directions as possible, and to render it capable of adaptation to the requirements of the various classes of people who are interested in India, and to the various kinds of Indian questions which from time to time attract the attention of the public. Another motive for not laying down hard and fast lines is that the influence of such an Institute, like that of all public institutions, depends less upon the logical fitness of the plan on which it is organized than upon the individual power and originality of the men appointed to carry it out. After making due allowance for those causes which may necessitate considerable modifications in any plan, it is nevertheless possible to indicate a few of the main lines of action which the general requirements of the case prescribe to such an Institute, and which will probably remain unaltered, however much latitude may be allowed in details. As regards lectures, the field naturally divides itself into three sections, each possessing a character of its own, and requiring a special mode of treatment. The first section refers to the general knowledge of India, embracing only the more prominent, more generally interesting, or more practically useful features. It will not be difficult to devise a course of lectures which would give a sufficient outline of the chief points of information which every one connected with or interested in India ought to possess, and which would afford the necessary preparation for understanding rightly any special Indian question. As such a general knowledge may be considered an indispensable preliminary to more special studies, it should be provided for by the establishment of permanent lectureships. These at first might be restricted to the following subjects, which would give a picture of India sufficiently exhaustive for all practical purposes, viz. :— (1.) Indian geography and statistics. (2.) The products and manufactures of India. In ad These lectureships, as covering the whole field of the past history and present condition of India, would constitute, so to speak, the permanent backbone of the Institute. dition to these subjects, which are, as it were, the preliminaries to any deeper knowledge of India, there are a variety of special subjects of great interest, and even of great practical importance, but which address themselves to a public with special predilections and special knowledge. Such, for instance, are Indian ethnology, Indian architecture, Indian decorative art, Indian archæology and mythology, and many others. Their general outlines would all, of course, be included in the fourfold series of lectures above mentioned. But no short sketch could do justice to the many special researches which are being made on each of these subjects, or to the many special applications of these researches to matters of general and practical importance. The most effective plan in this respect will be to follow the example of the Royal Institution or of the Society of Arts, and to arrange for occasional courses of lectures by some of the men who have made any of these subjects a special study. The division of the Museum into a series of typical collections will be specially favourable to the development of this kind of lecture Every one of the numerous collections illustrating the domestic and social economy of India, or its economic conditions, its art and history, will be at once an admirable theme for a lecture, which in many cases will not require to be more than a ránning commentary on the specimens contained in the collection. As, moreover, copies of these typical collections are likely to find their way to most of the important towns of England, rep ints of such lectures will be doubly useful in serving as a commentary on the collections, wherever they happen to exist. Lastly, there are other subjects which are scarcely of general interest, but which are essential to the training required by many people going out to India in a practical, official, or scientific capacity. To this group belongs the study of the various languages-Sanskrit, Pali, Arabic, Persian, Hindustani, and the other vernaculars. Under the same head comes also a special study of Indian botany, zoology, and geology. What is wanted in these subjects are not lectures, but teaching classes for the use of those who really desire to acquire a mastery of the subject Considering that the qualifications which would be required for teaching these subjects are also those which must be possessed by certain of the Library and Museum officials, it will be seen that in the case of languages some of these teaching classes can probably be established in connexion with the Library appointments, and some of the scientific classes in connexion with the Museum appointments. This section of the Institute, although its activity will be less conspicuous than that of the others, and although it will not address itself to so large a public as both the permanent and occasional series of lectures have in view, will, nevertheless, not yield to them in importance, as it is by such studies that the future workers on Indian fields of knowledge will be trained. Finally, the Institute, especially taken in connexion with the Royal Asiatic Society, which forms an important link between this country and India, and which for many reasons should be located in the same building as the Museum and Library, will afford a favourable opportunity for meetings and conferences on various questions bearing on the economical and social progress of India. INFLUENCE OF THE INSTITUTE ON THE NATIVES OF INDIA. The influence of the Institute on India will be twofold. There are the indirect advantages which accrue to India from the spread in England of correct notions about the country and its people, and there are the direct educational advantages of such an institution to the natives themselves. With regard to the first point, nothing can be more easily traced than the influence which the greater knowledge and increased appreciation of Indian literature and Indian art has exercised on English public opinion. It has established the claim of the natives of India to be considered as one of the culturable races capable of the highest civilization, and it has yielded them precedence in the decorative arts. As indicated in the preceding pages, the literature, architecture, and arts of India have become not only objects of study, but have been found full of instruction