THE JAPAN SOCIETY, LONDON.

We have been requested by the Hon. Secretaries of the Japan Society to give publicity to the following letter, received by the Chairman of their Council, from His Excellency the Japanese Minister in London, Viscount Kawasé, President of the Society:

"I have the honour to acquaint you that the Emperor, my August Sovereign, having heard of the organization of the Japan Society in London, and having noted the meaning of its objects, as well as the records of its proceedings, has been most graciously pleased to command me to convey to the Society His Majesty's approbative greetings, coupled with the hope for its continued prosperity, and that I am further commanded to communicate to the Society His Majesty's pleasure to present it with the sum of One Hundred Guineas.

"It affords me now much pleasure to transmit to you herewith enclosed a cheque for that amount."

THE Northbrook Indian Club has been transferred to the Imperial Institute, where a Society has also been formed for the promotion of friendly relations between England and Russia. We understand that the negotiations for incorporating the Colonial Institute in the Imperial Institute have failed, but we believe that the Royal Asiatic Society may yet form part of the all-absorbing Institution. If its members are as docile as those of the Northbrook Club, the matter may be easily managed by the noble Lord who presides over one body and has given his name to the other. We hear that the word "Indian will be eliminated from the appellation of the Northbrook Society in future. The Northbrook Club was scarcely a success, but it is a pity that an attempt was not made to preserve its individuality on a sounder footing. We have always befriended the Imperial Institute, but we regret its being built, in any way, on the ruins or with the material of other bodies. Its School of Oriental Languages is made up of the classes of University College, London, and the Oriental Section of King's College, London, but the combination does not seem to have added to the number of students that each possessed at one time separately, whilst the practice of deducting a portion of the fees of the, as yet, unsalaried teachers is scarcely encouraging to them or worthy of an Imperial Institute that has been so liberally subscribed to by India.

WE hear from Prof. Sayce, writing from Tolar, that he is on the point of starting for Upper Egypt, and expects to make important archæological discoveries there of altogether a novel nature.

In conjunction with Mr. De Morgan, the new Director of the Gizeh Museum, Prof. Sayce will probably enter upon explorations and excavations at Luxor; we may reasonably look forward to important finds, for learning and an almost intuitive perception, as represented by Prof. Sayce, will be joined to enthusiasm and perseverance in the person of Mr. De Morgan.

MATTERS of current Imperial, Eastern or Color.ial interest are naturally apt to displace subjects of continuous importance or reference which are the special feature of this Review. In our attempt to do justice alike to the pressing and the permanent, we have constantly increased by 20 to 120 pages the ordinary limit of the Review (which is within 240 pages). Yet, unless our space is to be indefinitely enlarged, we are ever compelled to defer the publication of invaluable papers. We have, e.g., this time to postpone to our next issue the continuation of the "Notes of the late Sir Walter Elliot," which describe "True India" as it was and still greatly is, although they are growing in importance and interest to the Indian Official and Folklorist. Similarly, "The Pelasgi and their Modern Descendants" will be resumed next issue. when some of the conclusions of the fine scholars, Wassa-Pasha and Sir Patrick Colquhoun, whose posthumous joint-work we have the melancholy privilege of publishing, will be reached. We hope, however, that, after next issue, the "Notes" and the " Pelasgi will be uninterrupted, without encroaching on other topics within the range of the Review.

WE have been favoured with several papers on Oriental women by distinguished scholars which we hope to be able to publish in our next issue. We are also preparing illustrations of the history of the manufacture of Kashmir shawls in connexion with its literary features.

PERSONS desirous of instruction in any of the Oriental Languages, ancient or modern, to have books printed in them, or to have translations made from, or into, them, are requested to apply to the Principal of the Oriental University Institute. The meetings

of the Oriental Academy will be held at the Institute on the last Saturday of every month, from 4 to 6 p.m., for the reading and discussion of papers in the various branches of Oriental research. Members will be allowed return tickets for single fares, on production of the Principal's card at the Booking Office at Waterloo Station.

APPLICATIONS for the Sanscrit Critical Journal of the Oriental University Institute will be received by the Manager of this Review.

IT is unlikely that the Amir of Kabul will meet Lord Roberts at a Conference at Jellalabad. He does not see the necessity of either adding to, or detracting from, the laurels of Lord Roberts before he returns to England.

General Ghulam Hyder Khan may also feel awkward at meeting one who had proscribed him. An appeal in favour of our slaughtered friends, the Hazarahs, would have had a far greater effect on Abdurrahman, than any amount of Rawulpindi or Panjdeh finessing.

