The original version of the Assassin biography of al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ, called sar-gudhasht-i sayyidnā, is not extant. All we possess are two recensions of it, if such a term is apposite, in the notes taken on the work by the two seventh/thirteenth century historians, ‘Aṭā-Malik al-Juwaynī (work completed 658/1260) and the Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍdl Allāh (work completed 710/1310–11). For unless we may suppose that al-Juwaynī, who discovered the book in the library of the Assassin headquarters at Alamūt, afterwards condensed the notes that he first took, and that the Rashīd later incorporated these first longer notes in his history, we can only conclude that the Rashīd consulted the original work afresh, since his version is in fact very much fuller than al-Juwaynī's. Which the Rashīd did it is impossible to say. There is one fact, however, that points to the first course as the likelier, namely that in introducing their, extracts both use almost the same words (which cannot have appeared in the original work). Moreover, the copy used by al-Juwaynī was burnt after perusal with the other pernicious writings of the heretics. So the second course would involve the (improbable) existence of another copy.

A Little to the north of Latakia on the Phœnician coast important discoveries have been made by French excavators. Bronze Age necropolises, now known as Minet el-Baida, and dating from about 1700 to 1200 B.C., have been found, and on an adjoining site, Has Shamra, the remains of a palace have been uncovered, the most flourishing age of which would seem to have been the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C. In the ruins of the palace an armoury, or, rather, workshop, filled with bronze weapons and implementshas been brought to light, as well as a library. The latter was not only once filled with inscribed papyri, but fortunately also with clay tablets which have survived to our time. At least five different languages are represented by the cuneiform texts of which the clay tablets were a necessary accompaniment. One of these was the official Babylonian of the Tel el-Amarna period. Another was Sumerian, a third probably Mitannian, while a fourth provesto be Canaanite, that is to say, Early Phoenician or Hebrew, written in avery simplified form of cuneiform script which has been reduced into an alphabet of twenty-eight letters. The words, moreover, are divided one from the other.

The Dragon is a Being, or rather, a nonentity, that though he never existed, has had to be invented. The human race soon found that it could not get on without him, and the imaginative fecundity of primitive man was called in to redress a biological oversight of Nature. When summoned to mythologic but influential life, he discovered no sinecure in his functions. Constant appeals from Oriental Rulers, Shamans, and the populace generally, to “co-ordinate” and “rationalize” his resources, in other words, to distribute rain more often, more widely, and more seasonably, may have seemed hardly compensated by his decorative popularity, or the flattering attentions of his pious but insistent devotees., Still noblesse oblige, and so the Dragon reigns among the thunder clouds above, and the thunder clouds (sooner or later) rain upon the earth beneath. Considerable research has been devoted to the Dragon by Western scholars, among whom may be mentioned Elliot Smith, and especially M. W. de Visser, who cites abundant passages from Chinese and Japanese authorities in his attractive volume. Japanese authorities in his attractive volume. And much earlier than either of the above, Gustave Schlegel had descanted fully upon the Dragon and its astronomic symbolism. The present essay, however, has a less ambitious aim, and a more restricted scope. Its object is twofold. In the first part it will present and publish (among the others) a form of the character lung “dragon”, which seems to have escaped the notice of all the Oriental epigraphists, whether Chinese or Japanese, so far as I can ascertain, but must be one of the most archaic, as it is perhaps the most elaborate, of the designs for the character in question.

Some texts mentioning the Dru-gu have been given above (1927, pp. 68, 80, 85, 808; 1929, pp. 78 sqq., 559, 560, 583; 1930, pp. 56, 84–5, 274, 281), and reference was made to the divergent views of Colonel Waddell and Professor Pelliot, the former having identified the Dru-gu with the Tu-yü-hun of Chinese history, and the latter with the Turkish Uigurs. The name Drug-gu was first made known by Rockhill, who cited (The Life of the Buddha, p. 240) from the Tibetan Annals of Khotan a reference to a destructive invasion of the Khotan country by that people during the reign of King Vijaya-Kīrti, whose date is not known, but who evidently belonged to a comparatively early generation. The name of the Dru-gu king appears as 'A-no-śos or 'A-no-mo-śoṅ. From the same Annals some further citations were given in an appendix to Sir A. Stein's Ancient Khotan (pp. 581–3).

The following tablets were excaved by M. L. Ch. Watelin in the course of two weeks' intensive work at Kish in the spring of 1927. See Oxford Editions of Cuneiform Texts, vol. vii, for abbreviations.

The formula of the Muhammadan declaration of faith (ash-shahādah or, more exact, ash-shahādatāni) (1) when recited on more solemn occasions, is presumably mostly to this effect:—