and of manifold application to matters deeply interesting to all educated men. All this has contributed to make prevalent in England those ideas of justice to India, of governing India in the interests of the governed races, which, since the days of Burke, have never wanted an advocate, but which had to fight against strong prejudices and strong interests, which it would have been difficult to overcome had not the tendency of the whole literary and artistic movement of the present times come to their aid. As it is, the effect has been considerable, not only in the general policy which this country has adopted towards India, but in the fact that English public opinion, reflected in the English governing body in India, has softened the antipathies between the conquerors and the conquered, and tended to repress that ignorant contempt for the natives which was formerly by far too universal a characteristic of Europeans living in India. Thus, even on these indirect grounds the action of the Institute, in exalting the glories of India in the eyes of England, will be felt beneficially by the natives of India. But the direct influence of the Institute on the higher education of the natives can be made of no less account. A system of high education for the natives of India has now been in operation for nearly twenty years. Its influence has been very wide, but it will be admitted that its effects have not fulfilled the originally formed expectations, although there have been brilliant exceptions. Hitherto its effects have been rather negative than positive, leading more to a develop. ment of the critical spirit, to the breaking down of old ties and superstitions, than to the growth of a cultivated class elevated standard of with new aspirations, and a more practical life. There are many things which account for the turn which education has taken in India. One of the chief of these is that real culture--that is, the direction of the whole mental and moral forces towards the accomplishment of elevated aims, whether in practical or intellectual life-is the result rather of an unconscious communication by means of personal contact and example than of mere teaching and examination, and that the education which developes this real culture consists not so much in an indoctrination with certain mental and moral propositions as in the sum total of the various causes which influence the development of mind and the formation of character, and which originate, not in any definite system of education, but in the surrounding social and political conditions. What is required is not a few more ideas, but a personal experience drawn from a very different state of society. Accordingly in all ages and in all countries travel and personal sojourn in the seats of old civilization have been the chief means by which a germ of real culture has been implanted in a backward country. The number of natives of India who annually come to England for the purpose of education is already considerable, though probably below the number coming from another Oriental country-Japan; and, whatever development high education may receive in India itself, that number is sure to increase, and it is most desirable that it should increase. An institution of the character here described might contribute to this movement, and become the centre of efforts in its direction. Among other measures to this effect a plan of studies might be easily devised which, by a combination of the lectures of the Indian Institute with lectures at University College or elsewhere in London, would supply a course of studies forming a very suitable conclusion to the College and University education now existing in India, and likely to attract young men of the best class to this country. It must be admitted that strong prejudices against leaving India even for a short time frequently exist amongst the very classes which it is most desirable to attract to this country. If, however, such a practice were to prevail, and if natives came from India, not merely to pass a competitive examination or to perfect themselves in certain professional studies, but in order to supplement and ripen their general education, the action of European education in transforming and moulding anew the old native society would be likely to become more rapid and more beneficial. As an ilustration of the kind of action which might be to some extent initiated by means of a more extended acquaintance with England, may be mentioned a development of public spirit among the ruling classes of the native community Hitherto our experience has been rather disappointing in this respect, notwithstanding remarkable individual exceptions. In Bengal, for instance, the permanent settlement and the establishment of a great class of landowners has failed to produce a class taking such a lead in all movements of public utility as the corresponding class does in England. The reasons are not far to seek. Both history and actual observation prove the existence in India of numerous classes with typical feelings of honour, likely to be animated to the highest degree by all incentives to public-spirited exertionhonour, desire of distinction, or sense of duty. The old public works sown broadcast over the country, the countless religious endowments, and the practice of charity, as proved by the great extent and universal recognition of the many claims which the Hindu family organization and the rules of caste impose upon the possession of wealth, give ample testimony to the fact that the spirit exists, so that it requires only to be guided into a different channel. The motives inspiring all these actions are now no longer operative to the same extent. The two mainsprings of high action in old India-religion and a career of arms-are now either discouraged or repressed, whilst at the same time the principal effect of the Europeanized education has been to sap the old feeling of family ties and caste obligations, which, although indissolubly connected with certain customs which appear to be an almost insurmountable bar to any deeper social progress, nevertheless, in practice, frequently exercise a beneficial influence, both by the restraints and by the obligations which they impose. At present there is no vent for these feelings, which were formerly cultivated and rendered active by religious motives or high ambition. Add to this that in native India landed property was nearly