the conversion of many a Hindu to the Mahomedan faith. Himself a renegade from the religion of his Hindu forefathers, he acquired a high reputation for sanctity, and maintained it by a strict observance of the ordinances of his adopted religion. According to tradition he was sent for to Delhi, and for some reason or other, there beheaded by order of the emperor. He is said to have once heard from a Brahmin of high caste and great influence, one Naranarayana Raya, that "smelling was half eating," whereupon he caused some cooked meat to be brought to his presence. The Brahman by his side perceived the smell, and immediately covered his nose with his cloth; but it was too late, the wily Mahomedan urged that by his own shewing he had "half eaten," and must therefore cease to be of the orthodox creed. He was accordingly outcasted, and his descendants to this day are known as Pirális or Pir Ally Brahmans. Puerile as the story is, it is worthy of note that all the Piralis of Bengal trace their original seat to Jessore, and no Piráli is to be met with in the eastern or the northern districts. One of the ancestors of the present Tagore family of Calcutta first associated with Naranáráyana, and he and his descendants have ever since been called Pirális. Such Káyasthas as associated with these degraded and proscribed Brahmans, were subjected to the same penalty, and are to this day known by the name of the wicked Pír. Their number, however, is very limited, and they are met with in no other district except in Jessore. Three miles to the south-west of this tomb, there is a magnificent mosque, commonly known by the name of Sáṭgumbaz, or the mosque of 60 domes. It is an open arcaded structure, formed of massive walls six feet thick, and having on the top 77 small domes supported on sixty pillars. The ground plan is an oblong of 144 feet by 96, divided into seven aisles by six rows of pillars. The foundation and the domes are of brick; while of the pillars some are of brick, and others of stone. Like all other Mahomedan mosques in India, the Satgumbaz has its front to the east, thereby enabling the faithful to pray with their faces towards the K'ábá at Mecca. The number of archways on this side is 11, of which the second and the tenth are closed with masonry, the same arrangement obtains on the opposite wall, the Mulla's pulpit being placed by the side of the central archway. On the north and the south façades there are 14 arches, 7 on each side, the height being 15 feet to the point of the arch. The building is flanked by four massive towers which rise above the line of the domes. Two of them enclose winding staircases; that to the south-east being very dark and steep, while the one on the north-east is well lighted and easy of ascent. The people call the former Andhár Mánik and the latter Raushan Manik. Altogether the building has a grand and imposing appearance, and even in a more favoured locality than Bágerhát would command admiration, and be reckoned as an object worthy of notice. It was evidenly intended for a jummah masjid or Friday mosque. The only other object which has been associated with the memory of Khánjá Ally and which demands a passing notice, is a physical phenomenon of some interest. It is a dull roaring sound, as of the booming of distant cannonade, which is said to be fired by aerial hands in honour of Khánjá Ally. At Bágerhát, those sounds are heard at all times of the year; particularly when the weather is calm and the sky clear. It is most distinct during a lull after a storm or a heavy shower of rain. At Burrisal they are equally prominent, and noticed with great curiosity. Various theories have been hazarded to account for the phenomenon. Mr. Pellew, the superintendent of survey at Burrisal, in a letter to me, says— "What you allude to must be the ' Burrisal guns,' which are heard all over south Jessore and Backerganj, at least in the neighbourhood of the Baleswar. They are distinctly heard at Burrisal. I have never heard them myself west of Morellganj. My own idea is, that they are perhaps the sound of heavy surf. My reasons for supposing this (of course I am by no means certain) are as follows. The noise exactly resembles the sound of surf as heard often by me at Pooree under certain circumstances, viz. when, on account of a cessation of the south-west monsoon, the swell rises to an unusual height before breaking, and then breaks simultaneously for perhaps a length of three miles of coast. I have often been woke from my sleep by the thunder of these waves, when breaking in this manner. As regards the succession of 10 or 11 reports, we all know that waves generally break successively along a beach, and at the distance the listener is from the sea these would appear equally loud. "2nd. Reason. The further south I go, the louder the reports are, and the more unequal in power (this I have not tested quite sufliciently). "3rd. There is a story (to which you allude) of a Collector sending down people in a boat to find out about its whereabouts, who heard the noise always to their south, till they reached the Hurungotta, and were compelled by the weather and sea to return. "4th. The general belief in natives that they are not marriage guns. "5th. The dissimilarity between the sound and that of marriage guns, noticed by all who hear