ble timber and elephants peculiar to the Bháver, or to obtain the much-prized drugs and dyes, horns and hides, (deer and rhinoceros,) ráls and dhúnas (resin of Saul and of Cheer), and timber of the Dhúns. Nor is there a single tribe of Highlanders between the Cósí and the Sutlej which does not discriminate between the Tarai or Tari, the Jhári or Bháver, and the Dhúns or Máris. Captain Herbert has admirably described the geological peculiarities and external aspect of each of these well-known tracts. His details are, indeed, confined to the space between the Káli and the Sutlej; but the general characteristics of these tracts he affirms to be equally applicable to all the country between the Méchi and the Sutlej; and Captain Parish, whilst confirming Herbert's statements, makes them so likewise as far westward as the Beas.† What Captain Herbert states as holding good from his own personal researches in regard to the Western Himalaya (Sutlej to Káli), I can confirm from mine in regard to the Népálese portion (Káli to Méchi), but with this reservation that no more in the Western than in the Népálese Himálaya does the Sandstone range, with its contained Dhúns, prevail throughout or continuously, but only interruptedly or with intervals; and thus the Sallyánmári, the Gongtali-mári, the Chitwan-mári, the Makwanpur-mári, and the Bijaypur-mári of Népál (which are mostly separate), represent with perfect general accuracy the Deyra, Kyarda, Pinjor, Pátali, and other Dhúns to the westward. The accompanying sectional outline will give a more distinct idea than any words could do of the relations of the Disposition of parts in the lower region of the Himalaya.

several parts of the lower Himalayan region to the plains on the one hand, and to the mountains on the other, according to Captain Herbert's views. The continuous basal line represents the level of the plains; the dip on the left, the Tarai; the ascending slope in the centre, the Saul forest; the dip on the right, the Dhúns or Máris. It is thus seen that the Tarai sinks below the level of the plains; that the forest forms a gradual even ascent above that level; that the Dhúns continue the ascent to the base of the true mountains, but troughwise, or with a concave dip; and, lastly, that the Dhúns are contained between the low Sandstone range and the base of the true mountains. The Tarai is an open waste, incumbered rather than clothed with grasses. It is * J. A. S. B., number 126, extra pp. 33 and 133, et seq. +J. A. S. B., numbers 190 and 202, for April 1848-49.

notorious for a direful malaria, generated (it is said) by its excessive moisture and swamps-attributes derived, first, from its low site; second, from its clayey bottom; third, from innumerable rills percolating through the gravel and sand of the Bháver, and finding issue on the upper verge of the Tarai (where the gravelly or sandy débris from the mountains thins out), without power to form onward channels for their waters into the plains. The forest is equally malarious with the Tarai, though it be as dry as the Tarai is wet. The dryness of the forest is caused by the very porous nature of that vast mass of diluvian detritus on which it rests, and which is overlaid only by a thin but rich stratum of vegetable mould, everywhere sustaining a splendid crop of the invaluable timber tree (shorea robusta), whence this tract derives its name. The Sandstove range is of very inconsiderable height, though rich in fossils. It does not rise more than three to six hundred feet above its immediate base, and is in some places half buried (so to speak) in the vast mass of débris through which it penetrates." The Dhúns are as malarious and as dry as the Bháver. They are from five to ten (often less, in one instance more) miles wide, and twenty to forty long, sloping from either side towards their centre, and traversed lengthwise by a small stream which discharges itself commonly into one of the great Alpine rivers-thus the Ráputi of Chitwan-mári falls into the Gandak, and that of Bijaypúr-mári into the Cósí. The direction of the Máris or Dhúns is parallel to the ghát line of the snows, and their substratum is a very deep bed of débris, similar to that of the Bháver, but deeper, and similarly covered by a rich but superficial coating of vegetable mould which, if not cultivated, naturally produces a forest of Saul equal to that outside the Sandstone range, and then in like manner harbouring elephants, rhinoceroses, wild bulls (bibos), wild buffaloes, rusas, and other large deer (rucervi), with creeping things (pythons) as gigantic as the quadrupeds. The height of the Sandstone range Captain Herbert estimates at 3,000 feet above the sea, or 2,000 above the plains adjacent; and that of the Dhúns (at least the great one), at 2,500 above the sea, and 1,500 above the plains. These measurements indicate sufficiently the heights of the lower region, and it is observable that no elevation short of 3,000 to 4,000 feet above the sea suffices to rid the atmosphere of the lower Himálaya from malaria. Thus, the Tarai, the Bháver and the Dhúns are alike and universally cursed by that poisonous atmosphere.