always more or less associated with an office of some kind, even though that office were hereditary, and that public action of all kinds was connected in the minds of the people with the possession of some office; whereas now the old native types of splendour and magnificence, aspirations towards which might have encouraged many to exertion, have been replaced by a body of European functionaries, who, however much good they may accomplish, are too far removed by position and education for their career to serve the natives as an incentive to ambition or as a standard of action. It is therefore fair to assume, and individual examples confirm the assumption, that the germ of public-spirited feelings does exist among the class of natives here referred to, although the old forms under which that public spirit could manifest itself are no longer fostered by the present conditions of India, and although new forms of public-spirited action are but slowly developing. But the old feelings can again be roused if connected with modes of action consistent with modern society, and such as the English Government of India can help and encourage. The question of social progress is at the root of any lasting reformation in India, and it is one in which the people themselves must take the lead, as the matter can only be approached with the greatest possible circumspection by the Government. There is probably no country in which more is effected in this respect than in England, and in the actual practice of English life the natives might find those models of public-spirited exertion under the conditions of modern society which they now miss in India. If even a certain proportion only of the natives educated in this country successfully transplant to India examples of the same generous exertion in the cause of the amelioration of the social, intellectual, and material condition of the various classes of society which characterizes this country, the cause of social progress in India will have secured a staff of practical leaders possessed of European modes of action as well as of European modes of thought, and there will in consequence be more practical results and less talkmore attention to the actual carrying out of practical reforms, and a diminution in the tendency to mere ingenious speculation outdoing the European models-a tendency which is at present too often the whole outcome of the so-called European education of India. INFLUENCE OF THE INSTITUTE ON THE TRAINING OF MEMBERS OF THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE. The organization of such an Institute would also be of especial use to the Government. None of the questions at present before it can transcend in importance that of the recruitment of the Civil Service of India, ie. the selection and training of the future rulers of the country. It is a generally received opinion that the present method is defective in some important particulars. It is urged, with great show of reason, that the present system of competitive examination does not select the men most fit for the service; and that the two years' training in this country of the selected candidates before proceeding to India is not so efficient as it should be. Various plans have been lately brought forward with the view of effecting a reform in this matter. The Indian Institute might be made instrumental in helping such a reform without great change in the existing system. Although the Institute would bear directly on the training of the selected candidates only, it is necessary to consider how far the present mode of selection can be so improved and arranged as not to be open to the many obvious charges which may be brought forward against it under the existing system of competitive examinations. A This question has of late received repeated consideration.* remarkable article in the April number of the Edinburgh Review contains one of the latest expositions of the subject. The views of the writer are based upon a comprehensive survey of all the facts relating not only to the Indian Civil Service competition, but also to the competitive examinations as carried on in other Government departments and at the Universities. In the main the writer agrees with the opinions expressed in two papers which preceded his article; viz. one on the Indian Civil Service Competitive System. by Dr Birdwood. and an article in the Quarterly Review for July and October, 1872. The opinions of the Edinburgh Reviewer may be summarized as follows: There is no perfect mode of selecting candidates for any service, and the most that can be asked for is not so much that the prevailing system should select the theoretically best men for a service, as that it should exclude candidates who are decidedly u. fitted for their duties. Whatever system be adopted, it should be surrounded by such safeguards as would insure this end. The occasional abuse of the old patronage system, and the notorious unfitness of a few of the individual men selected under it, was the reason of its break-down. The competitive system which replaced it, although there is no evidence that some of the à priori objections raised against it have been * Paper read by Dr. Birdwood, at the East Indian Association in 1872, and republished by Henry S. King and Co.-Quarterly Review, July and October, 1872, vol. 133, p. 241.- Edinburgh Review, p. 330 of No. 284, for April, 1874. See also an article by Mr Baptiste Scoones in a recent number of Macmillian's Magazine. realized, not only does not fulfil the condition here indicated, of excluding men decidedly unfit for their duties, but systematically tends to exclude some of the best class of men. Intellectual incompetency has indeed been excluded by it, but under it men may now and then be admitted into the service deficient in that general culture and in those moral qualities which make up the English gentleman, and which are attributes quite as necessary in rulers of men as mere ability and book-learning, if not much more so. The two years' subsequent training of the selected candidates, as at present conducted, does not afford any means of remedying the evil. At the same time the rules under which the examinations are now conducted have established a standard of studies different from that prevailing in the Universities, and this circumstance, taken in connexion with the present limitations of age, tends to shut out University men from the competition. The