promotion was first recognized as a regular part of the duty of Government. 1861-62 was the first year of General Cunningham's activity as a Government archæological surveyor, and from that period down to 1866, when the survey was stopped for a time, he did a great deal of useful work. In the year 1870 the survey was re-established under improved conditions by the Duke of Argyll, then Secretary of State for India, and General Cunningham was again appointed to take charge of it. He proceeded to India, organized his staff, and set about his work without delay. General Cunningham himself visited during the cold season of 1871-72 a great variety of places in the Gangetic Valley from Mathura to Lakhisarai, and he described the results of his investigations in a long report amply illustrated. He also explored the great Mahomedan cities of Gaur, Sunárgaon, and Delhi; but the account of these explorations has, so far as I am aware, not yet appeared. By no means the least generally instructive part of his report is the division into groups which he proposes to make of the archæological remains of India, which is as follows:

Hindu Styles.

1. Archaic, from B.c. 1000 to 250.

2. Indo-Grecian, from B.c. 250 to 57.

3. Indo-Scythian, from B.c. 57 to A.D. 319.

4. Indo-Sassanian, from A.D. 319 to 700.

5. Medieval Brahmanic, from A.D. 700 to 1200.

6. Modern Brahmanic, from A.D. 1200 to 1750.

Mahomedan Styles.

1. Ghori Pathan, with overlapping arches, from A.D. 1191 to 1289. 2. Kilji Pathan, with horseshoe arches, from A.D. 1289 to 1321. 3. Tughlak Pathan, with sloping walls, from A.D. 1321 to 1450. 4. Afghan, with perpendicular walls, from A.D. 1450 to 1555. 5. Bengali Pathan, from A.D. 1200 to 1500. 6. Jaunpuri Pathan, from A.D. 1400 to 1500.

7. Early Mughal, from A.D. 1556 to 1628.

8. Late Mughal, from A.D. 1628 to 1750.

In the hot season of 1871 General Cunningham's assistants, Mr.

Beglar and Mr. Carlleyle, explored, under his control, Delhi and Agra respectively, and reported very fully upon these cities, dwelling, of course, chiefly upon what was not supplied in previous accounts. In his report on Delhi, which was published this year at Calcutta, Mr. Beglar argues in favour of the opinion that the famous Kutb Minar is of Hindu origin, an opinion from which General Cunningham emphatically dissents, in a preface to his assistant's report. Mr. Beglar also believes that the Hindus had a much larger share in the architecture of the Kutb Masjid as it now stands than his superior officer will allow. General Cunningham observes:

"In the following report Mr. Beglar admits that the pillars have been more or less re-arranged, but he contends that they occupy their original positions in the colonnade of a single Hindu temple, and that their present height is exactly that of the original Hindu colonnade. Consistently with this view, he is obliged to condemn the record of the Mahomedan builder of the Masjid regarding the destruction of twenty-seven Hindu temples as a false boast. This opinion I consider as quite indefensible. The Mahomedan conqueror could have no possible object in publishing a false statement of the number of temples destroyed, nor in recording a lie over the entrance gateway of his great Masjid. I therefore accept the statement as rigidly true. It is, besides, amply confirmed by the made-up pillars of the colonnade on three sides of the court, which, as I have shown in my account of Delhi, must certainly have belonged to a great number of different temples."

I should be curious to know whether any one present who is acquainted with Delhi would subscribe to the following verdict of Mr. Beglar's, who is throughout less complimentary, as it appears to me, than his predecessors have been, to the earlier Mahomedan architects. With regard to this question, as well as to General Cunningham's division of the styles, it would be extremely interesting to hear the views of Mr. Fergusson, whose long and distinguished labours in connexion with Indian architecture are known to every one, and for a fitting presentment of whose remarkable work on Tree and Serpent Worship the India Office deserves, I think, some credit. After describing and criticizing the Alai Darwâza, Mr. Beglar says:

"How great is the difference between the Hindu Kutb and this gateway. There not a line of ornament is introduced that does not

d

point and emphasize some constructive feature; every feature there has an office to perform, and performs it well; it is emphatically a structure possessing harmony. The Alai Darwâza, on the contrary, has little of architectural ornament, and owes its beauty more to the carvings executed by Hindu workmen, the last expiring effort of Hindu art in Delhi, than to any remarkable harmony of arrangement. Indeed, on à priori grounds, we should expect this want of appreciation of truthful ornamentation among the Mahomedans, a barbarous and warlike people, whose religion narrowed their minds, naturally none of the most liberal, and demanded the suppression of æsthetic feelings. They could not be expected to reach a high standard in architecture within a short time; still less, then, could they be expected shortly after their conquest of India to produce structures worthy of admiration for harmony; and this is precisely what has happened, for, with all the aid of elaborate ornamentation, carved, be it remembered, by Hindu hands, they have not produced any structure which commands admiration independent of mere beauty of ornamentation (for which the Hindu workman deserves credit), or of sheer greatness of size, and as soon as they attempted to build without the aid of Hindu workmen, they produced what certainly is grand from sheer massiveness, but what is utterly devoid of that combination of qualities which produces in our minds the idea of beauty, independent of colour, carving, material, or mass. It is only after the Mughal conquest that Mahomedan architecture begins to be beautiful."

