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On, and Manouf, are the antient names of Athribis, Alexandria, Sais, Busiris, Pachnamounis, Sebennytus, Heliopolis, and Memphis. The meaning of Thribi and Shoou are uncertain; Rakoti signifies a descent; Busiris, the tomb of Osiris, a name common in Egypt; Djem-n-nouti is "the strength of the god" (Hercules). P-ashmoun is the city of Mendes, or Pan; On signifies the sun, and Ma-nouf the place or city of good. It may be called after Amenophis, or Mo-nouphi, "the gift of the good spirit," there being many kings of that name; but as there are two places in the Delta, Pa-nouf-res, and Pa-nouph-het the higher and lower Nouf, to-day actually called Menoufie, they seem all of the same derivation. The Greeks heard the capital of Egypt named quickly Měnŭf, and from this formed Meups.

Tamiati, Damietta, means the landing, or place of the beacon. P-timen hof, Demenhur, the region of the serpent, or asp. Tikoi, Dagué, the field. Terenouti, Terane, the gate or mouth of the god. Djané, Zoan, or Tanis, the soft ground, or the city of the low lands. Thmoui, Thmuis, the lioness. Ta-nosher, Tentyra, the she-vulture; Ma-n-Amoun, in Hebrew, No ammoun, Thebes; Erment, Hermonthis, the western city; Neout, a district on the coast, the borders ; Pi-lac, Bulac, the angle or corner of the river Oah-si, the Oasis, inhabited land (in the desert); Bok-n-or, Bocchoris, the name of a man, signifying the slave of Orus, and of a city called after him.

Other names of cities, of which the meaning is less certain, have been greatly corrupted by the Arabs. Such are Sanemsatf, Sausaghaf; Taube, Thueh; Ikou, Dagoue; Djapasen, Sabash; Parallou, Burlos (the sands); Thoni, Tunes, a rock, the name of an island in the lake of Matareah; Thenesi, Tennis, in the same lake; Sun-hori, Shanhur; Phaiat, Abydus, in Greek, Marriout, in Arabic; Pharbait, Belbeis; Kaliope, Keliub; Petpeh, Atphie; Hnes, or Pi-hnes, Beh-ne-esa, or Behensa; Sioout (the glorious), Asiut; Phiom, the sea, or lake, applied to the province near the Birket el Keroun. In all Coptic words, the Arabs generally change the hard Coptic t into d, and p into b.

Tel, in Coptic, means a hill, or heap. Hence the ruins of the antient Egyptian cities, raised on mounds of burnt bricks, are, at present, called by this name.

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The Egyptians called a temple Pi-erphei, a word preserved in the Arabic name, Berbi; the river was by the priests mystically termed Oik-maau, by Diodorus Siculus, written, Oxsauny, and accurately translated on nne, the motheraliment, because water was reckoned the first principle of all things. The Greeks applied this name to the sea. The place of departed spirits was called in Egypt, Amenti, the receiver and giver; because it received them from the dying, and gave them to the infant; for the natives believed that the human soul was immortal, a ray of Osiris, which, on its entrance into flesh, became polluted by natural and moral infection. On this belief they founded the whole doctrine of fasting, washing, chastity, and other ascetic practices. They tried the dead by a kind of inquest, to know if they deserved to lie in the sepulchre of their fathers. The body was embalmed, in hopes that the spirit might again re-enter it, after a series of transmigrations, at the end of 3000 years. The Egyptian tenets of the Amenti, or infernal regions, are beautifully and faithfully given by Virgil, Aeneid. lib. vi. v. 724, -771; 426-443; 608-624, et passim.

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No. II.

Additional Proofs that Egypt was Peopled from the South, and the confines of Ethiopia.

I. THE reader will easily perceive, that a great part of the theory, in Mr Bruce's work, is founded on the position, that Egypt was peopled from Ethiopia. The opinion was taken from Diodorus Siculus, and merits the more attention, as it has been often contradicted by the learned, who at this day are inclined to consider the Egyptians a colony from Arabia. Accordingly, it has been taken for granted, that the ancient Egyptian was a cognate dialect of the Hebrew or Arabic; and Bochart, a celebrated restorer of ancient geography, has proceeded in his work on that supposition. After examining, with some attention, the remains of the Egyptian language, and comparing it candidly with all the dialects of the Arabic tongue which are preserved, the conclusions I have obtained have been very different from those of Bochart.

