For the origination of this line of investigation we are mainly indebted to M. Vivien de Saint-Martin, who, in his “ Étude sur la géographie et les populations primitives du Nord-Ouest de l'lnde, d'après les Hymnes Védiques,” correctly defined one of the leading peculiarities of those chants, “ c'est que les indications géographiques des hymnes du Véda se rapportent à peu près exclusivement à des rivières.”

Every race has in the course of time endeavoured, as the want of new expressions made themselves felt, to enlarge its vocabulary according to its turn of mind, or what is called its genius, either by mere agglutination or by affixes, etc. The Greeks, for example, have multiplied the number of their verbs in combining them with prepositions: the Semites seem to have followed a similar, though not identical process, which, however, has till now resisted all analysis. I propose, therefore, in this paper to examine those formatives which, with the verbal stems, have given birth to the voices. It must be remembered that the word “voice” is not used here as in the Aryan Grammars, but is. used to designate the various modifications suffered by the stem and altering its meaning.

I propose in this paper to consider the claims of Cingalese Buddhism. What these claims are had better be stated at starting, from the writings of Dr. Rhys Davids, the most prominent advocate of these claims. We are, I think, indebted to him for priceless translations: but a linguist is not always infallible as a reasoner. Professor Beal has given us still more valuable linguistic contributions; and he has taken Dr. Rhys Davids to task. He says that the allegations that Buddha preached “atheism, annihilation, and the nonexistence of the soul,” are “more easily made than proved.”

In tracing out the very crooked story of the history of Central and Eastern Asia, in which we have to deal with a succession of empires founded by a number of races, which have necessarily overrun its more desirable areas, there is only one method of inquiry which seems to be at once safe and fertile. This is to commence with the latest revolutions. To gradually unravel the tangle into which the story has been twisted, by first understanding the latest changes, about which we have abundant evidence, and then to work back to that earlier and more obscure period which must always have a great interest and romance for those who speculate on the origin and early history of our race. This is the method I have ventured to adopt in the series of papers on the Northern Frontagers of China, which I have been permitted, by the favour of the Royal Asiatic Society, to commence in the pages of its Journal, and in which I hope, if allowed, to pass in review the different races who have dominated over Central Asia and China from the earliest times.