existing plan, which encourages a superficial knowledge of a variety of subjects rather than a thorough knowledge of one subject, has resulted in giving almost a monopoly of appointments to one or two "crammers," who by long practice have discovered how to obtain, by a miscellaneous course of study, the largest aggregate number of marks for their pupils. The writer of the article proposes three alternative plans, two of which are improvements on the competitive system, the third being a partial reversion to the nomination system. The details of his plans are as follows: The first proposal is first to raise the age of the candidates so as to allow men who have already obtained a University degree to enter into competition, and secondly to assimilate the system of examination to that in use at the English Universities, by abandoning mixed examinations in a variety of subjects, and selecting a certain number of candidates for proficiency in classics, a certain number for proficiency in mathematics and so on, according to the system by which, in University honours, fellowships and scholarships are made the rewards of special studies in one subject, and not of a smattering in several. The second proposal is to establish an Indian Civil Service College at Oxford, to which admittance is to be gained by open competition, the age of the candidates being lowered to that at which men usually leave the public schools for the Universities. The third proposal is a modification of the second, the admission to the Indian Civil Service College being made attainable by nomination, safeguarded by a strict pass examination, or even by a limited competition between nominated candidates, the numbers nominated being always kept in excess of the vacant places. Of these plans the first offers the most advantages especially as it would secure, if brought into connexion with the lectures and classes at the Indian Institute, all the advantages which would result in the other two plans from the common training of the candidates in the proposed college at Oxford. The raising of the age will in itself prove a very important change. Not only will the door be thus opened to University men, but it will also insure that the men actually sent out to India will arrive there with a more developed mind and body and a more formed character than sometimes happens under the existing rules. In the last examination three youths of 17 passed, and six of 18, whilst during the past ten years the numbers admitted at 17 and 18 years of age have amounted to 13 and 52 respectively. By the time these young gentlemen arrive in India they will have attained the not very mature years of 19 and 20, and a short time afterwards, in the usual course of official routine, they may be entrusted with responsible and arduous duties, on the efficient performance of which the welfare of many thousands of our native subjects may depend. Under such circumstances, the first condition, and one more important than any intellectual test whatever, is that we should send out men and not boys. This, in a great measure, would be effected by raising the present limits by three years, making the minimum age 20 instead of 17, and the maximum 24 instead of 21. The only argument of any importance which might formerly have been urged against such a course is the old theory of acclimatization, according to which it was considered essential to send out the men at an early age. All recent experience in the military and other departments seems, however, to go against this theory; and the all but universal opinion at present is, that the more mature a man is the stronger will be his resisting powers in an uncongenial climate. Another advantage of raising the age arises from the check which it will give to mere cramming. Cramming rapidly loses its effect as the mind developes its own original powers, while it is most potent in the case of boys. A paper examination, therefore, may be a fair intellectual test at an advanced age, when the slowly maturing man of original mind will have overtaken the at first apparently more advanced man with quick receptive mind and a good verbal memory, on whom cramming takes most effect. This is in itself a sufficient objection to the second proposal. By lowering the age of admission to the Indian College, competitive examinations would take place at the very age at which as a rule, deeper special knowledge cannot possibly have been obtained, and at which cramming is all powerful, and competitive examination a lottery.* The other feature of the first plan, i.e. the alteration in the sub *The fact that the lower the age the greater are the chances of the success of the cramming system is proved by the subjoined advertisement which has of late repeatedly appeared in the Times, and which is here reprinted with the omission of the name and address: "INDIAN CIVIL ENGINEER NG COLLEGE.-All Mr ****'s pupils who competed in the Examination in June, 1874, passed. It will therefore be seen by parents and guardians that the recent lowering of the age of admission by a year has been found to accommodate itself to Mr. ****'s system of education." jects and in the mode of examination, although more a matter of detail, is also of considerable importance. The chief advantage of introducing examination in special subjects, instead of in a series of subjects, is the assimilation of the practice to that prevailing at Oxford and Cambridge, because on abstract grounds a good deal may be said in favour of an education of a more general character. But whatever abstract merits a different plan might possess, it will be a great and certain advantage to secure for the Indian Civil Service a class of men, whose training is recognized to be the best preparation for public life. There is another circumstance connected with competition which ought not to be overlooked. This is the importance of attaching some weight to tests of physical development and training. In his paper on the subject, Dr. Birdwood strongly directed attention to this point. A knowledge of certain physical accomplishments, such as riding, swimming, and shooting, should be made indispensable for candidates proceeding to India. The raising of the age, accompanied by certain changes in the system of examination, would thus secure the best raw material for the service. The direct connexion of the Institute with this subject begins in the second stage, that is, in the period destined for the training of selected candidates in special Indian subjects. The lectures at the Institute would supply this training. The subjects belonging to the permanent lectureships, i.e. geography and statistics, products and manufactures, history and literature, law and administration, would be embraced in the specifically Indian training of the candidates, and should be made compulsory, while it is an open question whether it would be advisable to connect with the Institute lectureships on non-Indian subjects, such as political economy, also required in the pass examination of the candidates. The teaching classes would afford ample facility for the study of languages.