quity and celebrity, and such is the importance attached to the favour of Asapura (the Cutch name of the goddess), that the raos of Cutch are not thought to be secure on their throne until they have visited this sacred shrine. The most productive villages in the neighbourhood belong to this sect, and more activity, comfort, and signs of opulence are to be discovered in them than in any other part of the Rao's dominions.

2

Thanks were ordered to be returned to Mr. Money for this communication. The Narrative of a Journey to Senna from Mocha, by Robt. Finlay, Esq., assistant-surgeon to the Mocha residency, was read.

Mr. Finlay's journey was performed in the months of August, September,` and October 1823, leaving Mocha on the evening of the 4th of August. His object was to visit the Imam professionally, having been sent for by his' highness for that purpose. The first part of the paper is occupied with an itinerary of his route; he then gives some account of the city of Senna,' which is situated at the foot of the mountain of Nukkum. It has a mud wall, twenty feet in height, with three gates and many small turrets; its' extent outside the wall is about three miles; the Bostani Sultán, or garden in which the Imám resides, is on the south-west of the city, and is of consi→→ derable extent; it contains a small menagerie, consisting of two very fine large African lions, some tigers, leopards, and tiger-cats. The palaces are large buildings, of four or five stories in height; the most recent was then finishing, with glass windows. The best land in the neighbourhood of Senna is on the north side, where the water runs after supplying the town. Where the fields are well-supplied with water, they will yield two good crops in the year; and when in clover, it will cut every two months: the fields are generally three years in grain and are then sown with clover, which remains five or six years. The soil is sometimes manured with ashes; many good fields are lying waste. From this subject the author proceeds to sketch the history of the Imams, and to give some account of the then possessor of that dignity, with an explanation of the constitution and government of Senna. Mr. Finlay, in the next place, describes the character and appearance of the population; their manufactures and commerce, and the revenues and military establishment of the Imam; concluding with an account of the author's return to Mocha, Thanks were returned to Mr. Finlay for his communication.

The meetings of the Society were then adjourned over the vacation, to the 6th of December.

Asiatic Society of Calcutta.-At the meeting of January 30th, the secretary (J. Prinsep, Esq.) read a report on the accounts and proceedings of the past year, confined, however, to the finances and constitution of the society.

The number of members on the list was 85; the diminutions by death and other causes (mostly departures), during the past year, 12; the additions, 14. The receipts had been Sa. Rs. 11,825, the disbursements Sa. Rs. 11,805, leaving a balance in favour of Sa. Rs, 20: amongst the receipts, however, is included the sum of Sa. Rs. 7,429, arising from the sale of stock of the society to that extent. The stock and dependencies, exclusive of dividends on Macintosh and Co.'s debt of Sa. Rs. 11,964, amount to Rs. 22,486, of which, Rs. 4,286 are outstanding contributions, attributed to the late failures.

The secretary observes that it had been his desire to lessen the burthen to paying members, by distributing his Journal free to them during the past year (for which act of liberality the society voted Mr. Prinsep its thanks); but, he adds, the result had not been so encouraging as he could have wished.

1

Mr. Prinsep states: Although it has not been thought prudent to commence a new volume of Researches, or even the printing of the index of the eighteen volumes, sanctioned by the committee of papers, the press has not been idle, and I have the pleasure to lay on the table a copy just completed of Mr. Csoma de Körös' Tibetan dictionary, printed at the expense of Government, and under the auspices of the society. M. Csoma's grammar will now be put in hand, and the whole completed in the course of the present spring." The address concludes as follows: "I have purposely refrained from alluding` to the labours of a more exalted nature, which have brightened the proceedings of the past year, because I consider it to be the privilege of the highest officer of the society to review the objects and progressive success of the institution over which he presides. Severe indisposition has, unfortunately, placed it out of the power of our president to restore the laudable custom of an annual address on the present occasion, which is the more to be regretted, as this is the jubilee anniversary of the day on which the illustrious founder of the society was elected its first president. The close of that eventful period finds the parent society shorn of all its exclusive honours, and forming but one, perhaps the humblest, of the numerous bodies associated in Europe and in India, for the prosecution of inquiries into the history, antiquities, the natural productions, arts, sciences, and literature of Asia.' The tree, which was auspiciously planted by the great Sir William Jones, to use his own expression, has long since produced its fairest blossoms, and its most exquisite fruit. It has spread its roots in distant lands, where the arts of cultivation are better understood, and the value of its produce can be more skilfully developed; but we must not forget that we here assemble under the shade of the original tree, and that, however decayed the parent stock may have become, while its more vigorous branches are taking root in France, Germany, and England; still, it is to the Asiatic Society of Bengal that belongs with propriety the motto assumed by one of its illustrious scions, Quot rami tot arbores.'"*