The low range which separates the Dhún and Bhaver, on the high-road to Káthmándú, consists almost wholly of diluvium, rounded pebbles loosely set in ochreous clay, such as forms the great substratum of the Dhún and Bháver. The sandstone formation only shews itself where the rain torrents have worn deep gullies, and it there appears as white weeping, sand imperfectly indurated into rock. Crude coal, shale, loam, are found in this quarter, but no orgauic fossils, such as abound to the westward.

a By "diluvium" I merely mean what Lyell expresses by "old alluvium." I advert not to the deluge, but simply imply aqueous action other than recent, ordinary

and extant.

And this (by the way) is one among several reasons* why I have assigned 4,000 feet of elevation as the southern limit of the healthful and temperate midregion; that above it being the arctic or boreal, and that below it, the tropical region, though it must never be forgotten that much of the tropical characters, especially in the course of the seasons, pervades the whole breadth (and length likewise) of the Himalaya, whatever be the decrement of heat, and also that, from the uncommon depth of the glens in which the great rivers run, and which, in the central and even upper region often reduces the height of those glens above the sea below the limit just assigned for salubrity, such glens are in both these regions not unfrequently as malarious as is the whole lower region.†

But the above characteristics of the sub-divisions of the lower Himálayan region, how noticeable soever to the west of the Méchi, are by no means so to the east of that river, where a skilled eye alone can painfully detect the traces of the sandstone formation (without which there can be, of course, no Dhúns,) and where the Tarai, considered as a trough running parallel to the mountains, form no marked feature of the country, if indeed in that sense it can be said to exist at all. And as, even to the westward, the Sandstone range, with its contained Dhúns, is by no means constant, it may be desirable to attempt to characterise the lower region considered as a whole, without reference to local peculiarities or too rigidly defined sub-divisions. Now I conceive that the lower region owes its distinctive character, as a whole, to the vast mass of diluvial detritus, which was shot from the mountains upon the plains, like gravel from a cart,

That 4,000 feet of elevation form a good demarcation of the tropical and temperate regions of the Himalaya, is well denoted by the fact, that this is the point where snow ceases to fall, as I have ascertained in the Central and Eastern Himálaya by the observations of thirty years. What I mean is, that snow just reaches that limit and never falls beyond it or below it. It may be otherwise in the Western Himalaya, where snow is more abundant at equal elevations. The small or hill species of bamboo, which prevail from 4,000 to 10,000 of elevation, mark with wonderful precision the limits of the central healthful and normal region of the Himalaya. These most useful species (there are several) would doubtless flourish in Europe.

+ Thus the valleys of the Great Rangit and of the Tishta, near and above their junction, are not more than 1,000 feet above the sea, at a distance nearly intermediate between the plains and the snows, and in the midst of the central region; and those valleys are consequently as malarious as the Tarai. So also the valleys of the Sunkósi at Damja and of the Trisúl below Nayakot, and many others well known to me.