-whilst the other lectures, without being compulsory, would materially add to the general culture of the candidates, and would also help to develope in their minds those feelings of interest in India, and of sympathy with native modes of thought, which form such an important element in the relations between Government officers and the native communities under their charge in India. With regard to the compulsory subjects, it will probably be admitted that the lectures in connexion with the resources of the Museum and Library would supply a more thorough knowledge of India than the books to which the candidates are now restricted, or even than lectures unconnected with the Museum collections, and that they will also be more likely to develope that habit and power of observing the characteristic features of the country and of its people which is even more important than any special knowledge whatever. The advantages afforded by the Museum will be most considerable in the case of the products and manufactures of the country,-a knowledge of which is so indispensable for a right understanding of its economic position, and so useful in the carrying out of many of the functions of an Indian officer. Thus agricultural and manufacturing statistics, and the elaboration of all measures referring to agriculture and commerce, would be much facilitated if the officers had been trained in some knowledge of products and manufactures, a know ledge for the acquirement of which they have but few opportunities when once they have become absorbed in their current duties. The association of the candidates in the same course of studies would also have advantages, by giving to them that tone, and that esprit de corps, the absence of which is now one of the most serious drawbacks of the present system. If the proposals here detailed were adopted, the question of the recruitment of the Indian Civil Service would, it is submitted, be solved in a satisfactory manner, with a comparatively slight alteration of the existing system, and without incurring the large expenditure which the foundation of a new Indian College would entail; whilst at the same time, with the help of the resources of the Museum and Library, and with the opportunities of studying the practice at the different law courts, the special training of the candidates would be more perfect in London than at any college in a University town,all the advantages of a University education being besides already secured by the change in the rules applying to the first competition. CONCLUSION. It has been shown in these pages that the foundation, in connexion with the India Museum and Library, of an Indian Institute such as that here proposed, would be a matter of great advantage both to England and to India. The aid which the cause of Oriental studies in England, and the cause of high education in India, would derive from it, are so patent and are likely to be so widely recognized, that it cannot fail to meet with public support from both countries, which it is hoped will unite in raising funds for the endowment of the chairs indispensable for such an Institute. In fact, as the usefulness of the Institute will depend largely on the amount of interest which it will succeed in enlisting in its behalf, the degree of success in raising the necessary funds will in some measure indicate the extent to which such an Institute is felt to be a public want, and show how far the public is likely to avail itself of the advantages offered by it. As already explained, the case is eminently one in which a gradual growth is both sufficient and desirable. It will be enough at first to succeed in establishing the four permanent lectureships. There will always be a certain supply of occasional lectures, even without funds devoted to such a purpose, whilst the teaching classes might be made in part self-supporting. Should success reward exertions in this respect, and should the Institute once come into actual operation, it ought to grow, both in public appreciation and in its resources by the tangible results which it is confidently expected to produce. In case the Institute should be utilized for the training of the Indian Civil Service candidates, in the manner already suggested, it will also become a question whether the Government, which will then become directly interested in the matter, should not be called upon to take upon itself a portion of the charges, the funds being furnished possibly by a re-adjustment of the expenditure already incurred annually on account of the examination and training of the candidates. But however desirable such an extension of the use of the Institute may appear, its existence is not bound up with this scheme, but rests on the broad basis of satisfying the general wants of the educated classes in England and India. Many of the papers at this sitting were delivered in as read. The next in order after Dr. Forbes Watson's was No. 2, by PROF. LEON DE ROSNY, "On the Most Ancient Chinese Palæography." In this paper Professor LEON DE ROSNY presented to the meeting some most important results of studies undertaken by him in the preparation of the philological portion of his large work on the History of the Yellow Race. His communication had special reference to a restoration of the most ancient Chinese vocabulary and grammatical rules. By a comparative study of the Japanese words derived from the Chinese, and of Chinese words borrowed from India with the religion of Buddha, he has determined the ancient phonetic form of the Chinese spoken language. He has also proved that the writing, commonly called ideographic, was not a writing composed of images (like that of the ancient Mexicans), although reported so in the writings of