I have not myself seen these buildings, though I trust to have done so before many months have gone by, and should like to hear what some of those present have to say about these criticisms. In the cold season of 1871-72 Mr. Beglar examined a number of places between the Jumna and the Nerbudda, to the south-east of Agra; but his report, if published, I have not yet seen, nor have I seen the result of Mr. Carlleyle's explorations in Rajpootana during the same period. In the cold season of 1873-74 the greater part of the Central Provinces was explored by General Cunningham and Mr. Beglar, the former of whom made, at a place called Bharahut, nine miles to the south-east of the Sutna Railway station, and 120 miles to the southwest of Allahabad, some very remarkable discoveries. When Prof. Max Müller, in the course of the noble address which he yesterday

delivered to us (and which again and again forced me to think of a remark which the great Alexander von Humboldt made to me at Berlin rather more than twenty years ago-that, namely, it was an honour to England that she afforded a career to such men), approached the subject of these discoveries, I confess I was somewhat horrified. Why, I said, here is the unhappy President of the Archæological Section going to be robbed of the most interesting fact which he had to state. Happily, however, my great Aryan colleague only alighted upon the fact for one moment-fertilizing it, no doubt, when he did so, like one of those insects to which Sir John Lubbock gave the other day, at Belfast, a new interest, as the hon. member for Maidstone is apt to do to everything he touches. And so, I dare say, it will not be amiss if I give some part of General Cunningham's own account of what he has found. In a memorandum published in the "Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal" for last May, General Cunningham observes:

"In our maps the place is called Bharaod, and I believe it may be identified with the Baodaotis of Ptolemy. It is the site of an old city, which only sixty years ago was covered with dense jungle. In the midst of this jungle stood a large brick stupa, 68 feet in diameter, surrounded by a stone railing 88 feet in diameter, and 9 feet in height. The whole of the stupa has been carried away to build the houses of the present village, although it has been prostrated by the weight of the rubbish thrown against it when the stupa was excavated. When I first saw the place, only three of the railing pillars. near the eastern gate were visible above the ground, but a shallow excavation soon brought to light some pillars of the south gate, from which I obtained the measurement of one quadrant of the circle. I was thus able to determine the diameter of the inclosure, the whole of which was afterwards excavated, partly by myself and partly by my assistant Mr. Beglar. In many places the accumulation of rubbish rose to eight feet in height, and as the stone pillars were lying flat, underneath this heap, the amount of excavation was necessarily rather great; but the whole work did not occupy more than six weeks, and all that now exists of this fine railing is now exposed to view."

And again:

"Among the scenes represented there are upwards of a dozen of

the Buddhist legends called Jatakas, all of which relate to the former births of Buddha. Luckily these also have their appropriate inscriptions or descriptive labels, without which I am afraid that their identification would hardly have been possible. I look," continues General Cunningham, "upon the discovery of these curious sculptures as one of the most valuable acquisitions that has yet been made to our knowledge of ancient India. From them we can learn what was the dress of all classes of the people of India during the reign of Asoka, or about three-quarters of a century after the death of Alexander the Great. We can see the Queen of India dressed out in all her finery, with a flowered shawl or muslin sheet over her head, with massive earrings and elaborate necklaces, and a petticoat reaching to the mid-leg, which is secured round the waist by a zone of seven strings, as well as by a broad and highly ornamental belt. Here we can see the soldier, with short, curly hair, clad in a long jacket or tunic, which is tied at the waist, and a dhoti reaching below the knees, with long boots, ornamented with a tassel in front, just like Hessians, and armed with a straight broad sword, of which the scabbard is three inches wide. Here we may see the standard-bearer on horseback, with a human-headed bird surmounting the pole. Here, too, we can see the King mounted on an elephant, escorting a casket of relics. The curious horse-trappings and elephant-housings of the time are given with full and elaborate detail. Everywhere we may see the peculiar Buddhist symbol which crowns the great stupa at Sanchi used as a favourite ornament. It forms the drop of an earring, the clasp of a necklace, the support of a lamp, the crest of the Royal Standard, the decoration of the lady's broad belt, and of the soldier's scabbard."

In a recent paper in the Academy, Prof. Max Müller gave a warning on this subject, which he did not repeat yesterday, but which seems important. He said:

"Much depends on the date of these ruins, and here it is impossible to be too cautious. General Cunningham assigns them to the age of Asoka, 250 B.C., chiefly, it would seem, on account of the characters of the inscriptions, which are said to be the same as those found on the Sanchi stupa. But to fix the date of a building in India by the character of the inscriptions is a matter of extreme difficulty. The letters used for the earliest Buddhist inscriptions soon acquired a kind