THE Geographical Society of Lisbon has elected Mr. R. G. Haliburton a corresponding Member, and so has also the Canadian Institute of Toronto, from which he was a Delegate to the Lisbon Oriental Congress.

WE deeply regret to announce the death of Mr. Arthur Brandreth, one of the truest friends that the natives of India ever possessed. He had a rare knowledge of the Panjab, where he held high office in the Civil Service, and where his death will be universally regretted. The sad event occurred on the 5th December, 1892, at his residence in Onslow Square, London, at the age of sixty.

We deeply regret to announce the death of Sir Richard Owen, the greatest naturalist of this century, who was born at Lancaster in its first decade (1804), and who died in its last at the age of eighty-nine (18th December, 1892, at 3 a.m., at Sheen Lodge, Richmond, a residence graciously allotted to him by the Queen). His life has thus been that of the century in nearly the whole of its scientific vitality. His connexion with the Oriental Congress dates since 1874, when he was president of its Anthropological Section, and in 1891 he gave the prestige of his name and support to the Statutory Ninth International Congress of Orientalists held in September of that year.

PAPERS OF THE XTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ORIENTALISTS

(LISBON).

IN noticing the publications of the Tenth International Congress of Orientalists (of Lisbon), we naturally give prominence to the admirable contributions of Portuguese Scholars; but international scholarship has also largely aided towards its scientific success. Prof. Abel has been strong on “Indo-Egyptian affinities.” Among English Orientalists the paper of Dr. C. Taylor on a manuscript of the "Pirke Aboth" and the second part of Prof. Gustav Oppert's “Indian Theogony," will, we hope, be reprinted in this Review, but we would draw special attention to Pundit Mahesha Chandra's most admirable treatment of the religious law regarding “sea voyages" by Hindus, especially as we have been compelled to postpone to next issue, owing to want of space, the continuation of Pundit Gopala Charlu's exhaustive articles on this difficult and much-contested subject. French Oriental scholarship seems inexhaustible; at Lisbon it is represented by Prof. Robiou's invaluable paper on Graeco-Oriental influences and other memoirs. It should, however, now reserve itself for the Eleventh International Congress of Orientalists, to be held in Paris in 1895 in connexion with the centenary of the foundation of the famous "Ecole des langues Orientales vivantes" at Paris.

1. Professor J. Leite de Vasconcellos contributes a paper in French on amulets, in which after defining their nature, he divides them into 4 classes, and attributes their origin to the different races which have successively occupied various countries. He specifies several kinds of amulets, notably some in use in Portugal, among which he seems to include a few objects of Catholic devotion.

2. The same learned Professor, in another paper treats of the Portuguese dialect used in Macao. Glancing at the origin of modern Portuguese from the Latin and at its four co-dialects as the Professor styles

them, he passes in rapid review the subordinate dialects of the Portuguese language, which being conveyed by missionaries and merchants to Africa. and the East in general, produced among others, a special variation in Macao.

3. Professor A. R. Gonçalves Vianna, noting the difficulty compositors find in setting up for printing the actual multiform shapes of Arabic letters, suggests the reduction of all these letters to one size by the curtailment of the curved finals. Of the 28 Arabic sounds, the primary forms of the letters would represent 18, leaving 10 to be expressed by over-written dots. To these he adds the 4 Persian letters, Pe, Che, Zhe, and Gaf, with the delicate variations of Malayan and Hindistani sounds, making in all 38 vocals, indicated by 20 shapes of letters with the aid of over and under written diacritical dots. Opposite each of these (all except the alif reduced to one size, the professor puts an equivalent for transliteration into the Roman alphabet, distinctions-being noted by dots and lines.

4. Professor Gonçalves Vianna has also given another paper on two points in the history of Portuguese phonology-one the use of the Ç for Sin and of S for shin in words derived from the Moors; and the other, the softening of the Arabic gutturals into F in the Spanish whence many such words passed into the Portuguese. He illustrates both points by numerous words adopted at various times into the Portuguese.

5. Senhor Demetrio Cinatti, Portuguese Consul at Canton, sends a translation of Dr. McGowan's article in the North China Daily News, on "Man as a Medicine" in China, and the special relation of this superstitious belief as a provocative to anti-foreign riots. The paper furnishes some very curious items of information on the supposed therapeutic qualities of man and his various secretions.

6. Monsieur O. L. Godin gives a detailed account of the relationship between the Royal family of Portugal and Flanders, over which some of them ruled by marriage. This connexion leads to the narrative of a number of events in which the two countries acted together, their operations against the Moors in Africa furnishing the connecting link with the Oriental Congress.

