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The Indians now, indeed, begin their year on the eleventh of April, and the Perfians have adopted, in their civil concerns, the Mohammedan mode of computation; but both nations probably, in the remote ages to which we allude, began their year when the Sun entered into the fign Aries, and the ancient Persian coins ftamped with the head of the Ram, which, according to D'Ancarville, were offered to Gemfhid, the founder of Perfepolis, and first reformer of the solar year among the Perfians*, are an additional de, monstration of the high antiquity of this feftival. It is ftill observed, in that country, under the title of NAURAS, a word which means, the first day of the year; and in the "Ambaffador's Travels," the writer acquaints us, that some of their body being deputed to congratulate the Shah, on the first day of the year, "they found him at the palace of Ispahan, fitting at a banquet, and having near him the MINATZIM, or aftrologer, who rose up ever and anon, and taking his aftrolabe, went to obferve the fun; and, at the very moment of the fun's reaching the equator, he published aloud the new year, the com

* See ́D'Ancarville, vol. iii. p. 115; and Jones's Short History of Perfia, p. 41.

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mencement of which was celebrated by the firing of great guns both from the castle and city walls, and by the found of all kinds of inftruments. "*

The Perfian and Tartar monarchs, fitting on the throne of India, ftill preserved inviolable a custom which probably had its origin when the first great dynasty of the Pishdadian line, of which Caiumeras was the head, extended their fway over the greater part of Afia, and we have aftronomical proof, that the vernal equinox could not have co-incided with the firft degree of Aries later, at least, than two thousand five hundred years before Chrift, which might be the precife period when the first colonies began to migrate from Afia towards the weft, and very much builds up the hypothesis for which I contend, of the English being derived from an Afiatic festival. That entertaining and judicious writer, Sir Thomas Roe, was ambaffador from our Court to that of Delhi, when the Nauruz feftival was celebrated there in 1616, and his account of it, as well as that of the ceremony of weighing the Mogul on his own birthday, are fo curious, and the tract itself withal fo

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* Ambassador's Travels, p. 220. Edit. folio, 1662.

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fcarce, that I fhall be easily pardoned by my readers for presenting them with an authenticated account of the unequalled magnificence of a court, once the moft fplendid and powerful in Afia, but now utterly degraded, and its pomp extinguifhed. The festival at Delhi lafted nine days, and a kind of fair, like. that holden at Venice during the carnival, and probably copied from this ancient Eastern kind of festival, during the extensive commercial intercourfe formerly carried on between the Venetians and India, feems to have been the principal amufement.

"The Nauruz, in India, is kept in imitation of the Perfian festival of that name; and is celebrated after the following manner. A throne is erected four feet from the ground in the Durbar court; from the back whereof to the place where the king comes out, a fquare of fifty-fix paces in length, and forty-three in breadth, is railed in, and covered with fair canopies of cloth of gold, filk, or velvet, joined together, and held up with canes covered after the fame manner. The ground is laid with good Perfian carpets very large, into which place come all the men of quality to attend the king, except, fome few that are within a little rail right before

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the throne to receive his commands. Within this fquare there were set out, for fhew, many little houses, one of them of filver, and fome other curiofities of value. The prince-fultan had on the left fide a pavillion, the fupporters whereof were covered with filver, as were fome of those also near the king's throne. The form of this throne was fquare, the matter, wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl, borne up with four pillars, and covered with cloth of gold. About the edge, over head, like a va❤ lence, was a net fringe of good pearl, from which hung down pomegranates, apples, pears, and fuch fruit of gold, but hollow. Within it, the king fat on cushions very rich in pearls and jewels, Round about the court before the throne, the principal men had erected tents, which encompassed the court, and lined them with velvet, damask, or taffety, for the most part, but fome few with cloth of gold; into which they retired, and fat to fhew all their wealth. For antiently the kings used to go to every tent, and take thence what they pleased; but now it is changed, the king fitting to receive what new◄ year's gifts are brought him.”*

See Sir Thomas Roe's Journal apud Harris vol. i. p. 630,

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The new-born Sun, and the birth-day of the Perfian monarch, the fon of the Sun, and his reprefentative on earth, were feftivals attended with rites too fimilar not to be noticed in a work difcuffing the mythological antiquities of Afia. Nothing can be more brilliant, or more truly detailed, than that feftival, as related by the fame author. It may ferve as an awful leffon to imperial pride for the grandeur described, and the dynasty itself, are now annihilated.

"The fecond of September was the king's birth-day, and kept with great folemnity. On this day the king is weighed against jewels, gold, filver, ftuffs of gold, filver, and many other rich and rare articles, of every fort a little, which is all given to the Brahmins. He was so splendid in jewels, that I own in my life I never faw fuch ineftimable wealth together. The time was spent in bringing his greatest elephants before him ; fome of which, being lord-elephants, had their chains, bells, and furniture of gold and filver, with many gilt banners and flags carried about them, and eight or ten elephants waiting on each of them, clothed in gold, filk, and filver. In this manner about twelve companies paffed by most richly adorned, the first having

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