The following notes are taken from an account of his journey to Spain, written by an Ambassador of Muley Ismail, a copy of which is preserved in a library at Lisbon: the MS. ends abruptly, and does not contain the author's name. From the narrative it appears that the Ambassador came to treat of the exchange of prisoners, and to ask for some of the Arabic works preserved at the Escurial: he appears, however, to have imagined that these were remnants of the libraries of Cordoba, whereas they proceeded from the library of a former Emperor of Marocco, which was captured at sea whilst being transported from one port to another. The Ambassador was told that the books had been destroyed by the fire which took place about twenty years before in the Escurial, where, in fact, the greater part of the Sultan's library was burned; but about two thousand were saved, of which nothing was said to the Ambassador, and these form the actual collection of Arabic works preserved in the Escurial. M. Chenier, in his Histoire du Maroc (Paris, 1787), states that Muley Ismail took L'Arrash from the Spaniards in 1689, and that the Spanish garrison of that place was exchanged at the rate of ten Moors for each Christian: he also states that, in 1681, Hajy Themim, Governor of Tetuan, and Cassem Menino, brother of the Governor of Sallee, went to Paris in the end of December as Ambassadors, so that it is possible one of these was also employed in this Embassy ten years later.

I think it may be of some utility to the Students of the Assyrian Language to bring together in the form of a Glossary a certain number of words of which the meaning appears to be established with a reasonable amount of probability. I have here presented to the Society the commencement of such a work, to be continued, as I hope, on a future occasion. I have not followed any alphabetical order, but have numbered the words, so that in the event of their becoming sufficiently numerous, an alphabetical index referring to these numbers may be added. I have been very careful to refer to passages in which the words are found, so as to enable any one to verify their accuracy. I have used some typographical abbreviations, the prinicple of which are the following:—

The history of the Day of Judgment, and the canto of the death of the Prophet Muhammad, by Rabadan, were published in the preceding number of the Journal of the Asiatic Society. These two poems were received with much enthusiasm at Barcelona. With the exception of the history of Hexim and Abdulmutalib, none of Rabadan's poetry has been before published. It may be as well to remind the reader that Rabadan wrote in 1603. The following notes are given here, as it would have been inconvenient to give them as foot notes.

In the Ultra-Indian peninsula different layers of nationalities may be distinguished, being successive arrivalsfrom different quarters. In most cases it is difficult to determine with exactitude the time of their respective settlements; but, as a general rule, the later conquerors have driven the former possessors of the soil into the hills, appropriating to themselves the more fertile lands on the banks of the rivers; and it may be readily assumed that the inhabitants we now find in the valleys of the Menam and Irawaddi are the most recent immigrants. History shows this to be the case. Whenever, in the course of events, the empires stretching along the great rivers became weakened by luxury or broken up by internal dissensions, the rude and warlike tribes of the surrounding mountains, watchful of the growing weakness of their former masters, and the decay of their defences, have burst from their forests and made slaves of the populations of the towns. This phenomenon, not unknown in other parts of the world, has been frequently repeated in the histories of Assam and Burmah, of Siam and of Kambodia; and it is by keeping before our eyes these continual revolutions that we may collect the disjecta membra of arts and sciences from the different quarters to which they have been scattered, and arrange them under one comprehensive aspect, where each of them occupies its natural position.

Every inquiry which can elucidate the history, the laws, the institutions, or the characteristics of the people of India, ought to have a very practical interest for the people of England, and especially for that small section of them which is entrusted with her government, either more directly as connected with the India Office, or less so as members of the British Parliament. Nor can it be said that information acquired by personal inquiry from people living on the spot is the most satisfactory for the purpose, or can be considered sufficient. Such is not the case. Englishmen in India, as a rule, never mix in social intercourse with the natives. They may receive friendly visits from a few; but, in ordinary, the relations between Englishmen and the higher classes of the natives of India are either purely official or purely of a business nature, and with the lower orders those of master and servant. Again, the few natives of India who have received an English education have been effectually isolated from the great body of their fellow-countrymen, with whom they have as little real sympathy as with their English rulers. In the former case, sometimes from fear, but more often from a desire to coincide with and to please or flatter his superiors, as the Hindu historians did in the reigns of Akbar and his successors,—and in the latter, sometimes from ignorance, but sometimes also from interested motives,—the opinions of natives with which Europeans are likely to be favoured are not always a safe guide.

Mohamed Rabadan was a native of Rueda on the river Xalon, one of those Moriscoes who were driven out of Spain, chiefly on the ground that they would not and could not amalgamate with the Spaniards, and that they clung to the Arabic language and customs, and were, and always would remain Arabs, foreigners in Spain and enemies of its people. It is possible that at the time of the expulsion some of the Moriscoes did not know Spanish, but it is yet more probable that the great majority of them knew nothing of Arabic; and the best proof of this is the volume written by Rabadan.

The hill people, regarding whom I purpose saying a few words, inhabit the hill tracts of the States of Travancore and Cochin, and the base of the Annamully hills in the district of Coimbatore. They go by different names in different localities, such as Kardars, Mulliyars, Vaisharvars, Kannekarens, all of which signify “foresters,” and they are also called Mulchers or outcasts, which is probably a corruption of the Sanskrit word Mlechchha, meaning a barbarian or outcast.