the Sinologues. No inscriptions can be found with the figurative characters in any of the large palæographic .collections of the Chinese, but in phonetical characters, viz. in letters expressing sounds, and not objects or ideas. The spoken language of primeval times had, in China, all the characteristics of a primitive language; it was not only monosyllabic, but was varied by an important system of musical tones or accents. The written language had been developed by a special class of literati, who wished to express ideas superior to the state of civilization of former times. They were thus obliged, in order to indicate special nuances of speech, to invent a number of different characters representing the several significations they wished to give to each word of the spoken language. For this reason, the spoken language remained bare and poor, while the written language became rich. In establishing by this method the ancient form of Chinese words, Professor de Rosny is able to make correct comparisons. No. 3 was by DR. BACHMAIER, Secretary of the Anthropological Society of Munich, and Director of the Munich Gallery, 48, Great Marlborough Street, on "Pasigraphy," a system of Universal Writing by means of numbers. The method is as follows:-The most indispensable words of a given language, say about four thousand, are numbered, and the same figures are used to denote the respectively equivalent words in another language, thus enabling an Englishman and a German, for example, though each may be ignorant of the other's tongue, to exchange ideas in writing. Thus the notion book is expressed by the common symbol 553 in every one of the dozen or so of Pasigraphical Dictionaries already published, or in course of preparation. Herr Bachmaier disclaims the merit of having originated this genial and fruitful idea, which may be clearly traced back to the former half of the seventeenth century, and whose germ seems to be found even in the writings of Cicero. Nay, the very method was anticipated by the ingenious Cave Beck of Ipswich, in his now very scarce work, published April 30th, 1657, entitled "The Universal Character by which all the Nations in the World may understand one anothers Conceptions, reading out of One Common Writing their own Mother Tongue." On the other hand, Herr Bachmaier may fairly claim the credit, not only of having greatly simplified the system, but also of having recalled public attention to the value of "Pasigraphy" as an important lever of human progress. Dr. Bachmaier has presented 300 copies of his Pasigraphical Dictionaries in English, French, and German, to the members of the CONGRESS, many of whom seem to take great interest in the system. MR. FREDERICK DREW, late Trade Commissioner in Cashmere, then read No. 4, "On the Castes and Certain Customs of the Dârds," of which the following is an abstract: The following is the list of castes among the Dards of the districts of Gilgit, Astor, and Baltistan:- Ronu, Shin, Yashkun, Kremin, Dum. Setting aside the Ronu, which seems to be local only, it is now necessary to account for the other four. The Dūms are the same as the Doms and other non-Aryan tribes of India, and, doubtless, these non-Aryans or pre-Aryans existed right in the heart of the Himalayas at the time of the invasion by the Aryan race. In support of this view, I may mention the lowest castes in the various neighbouring nations, beginning with the Dogräs, who are next to the Panjab, and going through the intermediate mountain region to Kashmir, to Ladakh, and ultimately to the Dard country. Thus the lowest class in DR. LEITNER said, as soon as Mr. F. Drew had finished :It may not be considered to be out of place for the discoverer of the races and languages of Dardistan to offer a few remarks when a paper is read on Dard castes. Mr. Drew deserves great credit for having added a few new facts, which are substantially correct, and which he could not have elicited had he not studied my publications. Had Mr. Hayward done so, he would, probably, not have been murdered, for I could have informed him of the precise relations of his murderer, Mir Vali of Yasin, with the Maharaja of Kashmir, and he might have added to my Vocabularies, instead of trying to go over the same ground. It is absolutely necessary for me to mention this, as some Society may again wish to undo history and send out a man to gain the credit of making inquiries at first hand, but really send him to his destruction by not supplying him with the Dialogues, History, etc., etc., which I was the first to commit to writing from the mouths of the Dards, and which are the key to their confidence. Nothing could be more desirable than that those who follow me should point out my errors, as long as they will add to our knowledge, which they can only do by availing themselves of the labours of their predecessors. As I have only published the actual results of my inquiries, and never mentioned anything about my own adventures and views, there is nothing in the already issued parts of Dardistan which can be consigned to the waste-paper basket. That the Dard languages are, at least, contemporaneous with Sanskrit has been confirmed by my subsequent investigations each have similar occupations, and may be presumably of one origin. The Kremin caste among the Dards is a mixed one and analogous to the Sudras of India. The Yashkun and Shin evidently constituted the Dard nation at the time of its coming to those parts. The only distinction between these two to be observed, is a certain very peculiar custom of the Shin, consisting in their treatment of the cow. Lastly, while most of the Dards in these parts are Mahomedan, some few villages of them have adopted the Buddhist faith from the Tibetans whom they came in contact with. These seem to have been Shin, of an early Dard migration. in the languages--altogether eleven-between Kabul and Kashmir; but what we want is not imaginative philology, but actual researches among the nations abroad. There is too much library knowledge and too little living knowledge of languages and races. When any great philologist is unable to ask for food in any of the languages on which he is an authority, one is almost tempted to question his claim to leadership. The severity of these remarks is justified by the cliqueism or routine condition to which some Asiatic Societies are tending, and out of which Congresses such as these are meant to rouse them. This