7. In The first labours of the Portuguese in Monomotapa, Senhor A. P. de Paiva e Pona publishes, from the State and other archives, a number of letters principally from or regarding Father Gonçalo da Silviera (1560). Even in the short space covered by this most interesting paper-quite a book of 100 pages-it can be plainly perceived that a vast mass of information regarding Africa still remains practically unknown to the world in the archives of Spain and Portugal. We therefore welcome it, not only for its own interest, but also as a first instalment of a series of publications which we hope to see issued without delay. The regions embraced in this correspondence are now the scene of varied activity; yet even those earlier explorers of the XVI. century knew of the existence of gold south of the Zambezi; and we should not feel surprised if further publications throw some light on the ruins lately discovered in Mashonaland.

8. The East and America, is the title of a paper, or rather a book of 113 pages, by Senhor A. Lopes Mendes, containing interesting notes on

the manners and customs of the races of Portuguese India, compared with those of Brazil. The author modestly disclaims being anything more than a gleaner in a vast field; but he goes thoroughly into his subject, instituting a series of important comparisons between races very distantly placed, and he shows throughout a most erudite acquaintance with their peculiarities.

9. Senhor Luciano Cordeiro, the Secretary of both the Geographical Society of Lisbon and of the Xth Congress gives, in one of a series of papers, on Discoverers and Discoveries, the history of Diogo Cao who in 1484 discovered the Congo. With a wealth of research, the learned author gives a summary of the deeds of one of the many sons of whom Portugal is, with good reason, proud. It extends to 79 pages, and is illustrated with 13 facsimiles of monuments and inscriptions.

10. Professor Dr. Karl Abel, of Wiesbaden, has contributed a revised and enlarged version of the learned paper on the Etymological affinity of the Egyptian and Indo-European languages, the substance of which he gave at the IXth International Congress of Orientalists in London in 1891. Taking as his example the root Ker, and following it, in its various phonetic and other variations, through a host of examples, and comparing the results in the two families of languages, he shows that the development of the root and its ramification, proceed on the same fundamental laws phonetic and intellectual, though the same sound does not always correspond in each family to the same variation of sense. The learned professor's paper, as perfectly complete in itself as it is unique of its kind, opens out a vast field for further investigations.

The ten papers above noticed have been already printed by the Xth Congress, at the National Press, Lisbon, and may be obtained from the Publishing Department of the Oriental Institute, Woking, or from the Secretary of the Xth International Congress of Orientalists, The Geographical Society, Lisbon.

THOSE who care to read the Echoes of the "occasionally Ninth Congress of Orientalists" held last September, cannot do better than refer to the London letters in the Indian Spectator of the 2nd and 9th October, to the Madras Mail of the 7th October, and to the Pioneer of the 9th October, which is specially severe on it.

SUMMARY OF EVENTS.

INDIA. The Viceroy's winter tour has been made in the South of India. After a short stay at Ganeshkhind with the Governor of Bombay, His Excellency paid a visit of 6 days to His Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad. The state had allotted Rs. 350,000 for decorations in honour of the event, which, though somewhat damped by continued rain, gave abundant evidence of sound loyal feeling. Amid the usual routine of addresses, visits, levées, reviews, parties and dinners, the Viceroy among other things explained why Hyderabad has no special Imperial Defence Corps, though the project itself originated with the Nizam: financial reasons were the cause, and His Excellency spoke to the point on the subject. His Highness, at the sports, astonished all with the singular accuracy of his shooting. Thence the Viceroy proceeded to Mysore, in which flourishing and model state he had nothing but praise to give. Here Rs. 20,000 were spent on decorations. After attending a capture of elephants, the Viceroy went to Madras; in which connexion we note that the Secretary of State has paid Lord Wenlock well deserved praise for his ceaseless and energetic efforts to mitigate the effects of the recent famine. Hence the Viceroy went to Vizagapatam, where at a large reception of chiefs, he decorated the Maharaja and others; and then returned to Calcutta.

On the practical working of the Indian Councils' Amendment Act all the local Governments have submitted their views. Some other proposals have also been made. The Bengal Conference, at a special meeting, expressed the hope that the Act would be interpreted liberally and given a fair trial. They proposed 20 Members, 5 official; from the Chamber of Commerce, the Trades Association, the Native Merchants, and the University 1 each; from the Calcutta Municipality and District Board two each, Mufussil Municipalities, 3; the Zemindari interest 1, Muhammadan 1, and representa