On the Colossal Idols of Bamian.-We reached Bamian, which is celebrated for its idols and excavations. These caves are to be seen in all parts of the valley for about eight miles, and they still form the residence of the greater: part of the population. They are called Súmuch by the people. A detached hill in the middle of the valley is quite honey-combed with them, and brings to our recollection the Troglodytes of Alexander's historians: it is called the eity of Ghulghula, and consists of a continued succession of caves in every direction, which are said to have been the work of a king named Juláll. The hill of Bamián is formed of hardened clay and pebbles, which renders its ex-: cavation a matter of little difficulty, but the great extent to which this has been carried excites attention. Caves are found on both sides of the valley, but the greater number are on the northern side, where we found the idols: altogether they form an immense city. Labourers are frequently hired to dig in the ruins, and their labours are rewarded by rings, reliques, coins, &c.› They generally bear Cufic inscriptions, and are of a later date than the age of Muhammed. These excavated caves or houses have no pretensions to architectural ornament, being no more than squared holes in the hill: some of them are finished in the shape of a dome, and have a carved frieze below the point from which the cupola springs. The inhabitants tell many remarkable tales of the caves of Bamián, one in particular, that a mother lost her child among them, and recovered it after a lapse of twelve years! The tale need

not be believed, but it will convey an idea of the extent of the works. There are excavations on all sides of the idols, and in the larger one, half a regiment might find quarters. Bamián is subject to Cábul, and would appear to be a place of high antiquity; it is perhaps the city which Alexander founded at the base of Paropamisus, before entering Bactria. The country indeed from Cábul to Balkh is yet styled Bakhtar-zamin, or ‘the Bakhtar country? The name of Bamián is said to be derived from its elevation, Búm, signifying' balcony,' and the affix ian' country.' It may be so called from the caves rising over one another in the rock.

There are no reliques of Asiatic antiquity which have more roused the curiosity of the learned than the colossal idols of Bamián. They consist of two figures, a male and a female; the one named Salsal, the other Shah Mama. The figures are cut in alto relievo in the face of the hill, and represent two colossal images. The male is the largest of the two, and about 120 feet high.. It occupies a front of seventy feet, and the niche in which it is excavated extends about that depth into the hill. This idol is mutilated, both legs having been fractured by cannon, and the countenance above the mouth is destroyed. The lips are very large, the ears long and pendent, and there appears to have been a tiara on the head. The figure is covered by a mantle, which hangs over it in all parts, and seems to have been formed of a kind of plaster, and the image has been studded in various places with wooden pins to assist in fixing it. The figure itself is without symmetry, and there is no elegance in the drapery. The hands which held out the mantle have been both broken. The female figure is more perfect than the male, and has been dressed in the same manner. It is cut out of the same hill, at the distance of 200 yards, but is not half the size. One could not discover that her ladyship was not a brother or a son of the twin colossus, but for the information of the natives.. In the lower caves the caravans to and from Cábul generally halt, and the upper ones are used as granaries by the community.

"

I have now to note the most remarkable curiosity in the idols of Bamián. The niches of both have been at one time plastered and ornamented with paintings of human figures, which have now disappeared from all parts but that' immediately over the heads of the idols. Here the colours are as vivid and the paintings as distinct as in the Egyptian tombs. There is little variety in the design of these figures, which represent the bust of a woman with a knot of hair on the head and a plaid half over the breast, the whole surrounded by a halo, and the head again by another halo. In one part I could trace a group of three female figures following each other. The execution of the work is bad, and by no means superior to the pictures which the Chinese make in imitation of an European artist.