brings me to another subject which it was understood I was to bring before you to-day had there been time-namely, the account of the Oriental movement in Northern India, its great past and prospective success, and its bearing on the researches of most of the Sections of this Congress. Many here know the value of that movement on the studies of Orientalists in Europe, and are prepared to support it. Much of what has been noticed in the Address of the President of the Aryan Section has been due, either directly or indirectly, to the unceasing efforts of the promoters-native and European-of the Panjab University movement since 1865, efforts which have now received the sanction of an enlightened Government, and without a full knowledge and appreciation of which the best summary of Oriental progress must necessarily be incomplete. The 5th paper was by BASIL H. COOPER, Esq., B.A.,— MENTIONED ON THE ROSETTA STONE. IT is no less true than strange that the Thirty-Year Cycles, of which, on the Rosetta Stone, the king is said to be "lord, like Ptah the Great," are still in use all over the Moslem world. The Hegira starts from the first day of such a Cycle, just as the Olympic Era did thirteen centuries before, between which, again, and that of Nabonassar a triakontaëteris intervenes. Tyre was founded at the beginning of such a Cycle, and ships left her harbours to plant Carthage at the beginning of another. In the oldest chronology of the cultivated Mediterranean peoples this marvellous measure of time has played the most important part. There is reason to believe it was in use in Egypt before Menes began to reign, and in the Roman and Greek Historians there are several distinct traces of the belief that it was used by the primeval nations of the Dardanian and Phrygian stock. In Plutarch we find a notice of a Thirty-Year Cycle being known to the islanders of the Northern Ocean, and Pliny particularizes the Druids of Britain as having used a lunar Triakontaëteris. But these seem to be the last shadowy traditions of anything of the sort in the West. In the East it is otherwise. In Arabia, where Islam, with the Crescent as its standard, sprung up, and which we must not forget is conterminous with Egypt, the national reckoning by the moon, with no more heed paid to the sun than if it did not shine at all, was, as Ideler has shown, not only in use long before Mahomet, but had prevailed from time immemorial. Now it is precisely in the Sinaïtic peninsula that we meet with plain and conclusive proofs, on the Egyptian monuments of the Sixth Dynasty, of the use of this Thirty-Year Cycle in those regions in the fourth millennium B.C. The Moslem 60 Triacontaëteris consists of 10631 days: 30 Free Lunar It is now a dozen years or so since, whilst looking over Lepsius's copies of the inscriptions of the Sixth Dynasty in the Great Room of the British Museum, with Mr. C. W. Goodwin at my side, I first noticed the fact, which I forthwith mentioned to that gentleman, that between the there recorded dates of the first extra Triakas of the Cycle, 27 Epiphi (Day 327) in the 18th of Phios (so I read with Manetho the monumental name, not Pepi, as my brother Egyptists), of the Sixth Dynasty, and the First Extra Triakas, 3 Paophi (Day 33) of Mentuophthis II., of the same Dynasty, the interval is exactly 6 x 10631 Days, or Six of the Moslem Thirty-Year Cycles. Two years further study of all the literary and monumental evidence within my reach relative to the subject enabled me to identify these dates of the old Anepagomenic Year, with 9 March, B.C. 3568 and 28th Oct. B.C. 3394 respectively. This Anepagomenic Year died out 50 centuries ago.* A third definite instance of the first of the eleven Intercalations of the Cycle is furnished by the invaluable Four Hundred Year Stela of Tanis. Its date 4 Mesori (Day 334) is to be referred to the local Fixed Year, that introduced by Salatis, founder of the Hykshos sway in Egypt, as we learn from an important Manethonian fragment preserved by the Scholiast on Plato. This fragment distinctly makes the first year of the new Kalendar, which it says was introduced by Salatis, to have been one of 366 days, according to both the context and the MS. reading. The year of the Tanite Stela, the 400th of the Era of Sethos, who headed the last Hykshos House (Dyn. XVII.), is the last of the first native Egyptian king of the same name, and the first of his associated son Ramses II. or Sesostris. Numerous Silsilis inscriptions, recording a whole series of Triacontaëteric dates, all of them marked by a peculiar addition to the year-disk,† give the 30th of Ramses II. as the year in which the First of the Eleven Intercalations of a Cycle took place, enumerating besides all the rest, up to the Sixth Intercalation in his 45th. At present I am concerned with the First only of the number in his 30th year, which, since the cycle consists of 291/, civil years, dates in the king's 1st year as well as in his 30th. In the notation of the initial date of the Four Hundred Year Stela of Tanis the peculiar symbol just spoken of, which marks it as Triacontaëteric, occurs. We have here, therefore, a welcome means of comparison with our Sinaïtic dates. The reduction for the Tanite monument gives 28 July, B.C. 1269, between which and 28 Oct. B. C. 3394 are 776064 days, or just 73 Thirty-Year Cycles. The very first day of the New Fixed Kalendar of Salatis, the 30th Aug. B.C. 2086, is another *Several years afterwards I found a lingering relic of it in a Nubian Temple. This isolated example of its survival is of the time of Thothmes the Great, and critically confirms his apxn (B.C. 1515) as deduced by me, from the Sothiac and New Moon monumental dates of his reign, fourteen years ago. The important inscription (which equates Pharmuthi 21 in the 2nd year of Thothmes III. with the New Year's Day of the Anepagomenic Kalendar) is found in Leps. Denkmäler III. 55, a. A revised form of my astronomical argument for the apxn of Thothmes III. may be found in the Chevalier Ernst Bunsen's "Chronology of the Bible," (App. Note IV.) Lond.: 1874. = It is the sign of duplication. Since in Coptic the word Set duplex, and since in the inscriptions the word denoting the intercalation is identical, the Egyptians would seem to have looked on the Extra Triakas as a doubling of the last day of the month, which in the usual course would have had but 29 days, The insertion of the sign of duplication