CHAPTER VII.
THE PRESENT STATE OE JUDAH
AND ISRAEL.
THE HEBREWS OR ISRAELITES, THE JEWS.
"He shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah." The black Jews of Cochin in the East Indies, Doctor Buchanan gives an account of. The Most High speaks of gathering his ancient people from the east and from the west. Dr. Buchanan informs us that the black Jews have a tradition that they arrived in
the East Indies not long after the Babylonish captivity. And he adds, "what seems to countenance this tradition is, they have copies of those books of the Old Testament which were written before the captivity, but none of those whose dates are subsequent to that event." It seems most probable, then, that these black Jews are descendants of the Jews who turned their course to that region of the East when they were liberated from Babylon, instead of returning to Jerusalem. Some of the Jews manifestly did thus part from their brethren, and migrate to the East. These were the Jews who abounded in the eastern as well as the western provinces of Persia, in the days of Ahasuerus, Haman, Esther and Mordecai, when the impious decree was obtained against them by Haman.
Ahasuerus then "reigned over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, even from India to Abyssinia or Ethiopia," Esther i. 1—in Africa.
The Jews appear at that time to have been scattered in all these provinces. Thence these black Jews became planted