In my recent expedition in the Tarai east of the Méchi, with Dr. Hooker, that accomplished traveller first detected traces of the sandstone formation, with imperfect coal, shale, etc., in a gully below the Pankabari Bungalow, as well as at Lohagarh. The sandstone rock barely peeped out at the bottom of the gully lying in close proximity with the mountains, so that nothing could be more inconspicuous than it was as a feature in the physiognomy of the country.

at some great geological epoch, and which has been, since its deposit, variously and often abraded both in degree and direction, by oceanic, and, in a far less degree, by ordinary floods. Where there was, at the epoch in question, no sandstone range to intercept the downward spread of the débris, this débris would necessarilly be carried further south, and be of less thickness; where there was such a barrier, it would be carried less far southward and be accumulated in greater thickness, especially within the barrier; and, in like manner, where no sandstone range existed, but only spurs, sent forth, like bent arms, upon the plains from the mountains, the embayed detritus would still be deeply piled and lofty within such spurs, and thinly and unequally spread without them, by reason of the action of the spurs on the currents. Again, where, as from Gowhatty to Saddia, there was not room upon the plains for the free spread and deposit of the descending Himálayan detritus, owing to large rapid rivers and to other chains, both parallel and proximate to the Himalaya, the phænomena created elsewhere by the more or less unrestricted spread of the Himálayan detritus over the plains would necessarily be faintly, if at all, traceable. Lastly, if at the time of the descent of the débris, there existed a great dip in the Gangetic plains from north-west to south-east, the lithologic character, as well as the distribution, of the débris, would be materially affected thereby; for the subsiding oceanic current would have a set from the former to the latter quarter, and would continue to lash the gravel into sand, and here to deposit both in a series of terraces, there perhaps utterly to displace both, in the latter quarter long after the former had emerged from the waves.

(To be continued.)

*There is a signal example of this on the road to Darjeeling via Pankabari, where the débris, embayed by a curving spur, is accumulated to several hundred feet, and where, moreover, there is outside the spur a conspicuous succession of terraces, all due to oceanic forest, and clearly shewing that the subsidence of the seab was by intervals, and not at once. Constant observation has caused the people of the Tarai to distinguish three principal tiers of terraces, from the prevalent growth of trees upon each. The highest is the Saul level, the middle the Khair level, and the lowest the Sissu level; Shorea, Acacia and Dalbergia being abundantly developed on the three levels as above enumerated.

I do not imply by this phrase any reference of the theory that the sea has sunk and not the land risen. I think the latter much the preferable hypothesis, but desire merely to infer a change in the relative level of the two, and to link my facts upon the string of an intelligible system.

Reviews.

Vocabulary and Handbook of the Chinese Language. In two vols. Romanized in the Mandarin Dialect. Vol. i. By the Rev. JUSTUS DOOLITTLE, author of Social Life of the Chinese. Foochow, China. London: Trübner & Co. 1872. Such a volume as this, containing a very full vocabulary of the Chinese language arranged as an EnglishChinese dictionary, was much wanted. With the exception of Dr. Medhurst's very full, but yet incomplete work, which was printed in Shanghai some twenty-five years ago, and which is now extremely rare, there is no work adequate to supply the English student with the Chinese equivalents for the words of his own language. While the Japanese have been continually improving their dictionaries of English, the Chinese have done absolutely nothing, if we except mere word-lists prepared by the inefficient native teachers at Canton and elsewhere. The work before us is an attempt to provide for this manifest want, and if we take into consideration the fact that the compiler has had to deal with an immense mass of material, collected by various persons, and that the work was printed in a city where the English press has only been recently introduced, both the editorial and the typographical branches of the work deserve credit. With respect to the matter itself we have little to say, there is not much scope in a mere vocabulary for the display of the literary faculty. The various significations of the words are pretty well distinguished by the phraseology under each. By giving a few of the phrases in English, we shall be better understood; under the word Imperial, we have:

ducing by employing the principle of division of labour, and general co-operation, a really useful and trustworthy work.

The Indian Musalmáns. By W. W. Hunter, L. L. D., Director-General of Statistics to the Government of India. etc. Second edition. London: Trübner & Co. 1872.

This work, by an author who has already made his mark by such works as the Annals of Rural Bengal and his Dictionary of the Non Aryan Languages of India and High Asia, commands attention. It is the recital of one of the standing dangers which threatens our rule in India. The writer has forcibly drawn the picture of the Rebel Camp on the North-western Frontier and of the chronic conspiracy within our territory. He shows how the Muhammadans have been leagued against us and how wonderfully they have been able to elude our vigilance and carry on their plots under the very eyes of our judicial officers. He does not however fail to show what are the wrongs of the Musalmáns under our rule, and he indicates the direction in which these wrongs may be redressed, and our conduct to the Muhammadans in India amended.

