We have much pleasure in conveying the gratifying announcement to our readers and to Oriental Scholars generally that, immediately after the present issue of this Review had been printed, Dr. Leitner has, at last, received the object of many years of search, a Manuscript of, or from, the mysterious 'Kelám-i-Pir," the "Logos of The Ancient," which is the sacred book of the “initiated” among the Druses of the Lebanon and of the Ismailians throughout the Muhammadan World generally, whether in India or Persia or round the "Bám-i-dunyá,” the "Roof of the World," the hitherto inaccessible Pamir regions of the Hindukush, which our attack on "the Fairyland of Hunza" has brought within the devastating reach of European politics. We trust to be able to quote some extracts from this secret Bible in our next issue, and thus to set at rest, in continuation with the revelations which are made about the Muláis in the current number of The Asiatic Quarterly Rewiew," the speculations of Nine Centuries regarding the real tenets of the most important form of "Esoteric" Muhammadanism. There will be much in the forthcoming extracts to confirm or to correct the Muhammadan authors regarding the so-called "Assassins" of the Crusades quoted by the unparalleled Arabic Scholar, Baron Sylvestre de Sacy, and by Baron Hammer von Purgstall. Suffice it to say that the Manuscript of, or from, the "Kelám-i-Pîr,” in question, is by, or attributed to, a great Historian, the famous Shah Nasir Khosrô, himself an adherent of the Ismailian sect [born 355 A.H. = 969 A.D.]. It is in good condition, in an ordinary Persian handwriting, and will, we believe, offer no difficulties in translation beyond those connected with its style and mystic substance. It has been sent by the enlightened Head of the Ismailian community, His Highness Agha Sultan Muhammad Shah, the present Agha Khan, who thus continues the literary sympathy which his father extended to Dr. Leitner's researches among the Muláis of the Hindukush. We have also been favoured with a short biography and the photograph of His Highness, which we propose to publish in our next issue.—ED.
The date of the opening of the Imperial Institute, which is given on p. 374 as May 23rd, has now been fixed for May 10th.