To illustrate these, it will first be necessary to define what I mean by the Egyptian and Arabic languages; then to state their comparative antiquity, and their points of resemblance and difference.

It has been long known and allowed, that the same language was formerly spoken from the banks of the Tigris to the border of Egypt, and as far north as Niniveh, and south as the straits of Babelmandeb. Castel's Lexicon is sufficient to establish the fact; the writings of the Jews determine its antiquity. The Babylonians, Assyrians, and inhabitants of Aram (the Syria of the Greeks), the Phoenians, Canaanites, all the Arabs from the Red Sea to Hamyar near the straits of the Indian Ocean, spoke dialects of the same original tongue, which, from accent, and various acceptation of the words, became as unintelligible amongst themselves, as if they had been radically different. But, to il

lustrate further this subject, the Teutonic, or Gothic language, is the root of all the dialects of Germany, England, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland. These nations are from one stock; so were the inhabitants of all the countries before mentioned. The whole region was of one language, and one speech.

The oldest specimen extant of that language is the writings of Moses. The book of Job is probably a composition coeval with these; it is unquestionably purer Arabic than the books of Moses, but less instructive as to the present subject of investigation. For the Hebrew legislator gives the names, and the reasons for the names, of the first of mankind, with the history of the foundation of the earth, and the kingdoms into which it was at first divided. His information is also of such a nature as cannot be disputed.

By the ancient Egyptian, I mean the Coptic language, as preserved in translations of the Scriptures, and books of piety, after Egypt was converted to Christianity. It was mingled with Greek, nearly as much as the English is with Norman French, from the long government of Grecian colonies and princes in the country. After the revival of learning in Europe, this language attracted an inconsiderable share of notice. Kircher published an Arabic and Coptic vocabulary, from a MS. brought from Egypt. Part of the Scriptures made their appearance afterwards. Jablonski applied the language to the elucidation of the Egyptian religion; La Croze formed a Lexicon of true Coptic words, having rejected the Greek, which are easily distinguished. An epitome of his work was published at Oxford in the year 1775, under the care of Dr Woide, who subjoined a list of words in the Sahidic dialect, that of Upper Egypt.

From these sources we derive the ancient Egyptian, greatly injured, no doubt, by the lapse of time, and suffering under the foreign garb of the Greek alphabet: for, if the natives had an alphabet, which is at least probable, it never was used in the version of the Scriptures. All the changes, which appear in the Coptic alphabet, are one or two charac ters, invented to represent sounds, unknown in the language from which it was taken. The names of the letters are also corrupted.

The Arabic language (for the Hebrew is only an old dia

lect of it) is well known from every Polyglot lexicon; and, after comparing the Coptic with this very ancient tongue, I hesitate not to affirm, that they are totally different in words, accidence, and in every point which could induce a sound reasoner to conclude, that they ever sprung from the same original.

It is not from any predilection for a science so destitute of reason and certainty as etymology, that I enter into any dissertation on words or language. It is from a conviction, that similarity of language is the best proof of the common origin of nations, and such a proof as will illustrate, above any other monument, the history of mankind, even admitting that no other relic existed. A striking and radical similarity to the language of England, in any dialect of Otaheite or New Zealand, would, in spite of the interval of so many lands and seas, and more than half the globe, confirm the fact, that either the one nation was derived from the other, or both from the same common original. In the present case, Ethiopia is nearer to Egypt than Arabia; and the only reasons for the received opinion are, the genealogy given by Moses, and the hasty conclusion, that the focus of ancient population was between the Euphrates and Tigris.

The narrative of so sacred and ancient a historian, I neither intend to refute nor question. Taking his account of the creation as stated in his own works, I only mean to observe, that the Arabic, or, what is the same thing, the Hebrew, must have been the language of Adam and all his immediate descendants. Moses expressly says, that the name of Paradise was Eden, which every one knows to signify Pleasure. The first man is called Adam, because he was made of (âphar min haădamah) dust of the red earth. Eve was called by her husband Hawah, the causer of life; because she was, says the historian, the mother of all living. Eve, too, is recorded, in the same narrative, to have called her first born son Cain: because she said, "kanithi ish eth Jehoah," I have gotten a man from the Lord; and appears to have called her second Habel, a word known to signify Vanity. When this son was murdered by his brother, she called her third child, born after that event, Seth; because the Lord (sath) had given her another seed instead of Abel. VOL. II.

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