The futility of our system of our Public Instruction as far as that might affect Muhammadans, is well described in the following extract :

"Our system of Public Instruction ignores the three most powerful instincts of the Musalmán heart. In the first place, it conducts education in the vernacular of Bengal, a language which the educated Muhammadans despise, and by means of Hindu teachers, whom the whole Muhammadan community hates. The Bengáli schoolmaster talks his own dialect and a vile Urdu, the latter of which

besides phrases for Imperial body-guard,

missioner, proclamation, physician,

palace, throne, - reply, glance, commands, -papers, edicts.

kindred,

calendar

com

Under Heaven, a variety of useful phrases occur, and under Hell, we have the names of the Buddhist hells. Under Rank we have the insignia of nine ranks. The words of extensive meaning in English, such as, take, get, raise, make, etc., are well elucidated. The work is a valuable addition to our materials for the study of Chinese. We shall look with interest for the appearance of the second volume, which will consist of two parts; first, a collection of phrases, arranged alphabetically, but not" Romanized "--by which Mr. Doolittle means that the Chinese characters are not represented by the letters of the Roman alphabet, no transliteration being given; second, tables and lists of terms and phrases contributed by gentlemen in the Consular, Customs, and Missionary services.

Mr. Doolittle has drawn from all the sources within his reach, and has produced, and is pro

it is to ourselves. Moreover, his gentle and timid character unfits him to maintain order among Musalmán boys. Nothing on earth,' said a Muham

madan husbandman recently to an English official, 'would induce me to send my boy to a Bengáli teacher.' In the second place, our rural schools seldom enable a Muhammadan to learn the tongues necessary for his holding a respectable position in life, and for the performance of his religious duties. Every Muhammadan gentleman must have some knowledge of Persian, and Persian is a language unknown even in our higher class District schools. Every Musalmán, from the peasant to the prince, ought to say his prayers in one of the sacred languages, Persian or Arabic, and this our schools have never recognised. It was lately asserted on high authority, that the prayers of the Musalmáns find no acceptance with God unless they are offered in the prescribed tongues. In the third place, our system of Public Instruction makes no provision for the religious education of the Muhammadan youth. It overlooks the fact that among the Hindus a large and powerful caste has came down from time immemorial for supplying this part of a boy's training, while among the Muhammadans no separate body

of clergy exists. Every head of a Musalmán household is supposed to know the duties of his religion, and to be his own family priest. Public ministra

tions are indeed conducted at the mosques; but it is the glory of Islám that its temples are not made with hands, and that its ceremonies can be performed anywhere upon God's earth or under His heavens. A system of purely secular education is adapted to very few nations." (pp. 181-2).

And again, page 184. "While we have created a system of Public Instruction unsuited to their wants, we have also denuded their own system of the funds by which it was formerly supported." Dr. Hunter shows that from the time of Warren Hastings to 1819, the attempts to seize the rentfree grants had failed, and that it was not until 1828 and the succeeding eighteen years this was done. The State then at an outlay of £800,000 on resumption proceedings added £300,000 a year to the revenue, representing a capital of £6,000,000, and a large part of this sum was derived from lands held rent-free by Musalmáns or by Muhammadan foundations.

The whole work constitutes a powerful appeal to the good sense of our Indian Rulers to do justice to our Muhammadan subjects in Hindostan. Another extract will shew how even the existing means of education for Muhammadans fails:

"During exactly ninety years, a costly Muhammadan College has been maintained in Calcutta at the State expense. It owes its origin, like most other of the English attempts to benefit the people, to Warren Hastings. In 1781 the Governor-General discerned the change which must inevitably come over the prospects of the Musalmáns, and tried to prepare them for it. As the wealth of the great Muhammadan Houses decayed, their power of giving their sons an education which should fit them for the higher offices in the State declined pari passu. To restore the chances in their favour, Warren Hastings established a Muhammadan College in the Capital, and endowed it with certain rents towards its perpetual maintenance. Unfortunately for the Musalmáns, he left its management to the Musalmáns themselves. Persian and Arabic remained the sole subjects of instruction, long after Persian and Arabic had ceased to be the breadwinners in official life. Abuses of a very grave character crept into the College, and in 1819 it was found necessary to appoint an European Secretary.

