It may be at first a matter of surprise to many that an alien by nationality and religion, a Roman Catholic Frenchman, should come before this learned Society to discourse on the life and labours of a British Protestant Missionary. A few words, however, will show that there are strong reasons for my taking up some of your valuable time with an account of the good work done by our late friend.

The annexation of New Caledonia, the Loyalty Islands, and the Society Islands to France ; of the Fiji Archipelago to Great Britain; of a great portion of the Solomon Islands to Germany; and the tripartite division of New Guinea and its adjacent Islands between Great Britain, Germany, and Holland, have given a startling prominence to the remote Islands at our Antipodes. We hear sad stories of Native Races, which at the time of Capt. Cook in 1770 were strong and numerous, dwindling away under the socalled European civilization of intoxicating liquors, infectious diseases, and wholesale man-stealing, the entire credit of which last attaches itself to the English Colonies of Queensland and Fiji. Already the languages of Tasmania, Chatham Island, and the Ladrones, have disappeared with the entire races who once used them. Others are rapidly proceeding in the same direction. As in North America, so in Oceania, the Bible-Translations will remain as the monument of a form of speech, which no longer floats on the lips of men. Before it is too late, I throw together a succinct account of the languages now spoken. In the course of the Session I gave a vivâ, voce address on the subject, which appeared to excite interest, and at the Congress of Orientalists held at Vienna last September, I read an address in the German language on our present knowledge of the Languages of Oceania, but gave no detail of names of languages or authorities.

The extract from the Narrative of his Travels by Ebu ‘Abdu-’llāh Muhammed of Tangier, commonly called Ibnu Baṭūṭa, an English translation of which appears below, relates to his experiences in the province of Sindh, and touches on matters of local history and geography which may interest some readers, and be thought deserving of such elucidation as may be possible. These matters are noticed in the remarks subjoined to the extract, a form of comment which I have thought preferable to the alternative of interrupting the narrative by frequent and copious footnotes.

The following notes, excepting a few additions in March, 1887, were written chiefly in April, 1886, at the suggestion of my excellent friend, the much-venerated scholar Col. Henry Yule, C.B., LL.D., President of the Royal Asiatic Society, after he had received from our common friend E. Colborne Baber, of H.B.M. Consular Service in China, then at Se-ul in Corea, nine sheets of manuscript secured from Formosa. These manuscripts, written in an old Pepohwan dialect, with Roman characters of Dutch origin, and, as regards several of them, bilingual with a Chinese translation, were accompanied with a valuable note of E. C. Baber, which forms a portion of the first part of the present paper.

It is not without sincere diffidence that I venture to lay before Oriental scholars the following remarks. It is my misfortune to find myself constrained to oppose the conclusions of one who, when I first took up the question, was the most accepted authority on the subject—the late Edward Thomas. That learned and distinguished man has recorded, in commenting on some former notes of mine (in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal), that I treated the matter in so discursive a way that he was unable to catch my drift. On observing this, I wrote a fresh paper for the Royal Asiatic Society—which has been unfortunately lost—in which I strove to speak out in a manner that should leave no room for misconception. Unhappily Mr. Thomas is no more among us; and one is again in the old difficulty. A hesitating delivery of opinion, which was originally caused by deference to the justly-deserved reputation of the opposing advocate, is now, in a manner, called for by respect for the memory of the departed.