The traditions of the people, regarding the idols of Bamián, are vague and unsatisfactory It is stated that they were excavated about the Christian era by a tribe of kaffirs (infidels), to represent a king named Salsal and his wife, who ruled in a distant country, and was worshipped for his greatness. The Hindús assert them to have been excavated by the Pandús, and that they are mentioned in the great epic poem of the Máhábhárat. Certain it is that the Hindús, on passing these idols at this day, hold up their hands in adoration, though they do not make offerings, which may have fallen into disuse since the rise of Islam. I am aware that a conjecture attributes these images to the Buddhists, and the long ears of the great figure make it probable enough. I do not trace any resemblance to the colossal figures in the caves of Salsette near Bombay, but the shape of the head is not unlike that of the great trifaced

idol of Elephanta. At Manikeala, in the Panjäb, near the celebrated tope, I found a glass or cornelian antique, which exactly resembles this head. In the paintings over the idols, I discover a close resemblance to the images of the Jain temples in Western India, in mount Abú, and at Girnar and Palitana in Katywar. I judge the figures to be female, but they are very rude, though the colours in which they are sketched are bright and beautiful. There is nothing in the images of Bamián to evince any great advancement in the arts, or what the most common people might not have executed with success. They cannot certainly be referred to the Greek invasion, nor are they mentioned by any of the historians of Alexander's expedition. I find in the history of Timourlane, that both the idols and excavations of Bamián are mentioned by Sheri'f ud Deen, his historian. The idols are described to be so high that none of the archers could strike the head. They are called Lat and Manat, two celebrated idols which are mentioned in the Koran; and the writer also alludes to the road which led up to them from the interior of the hill. There are no inscriptions at Bamián to guide us in their history, and the whole of the later traditions are so mixed up with Ali, the son-in-law of Muhammed, who we well know never came into this part of Asia, that they are most unsatisfactory. It is by no means improbable that we owe the idols of Bamián to the caprice of some person of rank, who resided in this cave-digging neighbourhood, and sought for an immortality in the colossal images which we have now described. Lieut. Burnes.-Journ. of Asiatic Society of Bengal.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

Life of Mrs. Siddons. By THOMAS CAMPBELL. London, 1834. E. Wilson.

THE admirers of the genuine drama are here presented with a delightful biography of one of its chiefest ornaments, in a work full of anecdote, enriched with sterling criticism, and delivered in a style easy, playful, and unlaboured, yet full of striking and felicitous expressions. Mr. Campbell, who undertook the task conformably to the wish of Mrs. Siddons, has interwoven in a pleasing tissue the autobiographical memoranda left by the celebrated actress, with the published records of her history and the reminiscences of her friends. He has incorporated many interesting biographical details respecting other dramatic personages,-the celebrated actresses who were the predecessors of Mrs. Siddons, for example,—and has spread over the whole work a charm, which makes it one of the most engaging pieces of personal history we ever read.

Mr. Campbell's remarks upon Macbeth (including Mrs. Siddons' reflections upon the character of Lady Macbeth), and his comparison of this masterpiece of Shakespeare with the Prometheus of Eschylus, are almost worth the price of the whole work. Nor must his judicious and qualified, though effective, defence of the stage be passed without notice.

A History of the Fall of the Roman Empire, comprising a view of the Invasion and Settlement of the Barbarians. By J. C. L. DE SISMONDI. In Two Vols. Vol. I. Being Vol. LVI. of Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia. London, 1834. Longman and Co. Taylor.

