One of the most complete and entertaining accounts of the instruments of music of Turkey is that given by the chatty and voluble, though highly imaginative writer, Ewliyā Chelebī 1611– ca. 1669. Although his family held high appointments at the Ottoman court, yet young Ewliyā yearned for a literary career and, like many such Parnassian aspirants, began his public life as a ḥāfiẓ in Aya Sofia on the Lailat al-kaḍr of 1045 (=A.D. 1636), whenhe attracted the notice of Sultan Murād IV, who took him into the royal household. Here he was specially favoured, mainly on account of his musical and literary gifts. He had been taught music and singing by one of the best masters of the day, the Khalwatī dervish 'Umar Gulshanī, who lived to the great age of 140 years, himself having been taught by the eminent shaikh Ibrāhīm Gulshanī (d. 1533–4) of Cairo. After two years' service as a muṣāḥib, Ewliyā began his travels which have made him famous.

The She King, usually translated the Book of the Odes, or the Classic of Poetry, is not so well known to the outside world as it deserves to be. It is one of the Classics or Canons of Chinese learning, and, like its companion books, is supposed not only to contain deep lessons of morality for the instruction of future ages, but to have been compiled, if not written, for the express purpose of their inculcation. The events recorded or alluded to in it are said to have taken place between 1765 and 585 B.C. Confucius himself is acknowledged to have been the compiler. Ssŭ Ma ch'ien states: ”The old poems amounted to more than 8000. Confucius removed those which were only repetitions of others, and selected those which would be serviceable for the inculcation of propriety and righteousness.” In other words he brought out a revised and expurgated edition. Constant allusions to the Odes are found in the Confucian Analects, the Master on all occasions expressing the highest admiration for the work, and enjoining on his disciples the necessity of a thorough study of it.

The original inhabitants of Mount Atlas, and of nearly all the provinces of Maghrib-ul-Aksa, or the present empire of Marocco, are usually divided into two tribes — namely, the Berebbers and the Shelluhhs, both descended from the ancient Mauritanians and Gætulians; perhaps even from the Libyes of Sallust. These two tribes differ essentially from each other; and it is not without reason, that those travellers and geographers, to whom we are indebted for the best information with respect to Marocco, have asserted that the Shelluhhs are not Berebbers. The Moors, or Arabian inhabitants of the country, consider them as two nations of a different origin; as well on account of their manners and the diversity of their natural dispositions, as from the entirely distinct profile of the face, and from their dialects, which differ so much, that they cannot converse together without the aid of an interpreter. Mr. James Grey Jackson, in his Account of the Empire of Marocco, and of the District of Sus, confirms this assertion by a list of words of common use in both languages; and, most certainly, they prove nothing less than a common origin. But such differences, radical or accidental, may be met with in almost all the sister languages. It is, for instance, a curious fact, that the very leading Shelluhh words, which Mr. Jackson quotes as altogether differing from the Berebber, as woman, wife, boy, girl, &c. differ just as much, if not more, in the Swedish, Danish, German, and Dutch languages, which, most undoubtedly, are of one and the same origin. This observation holds good even with respect to the Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian languages. What is more certain, and beyond all doubt, is, that the pretended Berebbers and Shelluhhs live separately and that they bear very little, if any, relation to each other. Although their habitations are sometimes very near, they never have any social intercourse; nor does an instance exist of individuals of one tribe having intermarried with the other.

Mr. Golénischeff has just published in the Transactions of the Russian Imperial Society of Oriental Archæology (vol. xiii) a new Vannic inscription of considerable interest and importance. As my memoir on the Vannic Inscriptions is not likely to be continued after the publication of the rich materials collected by Drs. Belck and Lehmann during their exploration of Armenia and Kurdistan, I will deal with this inscription separately, and provisionally number it LXXXVI in continuation of my former notation. The stone on which the inscription is engraved was found in the church of St. Gregory, four versts east of the monastery of Eshmiadzin, and is 2·70 metres high, 63 cent, broad, and 36 cent, thick. It will be seen that it is a record of Ruśas, the son of Argistis, whose existence, first asserted by Dr. Belck, but doubted by myself (J.R.A.S., Oct., 1894, pp. 705, 706), is thus certified.

The conquest of the Persian and half of the Byzantine Empire by the Arabs, under the banner of Islam in the seventh century, was one of the most extraordinary events in the history of the world. On the one side were ranged the forces of two highly-organized military powers, Imperial New Rome and Imperial Persia, which for over three centuries had been engaged in constant conflict with each other. Although this necessarily tended to exhaust the material resources of the combatants, it would naturally be supposed that it must have given them military experience, and their leaders a training in generalship, adequate to enable them to face with confidence of victory enemies hitherto regarded with contempt as mere barbarians. On the other side we see hosts of men, reared in a country where the conditions of life have always been of the hardest and most precarious, divided by tribal feuds and secular hatreds, poorly armed, with no practice in warfare against disciplined foes, and with no allies to swell their legions. Yet from the beginning the progress of the Arabs was one of almost uninterrupted success.

Among the royal titles used by the early Sinhalese kings there are two which, as royal titles, were not adopted by any of the dynasties known to us in India, and were therefore peculiar to Ceylon. An investigation into the history of these two titles is likely to throw some light on the origin of kingship in ancient Ceylon, and I therefore propose in this paper to pursue this line of study so far as the material available at present allows us to do so. The conclusions at which I have arrived by a study of the available data on this may not, in the present state of our knowledge, be taken as definitely established; but they might, nevertheless, be worthy of consideration by scholars interested in the early history of the Sinhalese people.

The title of this paper suggests a definite answer to a definite question. I do not think that such an answer can be given except in very general terms. The mystics of Islam, like all other mystics, recognize that the object of their search cannot be apprehended by knowledge, much less described by words. The goal is ineffable: all that can be done is to describe the journey from beginning to end. This is no easy task, and would assuredly be a long one if we accept the view of a celebrated Persian theosophist that the ways to God are in number as the souls of men. It is possible, however, to reduce to a system the main features, both theoretical and practical, of any mystical type, and with the help of a highly developed symbolism to indicate in some degree what is the nature of those experiences which lie beyond thought and knowledge. My present purpose is to discuss the meanings attached by Ṣúfís to certain metaphorical terms which are used in reference to the state of union with God.

The author of the Tohfat-al-Giráni states, that “the country of Sindh takes its name from Sind, the brother of Hind, the son of Noah. It is reckoned the forty-third of the sixty-one countries of the universe. The line of the second climate passes, from the north, directly through its centre; and although Sindh is situated in the five first climates, it nevertheless chiefly appertains to the second, and, consequently, lies in the region of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.” It would be difficult to discover where the author quoted has found these grandsons of the patriarch; indeed, as is usual in such genealogies, they are probably altogether imaginary. The Hindú writings may, perhaps, afford some more satisfactory explanation of the name; but I have not been so fortunate as to meet with it. As far as I can learn from such sources, this country was called Sindhúdès, or “the country of the ocean,” alluding doubtless to the river Indus, which receives that dignified appellation in their sacred writings. The same authorities also state Sindh to have been governed by a Xhuthi, named Jayadrat'ha, who was slain in the civil wars of the Pandús; and it has, in consequence, sometimes received the name of Jayadrat'hadès, after that chieftain.