe of later writers, yet contains feveral particulars, perfectly defcriptive of the prefent Hindoos; that they killed no animals, but contented themselves with the produce of the earth; that they expofed those whofe recovery they defpaired of; that they lived chiefly

out-number the laft, which are often so thinly scattered, that fires, which frequently happen, do not, fometimes, meet with the obftruction of a brick house through a whole street.-The quarter of Calcutta inhabited by the English, is compofed entirely of brick buildings; many of which have more the appearance of palaces than of private houses: but by far the greatest part is built in the fame manner with other Indian cities. Calcutta is not fortunate in its local fituation; for it has fome extenfive muddy lakes, and a vaft foreft, close to it. The greatest attention however has been used, by draining the streets and filling up the ponds, to render it healthful.

About twenty-fix miles above Calcutta, on the fame river,

though

• The trees have been lately cut down around Calcutta.

chiefly on rice; had horses of a smaller breed than their western neighbours; and manufactured their fine cotton wool in clothing, iii. 98.107.

SELEUCUS, after the death of Alexander, became poffeffed of the principal provinces of the Perfian empire, and, among the reit, of the conquests in India, which he confiderably enlarged. He concluded a treaty with SANDRACOTTUS, king of the Prafii or Gandarida, a powerful prince, whofe capital was PALIBOTHRA, fuppofed by fome to be the modern Allahabad, at the confluence of the two great rivers Jumna and Ganges. With a view of cultivating a friendly intercourfe with this monarch, Seleucus fent to him MEGASTHENES, as ambassador, who refided at Palibothra for feveral years, and upon his return published an account of his travels; whence fubfequent writers derived most of their knowledge concerning the interior ftate of India. But the credit of Megasthenes was impaired, by his marvellous ftories of men with ears fo large that they could wrap themfelves up in thein; of others with a fingle eye, without nofes, with long feet, and toes turned backwards; of people only three fpans in height (called PIGMIES, Plin. vi. 19. f. 22.); of ants as large as foxes, that dug up gold, &c. Strab. ii. 70. xv. 702. 706. & 711. See Mela, iii. 7. His account, however, of the dimenfions and geography of India is found to be accurate; and his defcription of the power and opulence of the Prafi perfectly refembles that given of fome of the greater ftates of modern Indoftan, before the establishment of the Mahometan and European power in India, and is confonant to the accounts which Alexander had received concerning that people, that they were ready to oppofe him on the banks of the Ganges with 20,000 cavalry, 200,000 infantry, 2000 chariots, and 4cco elephants, Dioder. xvii. 93. Curt. ix. 2. Me

gasthenes mentions his having visited Sandracottus when encamped with an army of 400,000 men. Strab. xv. 709. Palibethra, he fays, was ten miles in length and two in breadth; furrcunded with walls in which were 570 towers and 64 gates, jb. 702. Several Indian cities in modern times have had much larger dimenfions. Rennel's memoir, p. 50.

Soon after the death of Seleucus, the Syrian monarchs loft their poffeffions in India; but how, or for what caufe, we are not told. Some years after, thefe Indian provinces became fubject to the kingdom of Bactria; which had originally been fubject to Seleucus, but under his fon or grandfon had become independent; and after having flour thed 130 years, was overturned by an irruption of a powerful horde of Tartars. After this, for many ages, no attempt appears to have been made by any foreign power to establish itfelf in India. The kings of Egypt and Syria, and after them the Romans,