them. "6th. The fact that sound would be conveyed very far by the southwest monsoon along the surface of the large rivers of Backerganj. They are generally heard in a lull after a squall, at least I think so, just when the surf breaks most regularly and simultaneously. I am sorry I have no more certainty to give you." The cause above assigned to the sounds by Mr. Pellew may be the right one, but the reasons he has adduced, plausible as they are, do not seem to be conclusive. It may fairly be argued that had the sound been produced by the surf, they would have been noticed near the seashore, wherever there is a low beach. Such, however, is not the case. I have nowhere read of such sounds in books, and never heard them anywhere beyond the mouths of the Ganges. At Balasore, which is only seven miles from the Bay, they are never noticed. Mr. Pellew says that a sound similar to the "marriage guns” of Burrisal is heard at Pooree, which is occasioned by the breaking of the swell on the beach, during a certain time; but it is not a constant occurrence. During my stay for more than two months at Basdebpur, a village five miles from the sea between Bhadrak and Soroh, I never heard a report of the kind, though the surf rises and breaks on the beach with equal or perhaps more violence, during all seasons. Even at places near to Bágerhát, or in other parts of the Sunderbuns equally distant from the shore of the bay, the noise is not audible; and the only tract which enjoys the honour of these salutes is that which extends from the eastern border, from the river Baleswar to the foot of the Chittagong hills. I had an opportunity of going down as far as "Tiger's Point," and I carefully watched the phenomenon, but I did not notice that the sounds became louder and louder as my boat drifted down from Morellganj to the mouth of the Huranghátá. This would lead to the inference that the swell of the sea was not the cause of the sounds, and it is possible that they may be due to some subterranean or volcanic agency, the nature of which we have not the means now to ascertain. It is one, however, which is well worthy the attention of scientific men. APPENDICES. انتقل العبدُ الضَّعِيفُ المُحْتَاجُ إلَى رَحْمَةَ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ الْمُحِبُّ الأَولاد سيده المرسلين المخلص للعلماء الراشدين المبغض للكفار و المشركين . المعين . للا سلام و المسلمين الغ خان جهان عليه الرحمة والغفران من دار الدنيا الى دار البقا ليلة الاربعافى ستة وعشرين من ذى الحجة ودفن يوم الخميس في مبع و عشرين منه سنة ثلث وستين وثمانمائة . B. مَنْ مَاتَ غَرِيبًا فَقَدْ مَاتَ شَهِيدًا . C. * الدنيا اولها بكاء واوسطها عناء و اخرها فناء D. هذه روضة مباركة من رياض الجنة لخان الاعظم خان جهان عليه الرحمة والرضوان تحريراً في . ست و عشرين من ذى الحجة سنة ثلث وستين و E. ثمانمائة . یاد آورید ای دوستان الموت حق الموت حق خار است اندر بوستان الموت حق الموت حق مرگست خصی محکمي با جمله جانان زويقين ن همچو دیگر دشمنان الموت حق الموت حق * On the Transliteration of Indian Alphabets in the Roman Character, -By F. S. GROWSE, M. A. OxON, B. C. S. [Received 5th January, 1867.] The question of transliteration has been so fully discussed at recent meetings of this Society, that a paper which attempted to revive the subject would probably meet with scant consideration. I am also myself of opinion that the theory has been discussed more than enough, and only wish on the present occasion to state briefly a plain matter of fact, and make a practical suggestion. It is impossible for any one, however imbued with phonetic prejudices, to`deny that all European philologists and oriental scholars have, by mutual consent, adopted a uniform system of representing Indian alphabets in Roman characters, which varies only in some few and unimportant particulars. As to the vowels, there is at the present day no dispute at all; for that intensely insular peculiarity of denoting the simple sounds of i and u by the awkward combinations of double e and double o is now quite obsolete in the literary world. I have not seen any recent oriental work from the French press, and therefore cannot tell whether their practice of representing u by ou has been abandoned or not; but this at all events is a feature which is not likely to be imitated by English writers. As to the consonants, there are some few, but very few, points which are still left open: thus the palatal sibilant is generally denoted in England by s with a stroke over or dot below it, while continental scholars prefer the symbol ; again the compound which English scholars represent by ksh is on the continent represented occasionally by x, more frequently by esch, which latter is not likely to find many advocates out of Germany. Thus too in the Persian alphabet, the Arabic káf is sometimes denoted by q, but more usually by k with a dot under it; and the final consonant he is sometimes expressed by the vowel a alone, sometimes by ah. But it is really unnecessary for us to regard these minor discrepancies, since they do not appear in what may be called our natural authorities. For I suppose it will be admitted that Forbes's is the standard dictionary for modern Hindustani; while the last complete Sanskrit dictionary is Prof. Benfey's, published in London during the year 1866, and the greatest work ever yet undertaken for the elucidation of that language is the |