During our last session I did myself the pleasure of presenting to the Society an autobiographical sketch of Nana Farnevis; and of elucidating the character of Madhu Rao the Great, the prince of Poona, from a series of original letters, principally in his own handwriting.

The interest which those papers excited fully proves, that the biography of celebrated men is an object not only deserving your attention, but, I may venture to say, is also one of the most pleasing forms in which information regarding the inhabitants of the East can well be conveyed to the learned of the West. It is this conviction that has induced me to submit to you the following sketch of the life of the great Muhamedan historian of India, commonly known by the name of Ferishta, with some account of his writings; and I feel assured that your attention will be more completely roused, when you know that his work, now lying before me, has lately been translated, and will in a few days, I trust, be open to your inspection, and submitted for your judgment and approval.

It was in the month of February 1824 that, while on leave from my regiment, and travelling about the province of Berar, I visited the extraordinary excavations of Adjunta, situated in lat. 20° 25′ N. and Ion. 76° 12′ E. These, though I believe hitherto undescribed, are as much deserving of a separate publication as the far-famed temples of Ellora; and though I spent only a few hours in their gloomy recesses, yet I saw enough to convince me that they are well worthy of a more minute investigation, and a lengthened sojourn amongst them.

Amongst those sciences which, after a long interval of ignorance and barbarity, were revived by the Mahomedan Arabs, astronomy ranks very high; and it cannot be denied, that had not the Arabs applied themselves to it with great assiduity and zeal, and encouraged all that served to promote its dissemination and advancement, after it had remained almost totally forgotten from the time of Ptolemy, the application to its study would, perhaps, never have extended over so large a portion of the globe as it has done. Although the pagan inhabitants of Arabia, before the time of Islamism, were in the habit of observing the stars, many of which they knew, and denominated by names taken from pastoral life, and several of which they even worshipped as visible gods, yet of a scientific knowledge of astronomy among them no traces can be discovered. The revival, therefore, of this celestial science, was principally attributable to their Mahomedan successors, who introduced its study into Arabia, at a time when the countries around them were immersed in the most deplorable state of mental darkness, which could only be dissipated by slow degrees.

In the arrangement of our subject, it may perhaps be useful to preserve so much regard to method, as to treat of it separately, under the two following heads:

Part I. Versification, or the particular rules which prevail in the mere construction of lines, couplets, and stanzas; and the sources whence these derive their melody and rythm.

Part II. A general view of the style and spirit of Chinese poetry, the character of its imagery and sentiment, and the extent to which it seems to admit of a precise classification, relatively to the divisions and nomenclature adopted in European literature.

To such as should find the first portion of our treatise dry and technical in its details, the second may possibly prove more attractive: but the order of discussion could hardly be inverted with propriety.

The first intimation of any intercourse by embassies between the courts of Dehli and Constantinople occurs in the reign of Suliman the Lawgiver, in the year 1536; when Burhân, the son of Sikandar, the king of Dehli, sought refuge at the Ottoman Porte from the displeasure of Humayun. In Ferdi's excellent history of Sultan Suliman'S reign is the following account of this event:

“Burhan Beg, the son of Sikandar, king of Hindustan, ruined by the “invasions of the Jagataïan armies, fled to the Sublime Porte; where he “was honoured by being allowed to kiss the imperial hand, and was pro-“vided with a daily pension of three hundred aspers.”

In presenting to the Royal Asiatic Society the four accompanying representations of the Ellora Sculptures, in continuation of those which I had the honour of submitting last session, I have to regret that, from the very scanty and imperfect intelligence procurable on the spot, I am unable to attach to some of them any descriptive notice that would be at all satisfactory.

Many principles and forms of the religion of the Lamas are evidently borrowed from that of the Hindoos. They have similar ceremonies performed on the banks of rivers, and the Ganges is held in equal veneration, A little of its water is a most valuable acquisition to one of their faquires or pilgrims, who carries it in a small brass or silver bottle, carefully corked, and tied to his girdle. Their supreme deity, called indiscriminately by the name Sijamony, Mahamony, and Sejatoba, is said to have been brought many ages ago by one of the superior Lamas from Benares, and others of them must have been of foreign extraction; for although plainly drawn and carved as females, the priests will not allow them of that sex; and often, as they think, decide the distinction with a pair of whiskers, when the turn of the features and swell of the bosom shew whiskers to be misapplied.

During my residence in North Hampshire, in the years 1819–20, I was led to pay considerable attention to a race of vagrant men, who, roaming about the high roads and lanes in the vicinity of Waltham, Overton, and Whitchurch, appear almost to be out of the protection of the law (whether in this or any other country), and are known throughout the world under the varied names—