Dear Mr. Palmer,—The manuscripts, of which you have been good enough to draw up the list, which I trust the Asiatic Society will print, came to us at the end of last century. The donor, Edward Ephraim Pote, was a son of Mr. Pote, of Eton, and was elected a scholar of this College in 1768. He took his degree in 1773, and seems to have entered the Civil Service of the East India Company very soon after that.

Hitherto our knowledge of ancient Buddhist architecture in India has been derived mainly from the rock cut examples. These, though most valuable for the purpose, from their number and immutability, have the defect of being all interiors, and we obtain little or no knowledge from them of what the external appearance may have been of the structural buildings which they represent. It is doubtful whether we ever shall know, in so far as the Vihâras or monasteries are concerned. These seem, like those of Burmah at the present day, to have been principally constructed of wood, and have perished by fire or decay; but our knowledge of the Topes or Sthûpas is daily extending, and we may hope soon to understand them and their arrangements with tolerable completeness.

The Bhojpurí dialect is spoken in the British districts of Chumparun, Sarun, Shahabad, Ghazipoor, Azimgurh, and Goruckpore, by a population which probably amounts to five millions. It is not, of course, the same in all these districts; but through all its variations it preserves the same general features, such as the use of the substantive verb bhá or bá the perfect in il, and other points of difference from the classical or literary type of Hindí. It is largely used as a written medium of communication by native merchants, and in all the transactions of the rural population, such as village accounts, leases, receipts, and so forth. The character is a variation of the Devanágarí, formed by omitting the horizontal top line, and is strikingly similar to the Gujarátí character, so much so that a work printed in that language can be read by a native of Chumparun. In the following remarks, however, I shall use the Devanágarí character as more generally understood in Europe.

All Sanskrit scholars must feel obliged to Professor Brock-haus for his edition of Somadeva's Kathâsarit-sâgara, the last part of which, from Lambaka ix.-xviii., was published last year. To copy a work containing 21526 slokas, to select the best readings from a great number of manuscripts, in short, to publish, for the first time, a work in such a manner that the whole affords an almost undisturbed pleasure to the reader, is a heavy task. Indeed, the editor might well say in his preface: “I may say in good conscience that the text, as given by me, is more complete and correct than it is found in any of the MSS. I used. I have corrected faults in orthography, grammar, syntax, and prosody by thousands; there remain, however, many passages which need further correction, partly on account of the condition of the MSS., partly on account of my deficient knowledge.” I willingly subscribe to these words, except the last, in which the editor has scarcely done justice to himself. In so extensive a work the sharpness of the eyes and mind becomes so blunted that it ought not to be ascribed to deficiency of knowledge if some faults are to be met with. Professor Brockhaus would certainly judge less severely of the performance of others than of his own.

In the second volume of his Chips from a German Workshop, p. 34, foot-note, the distinguished Professor Max Müller adverting to the above-mentioned dissertation, the earliest of the invaluable series which we owe to the most illustrious of English Sanskritists, makes the remark: “This Essay, I find, is a literal translation from Gagannâtha's ‘Vivâdabhangârnava,’ MS. Wilson, 224, vol. iii., p. 62.”

If the crucial instance which has already been adduced and laboured, for the intent indicated above, should be regarded as anywise inconclusive, the ensuing particulars will be found to complete my argument.

Verse 1, note 1. This hymn begins with a somewhat abrupt description of a sunrise. Indra is taken as the god of the bright day, whose steed is the sun, and whose companions the Maruts, or the storm-gods. Arusha, meaning originally red, is used as a proper name of the horse or of the rising sun, though it occurs more frequently as the name of the red horses or flames of Agni, the god of fire, and also of the morning light. In our passage, Arusha, used as a kind of substantive, has taken bradhná as an adjective,—bradhná meaning, as far as can be made out, bright in general, though, as it is especially applied to the Soma-juice, perhaps bright-brown or yellow. Names of colour are difficult to translate from one language into another, for their shades vary, and withdraw themselves from sharp definition. We shall meet this difficulty again and again in the Veda.

So long ago as the year 1847, during a temporary absence from my duties in India, I volunteered to undertake the classification of certain imperfectly determined and but partially deciphered series of coins in the East India House collection—in continuation and completion of Professor Wilson's comprehensive description of the more popular departments of Central-Asian Numismatics already embodied in his Ariana Antiqua. Among the subdivisions so treated, may be cited the Kufic Mintages of the Grhaznavides, a detailed notice of which was inserted in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1848 (vol. ix.), as well as a second article; bearing more immediately upon the subject under review, on “the Pehlvi Coins of the early Muhammadan Arabs,” which appeared in the twelfth volume of that Journal. In entering upon the examination of the available specimens of the latter class of national representative currencies, I found myself called upon to encounter a novel and very difficult branch of Oriental Palæography, the study of which, indeed, had but recently been inaugurated by the publication of Professor Olshausen's most instructive work “Die Pehlwie-Legenden:” while it was manifest that the obscure language, of which this imperfect alphabet constituted the graphic exponent, was dependent for its elucidation upon still more fragmentary and defective grammatical or lexicographical means: obstacles which the since accelerated progress of modern ethnography has, up to this time, failed to remove. Under these conditions I naturally approached this new investigation with sufficient diffidence, and sought to secure the critical soundness of any suggestive deductions that might present themselves, by a decisive appeal to every archæological test within reach.