Between 1851 and 1853, however, the authorities awoke to the necessity of doing something towards reforming an Institution which had become a public scandal. The result of the proposals then put forward amounted to this. The College was divided into two Departments, the lower of which, under the name of the Anglo-Persian Branch, taught Urdu, Persian, and English up to a very modern standard. The upper Department was devoted entirely to Arabic. The defects of this plan soon became apparent. When the youths passed into the purely Arabic Branch, they forgot what they had learned in the more miscellaneous lower Department.'" (pp. 199, 200.)

Dr. Hunter believes that an efficient system of education for Musalmáns might be organised at a small charge to the State, and by the modification of the rule that two schools within five miles of each other should not receive government assistance. As these schools exist only for the Hindus he suggests that State grants-in-aid should be given to Musalmán schools within that limit, and occasionally a Muhammadan teacher be appointed to the existing Hindu school. So much for peasant schools; but the whole question of middle class schools and a college for the higher Muhammadan education is fully discussed. It is impossible to do justice to it in this brief notice. The book should be read.

A Grammar of the Japanese Written Language; with a short Chrestomathy. By W. G. ASTON, M.A., Interpreter and Translator to H.B.M's Legation, Yedo, Japan. London: Printed for the author at the Office of the Phoenix. 1872.

In the preface to this work we are informed that, "This treatise contains the results of a first study of some of the principal works of native writers on Japanese Grammar." In fact, here we have a scientific development of Japanese ideas of the grammar of their language. Who ever heard of Japanese or Chinese grammarians! and yet within that great pile of intellectual results, which is extant in the books of China and Japan, there must be something on grammar, some notions regarding the value of verbs and particles, and the differences of position and intonation, etc. And it does Mr. Aston very great credit that he has discovered (pour le première fois as the French are fond of saying) some of the most important rules which concern the grammar of the Japanese. These he has discovered in a number of books (of which he gives a list at the end of his book) which belong to the class called by the Japanese

Ka Gaku

that is, the Ars Poetica, or the learning necessary in the composition of verse, ka or uta. So that the "authority of all the poets" holds good in Japan as amongst us Westerns, and that authority was to be had for the search. We cannot therefore sufficiently thank Mr. Aston for his investigations in a direction which even the old Jesuits of Amacusa missed. The work is adorned with elaborate tables of the written character in use in Japan, and by a chrestomathy of extracts in several styles of composition with full explanations and translations. The subject of Japanese grammar has been very carefully handled by the Professor in Leiden, Dr. J. Š. Hoffmann, but often too fully and diffusely, and the student is impatient to arrive at practical results.

The following extract from the introduction well shews the character of Mr. Aston's style.

"In its structure, the Japanese language possesses all the characteristics of the Altaic family. It is an agglutinative language, that is to say, the roots of words suffer no change, and the results which are obtained in European languages by inflection, are arrived at in Japanese by the use of separate

particles suffixed to the root. Like the other languages of this family, Japanese has no formative prefixes such as the German GE, or the reduplication of the perfect of Latin and Greek verbs. Its poverty in conjunctions, and copious use of participles instead, is another point of resemblance. The Japanese language is further an example of the rule common to all languages of this family that every word which serves to define another word invariably precedes it. Thus the adjective precedes the noun, the adverb the verb, the genitive the word which governs it, the objective case the verb, and the word governed by a preposition a preposition."

