His face pale with terror and both his lips blue,

And Solomon said to him, " O friend, what meaneth this ?"
He answered, "The angel 'Izráíl

Hath just thrown on me a glance full of wrath and hatred."

"Ask," said the king, "what boon thou desirest."
"Oh thou refuge of the heart, command the wind
That it bear me from hence to Hindustán,

It may be that there I may save my life."
Then Solomon gave to the wind its mission
And it bore the man away to Somnáth.—
Thus too thou may'st see men flying from poverty,
They are swallowed as victims by desire and hope,
That fear of theirs is but like his in the story,
And desire and its greed is their Hindustán !—
He commanded the wind that forthwith in haste
It should bear him to Hindustán across the sea.
The next day at the time of audience

King Solomon spake unto 'Izráíl,

"Thou looked'st with wrath on a true believer,-
Tell me wherefore, oh messenger of the Lord.
"Twas a strange action, methinks, this of thine,

To frighten him an exile from house and home."

He answered, "Oh thou King of an unsetting empire,
His fancy interpreted my action wrong.

How should I have looked with anger on such as him?

I but cast a glance of wonder as I passed him in the road,
For God had commanded me that very day

To seize his soul in Hindustán.

I saw him here and greatly did I marvel,

And I lost myself in a maze of wonder.

I said in my heart, Though he had an hundred wings
He could never fly from hence to Hindustán in a day.
But when I arrived, as God commanded,

I found him there before me and took his soul."

Few Oriental Apologues have a more striking outline than the above, rising almost to the moral sublime; but it is only one of the many fine legends and fables which are scattered throughout the

Masnavi. It is in fact this simplicity and power which distinguish the apologues of Jaláluddín from most of those which we find in Jámí or Faríduddín 'attár ;-the latter are generally only stories, graceful enough in their way, but seldom striking any deeper chord. The legend itself is found in al Beidáwi's Commentary on the Koran, sur. 31. ; v. 34. ;* and the following, from the Talmud, is undoubtedly an earlier and cruder version of the same story. It is immeasurably poorer in every respect, but the scene and dramatis personæ are identical. (See Dr. Lightfoot's Hora Talmudice, vol. ii. p. 428, who quotes it from the treatise Succah, fol. 53. 1.)

"Those two men of Cush that stood before Solomon, Elihoreph and Ahijah the scribes, sons of Shausha. On a certain day Solomon saw the Angel of death weeping; he said, Why weepest thou? He answered, Because these two Cushites entreat me, that they may continue here. Solomon delivered them over to the devil, who brought them to the borders of Luz; and when they were come to the borders of Luz, they died."

Dr. Lightfoot adds the following from the ancient Gloss. "He calls them Cushitest [ironically], because they were very beautiful. They'entreat me that they may continue here.' For the time of their death was now come; but the angel of death could not take their souls away, because it had been decreed, that they should not die but at the gates of Luz. Solomon, therefore, delivered them over to the devils; for he reigned over the devils, as it is written, And Solomon sat upon the throne of the Lord, for he reigned over those things that are above and those things that are below."

I may mention in conclusion, as a fourth instance (though in a somewhat different style), the story of the Santon Barsisa, in the Guardian, No. 148. Steele avowedly takes it from the once popular "Turkish tales;" but the original is probably to be found in the fifth majlis of Sádí, and it is singular that even here we can trace some apparent signs of a Jewish source, as the tale opens with the words,

They have related اورده اند که در بنی اسرائل زاهدی بود نام او بر صيصا

that

among the children of Israel there was a Záhid named Barsísá."

* I may add that Parnell has taken part of his Hermit from the legend

in sur. 18.

Scil. Ethiopians, or negroes.

Two Letters on Indian Inscriptions.-By FITZ E. HALL, M. A.

[We have received the following letters from Mr. Hall, in America; -they were enclosed in a letter, dated Troy, New York, Nov. 17th, 1859.-EDS.]

Calcutta, April 22nd, 1859.

To the Secretary, Asiatic Society of Bengal.

SIR,-My agent in this place has instructions to make over to you, in my name, an inscription-stone, now on its way hither from Benares. This monument I wish to present to the Museum of our Society. It was found among the ruins of Páțan, a decayed city near Rátgurh in the Saugor District.