in the Year-disk stamps the date as Triacontaëteric. Between the Festival of the First Intercalation in the sixteenth year of Queen Amenses (Hatasu), co-regent with her younger brother Thothmes III., a Triacontaëteric date recorded on her Golden Obelisk at Thebes, and the similar Festival of the First Intercalation in the first year of Ramses II. must be exactly x Cycles. The Manethonian chronology, as it stands in Josephos, proves that x 8. Manetho's text, as restored after the monuments, gives the interval of 29 1/8th x 8 233 civil years. Amenses reckoned her reign from the apxn of her elder brother and consort Thothmes II., whereas Thothmes III. Triacontaëteric epoch. It will be found on calculation to coincide, not indeed with a first or any other intercalation, but with the exact apxn of the Cycle just two lunar years before. Thus our Sinaïtic dates of the Sixth Dynasty are verified absolute ones. The all-important Total, in the Turin Ramesside Papyrus, viz. (1)355 Years from Menes to the end of that Dynasty, enabled me thus to climb to the Epoch of the Protomonarch B.C. 4736. This result I communicated at the time to several literary friends, not however stating in every case the steps by which it was reached. Amongst them were the late Dr. Hincks, whose letter acknowledging the announcement I have by me, Herr Pruner Bey, the founder of the French Anthropological Society, M. Brunet de Presle, of the Institut, Professor Oppert, and others. Four years ago, Mr. Gladstone, who has more than once assured me of his kindly interest in my researches, was made acquainted with my opinion. I had already noticed that Diodoros (i. 69) expressly assigns to the Egyptian Monarchy a duration of 4700 years before his visit to Egypt in B.C. 55, and that Lepsius in his "Letters from Egypt gave conjecturally B.C. 4800 as the date of Menes. To the Nestor of modern Egyptian research I gladly own myself indebted for the hint which has led me to discover what I conceive to be a rigid scientific proof that this conjecture of his was right. It is only, however, within the last eighteen months that I have been able to see that the date for Menes deduced from the Sinaïtic inscriptions and the Turin Pharaonological Papyrus is none other than Manetho's own. He placed the accession of Bocchoris, as we learn from Josephos, Ol. vii. =. B.C. 753-2, and an Apis Stela affords an astronomical verification of the date. At the end of this king's reign of six years we find in the Summary of Manetho given by Africanus what Scaliger long ago perceived must be a relic of the reckoning from Menes. It is "990 years." Unger, in his recent work on Manetho, has revived this idea of Scaliger's, and reads (4)990 years. I read (3)990. The special reason for a summation here is obvious. The Apis-Death eclipse on the 5th Thoth in the 6th of Bocchoris is that of 3rd March, B.C. 748, But this year is that immediately preceding the famous Era of Nabonassar B.C. 747. From Menes to the year before Nabonassar, Manetho reckoned 3990 Memphite or imbissextile years. In other words, he dates the Epoch of the Protomonarch B. C. 4736. reckoned his from his brother's death. Manetho probably called Thothmes II., as he does his father and immediate predecessor Thothmes I., by the name Xe[ve]Bpwv. This hypothesis would, at all events, best explain the fact that Thothmes II. and his short reign of one year and nine months have dropped out of all the texts. The monumental archetype Chanefru is really found in each of the two family scutcheons. Moreover the fragments of Artapanos, who wrote one or two centuries before Josephos, clearly distinguish between two successive Pharaohs named Chenephres, under the latter of whom they date the Hebrew Exodus. See his Chronologie der Egypter, pp. 161-5. Then followed in order No. 6, a paper "On the Andamans and Andamanese," by DR. DOBSON. The REV. J. LONG, from Calcutta, then presented to the Congress the 7th paper, "On Oriental Proverbs, and their Use." The subject, however, treated chiefly of Indian proverbs. The reverend gentlemen has been for years engaged in making a collection of the Proverbs of India, and he has published in Calcutta 6000 Bengali proverbs, which he had gathered through the agency of pandits and women. He has also recently published a book, called "Christian Truth in an Oriental Dress," illustrating the dogmas and morals of the Bible from Eastern proverbs and proverbial sayings, emblems, etc. The paper discusses the use of Oriental Proverbs in relation to Philology, throwing light on the archaism of language, and the affinity of the Indian and Turanian dialects. On Ethnology, proverbs are the coins which hand down many things relating to the people; their investigation may give a clue to the mutual relations between the Aryan and Non-Aryan tribes of India. On Sociology, proverbs show the natural intelligence of women and peasants in the East, classes which have been too often regarded as very stupid by those who judge by the standard of book-learning. Proverbs afford in many cases interesting glimpses into the social condition of a people. They refer to a variety of customs and practices, affording vistas into domestic life. They are the keys to the feelings and opinions of women, who largely use them in the East. In connexion with Missions, Proverbs may do great service. They give point to sermons addressed to the common people, and are valuable auxiliaries in the formation of a Christian vernacular literature. The paper dwells on the importance at the present time of Oriental Societies exerting themselves to make complete collections of Proverbs, with their interpretations. Native society is in a transition state, and old things are disappearing; traditionary knowledge is dying out. Steps therefore might be taken to make a complete collection of the Proverbs in the fifteen leading languages of India, with those of the Aboriginal tribes, along with the interpretation or interpretations assigned to them by the common people. When collected, these should be classified and compared, so as to throw light on the various questions of Philology, Ethnology, and Sociology that are connected with them. Russian Proyerbs also, as semi-Oriental and having a relation with the question of the Turanian languages, are deserving of notice. These inquiries might be carried out through Oriental Societies, the Native Press, and the Department of Public Instruction. |