themselves vifited in return; and that they were in the remoteft æras, engaged not lefs than the Phoenicians in projects of distant commerce and navigation, which cannot be extensively carried on without a knowledge of the magnet's powers, I have this strong and curious evidence to produce; for, in the most venerable of their facred law-tracts, the Inftitutes of Menu, that is, the firft, or Swayambhuva Menu, fuppofed by the Indians to have been revealed by that primæval legiflator many millions of years ago, and to which, in fact, after mature deliberation, Sir William Jones cannot affign a lefs ancient date than one thousand or fifteen hundred years before the Christian æra, but which is, probably, of a far fuperior traditional antiquity, there is a curious paffage on the legal interest of money, and the limited rate of it in different cafes, "with an exception in regard to adventures at fea."*

Future investigation, and our increafing knowledge relative to the early growth of the fciences in India, will probably demonftrate the fact which is here only fuppofed. The channel, by which they might have very easily

*See vol. i. p. 429, and vol. ii. p. 371.

L 4

became

became acquainted with its wonderful properties, muft be inftantly apparent to every one who reflects on the innumerable benefits, which the discovery of fo ineftimable a treafure has bestowed upon mankind. ́ In fact, the ftupendous acquifition may, in my opinion, be fafely affigned to divine Revelation vouchfafed to Noah, that it might be an unerring guide to that holy and favoured patriarch when inclofed in the dark bofom of the ark. Nor is it at all improbable that the Deity, by whofe exprefs direction that ark was fabricated, fhould impart, at the fame. time, the knowledge of a magnetical index to direct its devious courfe, amidst the boundlefs darkness that reigned around, and the united fury of the conflicting elements. The momentous fecret thus intrufted to the patriarch might be transmitted down to his immediate posterity, and by them inviolably preferved, till the period arrived when the enlarged population and increafing commerce of mankind rendered its divulgement neceffary, towards fulfilling the benevolent defigns of that Providence, who conftituted man a focial and an inquifitive being,

An inquiry has already in part been inftituted into the real country and æra in which Hercules

с

Hercules flourished; and I have fhewn, that neither the Hercules of Tyre, nor yet of Egypt, were the first whofe actions are recorded on the page of history. There was, we have feen, a Chaldean (that is, an Indian) Hercules, or, as we have found him before denominated, an Hercules Belus, prior in time to all who bore the name; and upon that fact, which I hope to establish beyond all doubt, depends a great part of the novel fyftem which I mean to purfue in the course of the Indian Hiftory; for every man has his fyftem before him when he commences a great historical undertaking; and, if the system be founded on a proper bafis, that is, of facts recorded in profane, compared with and ftrengthened by those of facred, history, it is to be hoped that such fyftem merits, and will find, fupport.

For the information alluded to, we are indebted to a celebrated and eloquent Pagan writer, whofe account, in this inftance, wonderfully corroborates the true fyftem of facred. theological hiftory. It is Cicero, who, after enumerating the refpective genealogies of all thofe who bore the name of Hercules in the ancient world, acquaints us, that "the Indian Hercules

$

Hercules is denominated Belus;"* and I hope, hereafter, in the regular history of ancient India, to make ftill more and more evident what has already been afferted, that to this renowned Affyrian and Indian conqueror, who, under the name of Bali, engroffes three of the Indian Avatars, is to be afcribed the greateft part of the numerous exploits of that celebrated perfonage in different quarters of the world; exploits of which the memory was deeply rooted, and continued for a long time to flourish, in every colony that emigrated from Afia, deeply blended with their hiftory and interwoven with their mythology. He was, as before obferved, and the fact ought to be perpetually borne in mind, conftantly compared, for the fplendour of his actions and the extent of his power, to the SUN that illuminates and feems to govern the world; and the name of Baal, and Bel, was equally applied to both the monarch and the orb. Of these affertions there cannot, in any nation, be given more ftriking and direct proofs than have already been brought forward respecting their

* Cicero De Natura Deorum, lib. iii.

prevalence

prevalence in Britain: here, we have seen the facred fires in honour of BELUS once flamed over the whole ifland. Mr. Toland, in that part of his hiftory of the Druids which has been fo often referred to and in part extracted, but never before inserted at length, gives the following account of these feftival fires. "On May-eve the Druids made prodigious fires on thefe carns, which, being every one in fight of fome other, could not but afford a glorious fhow over a whole nation. These fires were in honour of Beal, or Bealan, latinized by the Roman writers into Belenus, by which name the Gauls and their colonies understood the Sun: and, therefore, to this hour, the first day of May is, by the ab-original Irish, called LA BEALTEINE, Or the day of Belen's fire. May-day is likewise called LA BEALTEINE by the Highlanders of Scotland, who are no contemptible part of the Celtic offspring. So it is in the ISLE OF MAN: and, in Armoric, a priest is still called BELEE, or the fervant of BEL, and the priesthood. BELEGIETH."*

This Indian Hercules, therefore, this en terprizing god-king Belus, is the true proto

*See Toland's Hiftory of the Druids, p. 70.

type