The inscription, as you will see, is well-nigh effaced. With some distrust, I read the beginning of it as follows:

सिद्धिः । संवत् १११५ वर्षे फाल्गुनवदि ८ गुरा ।

मदपतितकपालः कान्तदान्तः कपाल-
स्तिमिततिमिरजालः सञ्चलत्कर्णतालः ।

कुलिशकठिनशुण्डादण्डराजन् मनोवि

नकदलनकरालः पातु वः शम्भुबालः ॥

Auspiciousness! Year of Samvat, 1115: Thursday, the 8th day of the dark fortnight of Phalguna.

May S'ambhu's son-with exudation falling on his cheeks, with brilliant tusks, protector of the earth, checker of all darkness, waving his ears, adorned with a mace-like proboscis, obdurate as adamant, potent in removing mental impediments-protect you!"

All the rest is abundantly doubtful. Even the little that I have decyphered of it may, therefore, admit of correction. According to my reading, there was a Bráhman in the west, apparently a royal personage, by name Kandukádripa, of the Vásala (?) gotra and Ud. gara anwaya; and among his ascendants was one Ráma. Kanduká dripa's wife was called Sávitrí; and this pair had issue two sons, Purukárva (Purukárya ?) and Mahodadhi; and a daughter Lakshmí.

Another family is afterwards spoken of. There was a Bráhman named Bhima, of the S'ándilya gotra and Udgara anwaya. He had a brother Vasudeva and a sister Lakshmí. Her one Vámana seems to have married: but I have failed to ascertain who he was, as likewise the purport of all that ensues of the inscription.

The year 1115 of the Samvat era corresponds to A. D. 1058.

To the Secretary, Asiatic Society of Bengal.

SIR,-I have the honor to present to our Society, on behalf of Major R. R. W. Ellis, a copper-plate land-grant, dated in the year of Vikramaditya answering to A. D. 1097. The donor informs me that this record was "discovered, six years ago, by the Jágirdár of Koti, in removing some ruins in a fort, Raipur, near Soháwal, an ancient city four kos east from Nágod.”

This grant is the first of the two which I have translated in our Journal for last year, (Vol. XXVII. pp. 217, 250). On recent reference to the original, I find that, at p. 221, 1. 6 ab infra, I should have read श्रमन्म हाराज- in place of श्रीमद्राजाधिराज. But the change of sense entailed by this correction is only very immaterial. In my rendering of a passage a little higher up the same page, perhaps it would have been preferable to restrict समाज्ञापययि to षणेसरमौ अ० &c., बोधयति to निखिल • &c., and ज्यादिशति to राजराज्ञी' &c.

Calcutta, Maundy Thursday, 1859.

Memorandum on the Survey of Kashmir in progress under Captain T. G. MONTGOMERIE, Bengal Engineers, F. R. G. S. and the Topographical Map of the Valley and surrounding Mountains, with chart of the Triangulation of the same executed in the Field Office and under the Superintendence of Lt.-Colonel A. SCOTT WAUGH, F. R. S. F. R. G. S. Surveyor General of India, Dehra Dhoon, May 1859. Read at a Meeting of the Asiatic Society on the 6th of July, 1859. By Major H. L. THUILLIER, F. R. G. S. Deputy Surveyor General of India.

In No. 263 of the Asiatic Journal for 1857 a paper was published by Lieutenant (now Captain) Montgomerie of the Bengal Engineers, 1st Assistant Great Trigonometrical Survey of India on the height of the Nanga Parbut and other snowy mountains of the Himalaya range adjacent to Kashmir; and it was therein stated that although not equal to Mount Everest (29,002 feet) still the Nanga Parbut (26,629 feet) was as much the king of the Northern Himalayas as Mount Everest is the king of the Southern Himalaya. I have now the satisfaction, through the kind consideration of my friend Colonel Waugh, of laying before the Society, the actual results of the progress of this magnificent and unparalleled survey, up to a very recent date, and the maps now presented to the view of the meeting, together with the few details I am about to read, will prove better than anything else, the value and the character of the great national work which the Surveyor General of India is now rapidly carrying out to completion-a work which I believe will bear a comparison with any geographical operation undertaken in any country with which we are acquainted.

As the operations proceed, the labours of the Surveyors are rewarded with discoveries which certainly of late years have been but of infrequent occurrence. Another stupendous mountain has been measured and fixed by Captain Montgomerie, which perhaps is second in the world only to the one above alluded to, viz. Mount Everest, as measured by Col. Waugh in 1847. A snowy peak very nearly in the ray of Skardo from Sirinagur and distant N. E. about one hundred and fifty-eight miles from that capital, on the Kara Koram