=The Fountain of the Sun.=—There was a fountain (_Suryakunda_) ‘sacred to the sun’ at Valabhipura, from which arose, at the summons of Siladitya (according to the legend) the seven-headed horse Saptasva, which draws the car of Surya, to bear him to battle. With such an auxiliary no foe could prevail; but a wicked minister revealed to the enemy the secret of annulling this aid, by polluting the sacred fountain with blood. This accomplished, in vain did the prince call on Saptasva to save him from the strange and barbarous foe: the charm was broken, and with it sunk the dynasty of Valabhi. Who the ‘barbarian’ was that defiled with blood of kine [220] the fountain of the sun,[4.1.38] whether Getae, Parthian, or Hun, we are left to conjecture. The Persian, though he venerated the bull, yet sacrificed him on the altar of Mithras;[4.1.39] and though the ancient Guebre purifies with the urine[4.1.40] of the cow, he will not refuse to eat beef; and the iniquity of Cambyses, who thrust his lance into the flank of the Egyptian Apis, is a proof that the bull was abstractedly no object of worship. It would be indulging a legitimate curiosity, could we by any means discover how these ‘strange’ tribes obtained a footing amongst the Hindu races; for so late as seven centuries ago we find Getae, Huns, Kathi, Ariaspas, Dahae, definitively settled, and enumerated amongst the Chhattis rajkula. How much earlier the admission, no authority states; but mention is made of several of them aiding in the defence of Chitor, on the first appearance of the faith of Islam upwards of eleven hundred years ago. ----- Footnote 4.1.1: Said to be Ceylon; an idea scouted by the Hindus, who transfer Lanka to a very distant region. [The latter is certainly not the common belief.] Footnote 4.1.2: This descendant of one hundred kings shows himself in cloudy weather from the _surya-gaukhra_, or ‘balcony of the sun.’ Footnote 4.1.3: See _History of the Tribes_. Footnote 4.1.4: _Nilab_ from _nil_, ‘blue,’ and _ab_, ‘water’; hence the name of the Nile in Egypt and in India [?]. _Sind_, or _Sindhu_, appears to be a Scythian word: _Sin_ in the Tatar, _t sin_ in Chinese, ‘river.’ [It is Sanskrit, meaning ‘divider.’] Hence the inhabitants of its higher course termed it _aba sin_, ‘parent stream’; and thus, very probably, _Abyssinia_ was formed by the Arabians; ‘the country on the Nile,’ or _aba sin_. [Abyssinia is ‘land of the Habashi, or negroes.’] Footnote 4.1.5: See p. 47 above. Footnote 4.1.6: D’Anville and Rennell. [The Rhamnae have been identified with the Brāhūi of Baluchistān (McCrindle, _Ptolemy_, 159). Lassen places them on the Nerbudda.] Footnote 4.1.7: Maurice and others. Footnote 4.1.8: _Relations anciennes des voyageurs_, par Renaudot. Footnote 4.1.9: D’Anville (_Antiquités de l’Inde_) quotes Nicolas of Damascus as his authority, who says the letter written by Porus, prince of Ozene, was in the Greek character.