A few more extracts from the work itself will best show its character:

"In Japanese, inflection has nothing to do with voice, mood, tense, person, gender, number, or case. Instead of a passive voice, Japanese verbs have derivative verbs with a conjugation resembling that of active verbs; mood and tense are indicated by teniwoha or suffixes; person is only occasionally and indirectly intimated by the use of honorific or humble particles; gender is denoted by compounds similar to the English words 'he-ass,' she-ass,' and number and case are expressed, if at all, by suffixes or particles distinct from the noun, which as has been already stated, is never inflected."

"It is a rule of Japanese syntax that when two or more verbs or adjectives are co-ordinated in the same sentence, the last only receives the inflection or suffix which properly belongs to all, those which precede being placed in the root-form."

"1. Qualifying words or phrases precede the words which they qualify. Thus:

(a) The adjective (verb or adjective in attributive form) precedes the noun which it qualifies, as yoki hito a good man,' kuru hito 'the man who

comes.'

(b) The adverb precedes the word which it qualifies, as ito hayaku' very fast,' hayaku huru ‘to come quickly.'

(c) The noun followed by the genitive particle no or ga precedes the noun to which it is joined, as hito no chikara 'a man's strength.'

2. The nominative case stands at the beginning of a sentence. Tsuki wa kagiri naku medetaki mono nari. The moon is an immeasurably beautiful object. To this rule there are numerous exceptions. In comparisons, the object with which the subject of the sentence is compared usually, though not always, precedes it, as in the sentence, Kono yama yori are wa takashi. 'This mountain is higher than that.'

3. The verb (verb or adjective in conclusive form) is placed at the end of the sentence, as in the last example.

The regular order of a sentence is frequently inverted in poetry, the verb appearing in the middle, and the sentence being closed by one of the particles te, wa, ba, to, do, domo, wo, a preposition, or an adverb, (including the adverbial form of the verb).

4. Prepositions and case signs are placed after the nouns to which they relate, as koko made to this place,' ware no 'mine.'

5. The direct object of the verb precedes it, as kawa wataruto cross a river.'

6. A noun governed by a preposition precedes the direct object of the verb, as fune ni kawa wataru 'to cross a river in a boat.'

These specimens will show the thoroughly practical nature of the book, which appears at a period when it was especially wanted.

Miscellaneous.

THE MORAVIAN MISSION IN TIBET.

A little band of German missionaries has been labouring in a quiet and unobtrusive manner for fifteen years to propagate Christian ideas among the vast population of Buddhists in Tibet. In August 1853 Messrs. Pagell and Heyde proceeded thither, with the intention of penetrating into Mongolia. The Chinese officials however opposed their advance, whenever they attempted to go to Lassa, and these first Protestant missionaries were compelled therefore to establish their mission in British territory, and they experienced from the Indian Government most ready support. Kardong, the chief town of Lahol, (Lat. 32 deg. 32 min. N., Long. 77 deg. 6 min. E. from Greenwich,) was fixed upon, and in 1856 the Mission House was erected at Kyelang, a place on the line of the trade route of the caravans from India to Leh, the capital of Tibet, and to the cities of Central Asia.

Mr. Pagell, who has attained to great proficiency in speaking the vulgar dialect, preaches a sermon in Tibetan every Sunday, and on some evenings in the week. At first his services were well attended, but they gradually fell off in consequence of the oppression exercised by the Buddhist lamas towards those who attended. The persecutions are severe, but of such a kind as to escape the action of British law.

The missionaries proceed zealously in the translation of the Bible and in the preparation of useful tracts and elementary school-books. These they have distributed on their excursions, and find they are eagerly perused by the natives. The lamas however, who hold the people in slavery both of mind and body, do all they can to obstruct their enlightenment. One lama, who had shown great interest in the study of Christian books, fell sick and died, and the missionaries have the opinion that his death was brought about by the other lamas, stirred up with hatred against the new religion.

The converts have appeared only among the natives who serve the missionaries, and they are persons of Ladak chiefly: no resident of Lahol having yet taken up the new doctrine.

Chinese Tibet is still entirely closed, only the frontier villages can be visited, and Christian writings distributed in them.

The German missionaries have advanced with a thoroughly critical version of the Bible, and instead of adopting expressions already employed by Georgi