WHEN We consider that we are the descendants of the "barbarians," who wrought the tremendous revolution in the Roman Empire, this reflection suggests a reason, superadded to the ordinary motives, for acquiring a knowledge of their history. And by history is not meant a dry, minute record of reigns and wars and invasions, painful to read, and for which, indeed, there remain very scanty materials; but such a distinct picture of this dark and turbulent period, as shall enable us to discern the causes of these great events, the origin of the states which subsequently were constructed out of the ruins of gigantic but enfeebled Rome, and the seeds of the institutions which have

moulded modern European civilization into its present form. A concise and welldigested epitome will answer this end, and that before us, the product of a pen habituated to the philosophy of history, seems amply calculated for that purpose. Statistics of the United States of America; for the Use of Emigrants and Travellers. By THOMAS J. TREDWAY, of the State of Tennessee. London, 1834. E Wilson. Tuis work, by a native," is stated to be the result of twenty-years' critical examination of every state, county, and city, of the vast Federal Union, devoted to the collection of facts for the guidance of the emigrant. It professes to be written in “a plain conversational style," and is sprinkled pretty liberally with Yankeyisms and travelling anecdotes. Amongst the wonders of New York, Mr, Tredway tells us of Holt's hotel, the largest perhaps in the world, built of fine white marble, seven stories high, with an observatory at the top. "Holt," he says, "has a steam-engine, erected in his cellar and kitchen, which performs, to my own knowledge, the following duties :cooks, cleans boots, cleans knives and forks, pumps the supply of water throughout the house, carries baggage and travellers from one floor to another; and, for aught I know, washes the dishes, shaves and cuts hair, makes up the bed and sweeps the rooms. At Louisville, in Kentucky, there is a carpenter, who has a steam-engine, which planes, tongues, and grooves planks at the same time, and with very great expedition. In a short time he expects to be enabled “to cut and carve, and mortise and put together a house without trouble to labourers." Steam, in short, bids fair to destroy the demand for labour in the United States; why, therefore, the Americans should desire emigra, tion thither, we cannot well understand. This power bas its disadvantages. Mr. Tred. way tells us that, while enjoying a refreshing slumber in his berth in a steam boat on the Mississippi, he was thrown to the distance of forty feet, by the bursting of the boiler; adding, in a strain which shows that the incident is too common to produce much effect: “I did not awake before I began to experience the sensation of drowning " Universal History, from the Creation of the World to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century. By the late LORD WOODHOUSELEE, Vols. V. and VI. Being Vols. XLV. and XLVI. of the Family Library. London, 1834. Murray. THESE are the concluding volumes of this history. In our preceding notices we have sketched the plan of the work, which is, in many respects, an excellent one. The difficulty of compressing so vast a subject into a space so small, has unavoidably occasioned some portions of the history to be treated more superficially than they deserve to be. The mature student will regret that, throughout this work, modern authorities have been entirely neglected. It was the editor's duty,-a laborious one, we acknowledge, to have supplied this deficiency in the original work. In treating of Eastern history, to which our attention has been more particularly directed, this defect is very striking. The 24th and 25th chapters, and that part of the 23d which relates to India, should be expunged; they are full of errors, derived from the crude speculations of Voltaire, Raynal, and other French writers, upon Oriental history.

Facts establishing the Deleterious Properties of Rice, used as an Article of Food. By ROBERT TYTLER, M. D. London, 1833. Ramshaw and Rush.

DR. TYTLER has been induced to consider rice as an article of food which, in some states, is highly injurious to the human system, and this little pamphlet contains a body of facts and opinions, in confirmation of this theory, which are somewhat staggering. It is probably known to many of our readers that Dr. Tytler traces the Cholera Morbus (which he has termed Morbus Oryzeus) to the ouse rice, of the harvest of 1817, in India. An experiment in Allahabad jail, in 1818, seems almost to demonstrate the fact. That bad and unwholesome rice is often imported into this country, in the free-trade, must be pretty notorious: we have now before us a sample of rice of the most disgusting appearance, which has been analyzed and found to contain an oil,— whether Castor or Croton we are not told. Cheapness, however, covers every sin, and we suppose the stuff which will be brought, in free-trade, from China, under the name of tea, now that all authoritative inspection at Canton is withdrawn, will be upon a par with the rice before us. Checks to population scem arising with the presumed demand

for them.