During the eighteenth century the East India Company did not consider the education of its own European civil servants as a necessary care. Appointment was by patronage, and it was assumed that the parents and friends of a writer would have subjected him to the ordinary education of his class. With no more than this background a young writer would sail for India at the age of about seventeen years. The Indian Service was confined to comparatively few families and he might reasonably expect to find relatives or friends of relatives at any of the three Presidencies, and these would give him hospitality and guidance. His initial employment would be as a copying clerk; as such hewould become familiar with the routine of the service before being given a post of responsibility. The only concession made by the Company to his need for any other instruction than that given by his daily employment was the payment to him of a Munshi's allowance, so that he might hire an Indian to teach him Persian and the local language.

This is a fuller version of the paper which I read at the recent International Congress of Orientalists at Cambridge. It has been prepared in compliance with several requests from those who heard it for something on paper which they could study at leisure.

Maka terkadang kechil rupa dalam chermin itu sebab kechil chermin, dan terkadang panjang ia sebab panjang chermin; dan terkadang bergerak ia sebab bergerak chermin, dan terkadang bergerak ia sebab bergerak chermin, dan terkadang berbalēk ia, apabila ada chermin itu di-atas atau di-bawah; dan terkadang berbetulan kanan-nya dengan kanan yang berchermin (E. 148) tatkala banyak chermin, dan terkadang berbetulan kanan-nya dengan kiri-nya, apabila ada chermin itu di-hadapannya. Maka ada-lah sakalian itu menunjokkan kapada rupa yang kelihatan dalam (C. 56a) chermin, bukan ia sa-kali-kali diri yang berchermin dan bukan ia lain daripada-nya pun karena yang berchermin itu tetap jua ia saperti ada-nya, tiada ia berubah; hanya yang berubah-ubah itu kenyataan-nya dalam chermin jua sebab berubah-ubah penerimaan chermin: demikian-lah kita hendak mithalkan dengan tiada tashbih akan tajalli Hakk ta'ala pada hamba-nya berbagai-bagai ia, sebab berbagai-bagai hamba-nya dan segala hal merēka itu jua.

In the JRAS., 1954, pp. 119 ff., Professor Enno Littmann, the Nestor of Ethiopic epigraphists, published a Gə'əz inscription from Egypt together with two photographs, a vocalized version and a translation. His decipherment covers seven lines of widely varying legibility, but it appears from scratches visible in fig. 1 that the original inscription contained at least two further lines of which nothing can be recognized to-day. Littmann acknowledges (ibid., p. 121) that most of the restorations, especially those following upon line 3, are “mere conjectures”. This view is, indeed, borne out by study of the inscription and by its very bad state of preservation. In other words: of an inscription of probably nine lines barely a third is in a condition offering a reasonable basis for decipherment. When one remembers that most Ethiopic inscriptions (as, indeed, Oriental epigraphic documents in general) are provided with a generous portion of a preliminary and introductory character, one soon realizes that hopes of a substantial enrichment of Gə'əz epigraphy are bound to be disappointed. This does not mean that the remaining three lines are of no value; any contribution to the not over-abundant inscriptional material of early Ethiopic deserves attention. Professor Littmann and Mr. Meredith have placed Semitists in their debt by making this still unvocalized Gə'əz inscription available for general discussion.

In January and February of 1954 the writer travelled some 4,000 miles through the Northern Eegion of Nigeria in search of Arabic manuscripts for the Library of the University College of Ibadan, and also to make a survey of the indigenous Arabic literature of the peoples of the Western Sudan. There was no means beforehand of determining whether any manuscripts would be found at all, or whether, if they still existed, their possessors would part with them. The tour proved profitable in both respects, however; over 150 works were obtained, most of which are unknown outside Nigeria and very few of which have ever been printed. Some were generously donated, but most were purchased at the “market price”, for the scribes are still busy in the more remote districts, although the popularity of the printed texts from Egypt is an increasing threat to their livelihood. In Kano, the largest town of the Northern Region, it was impossible to find a scribe at work and there Arabic manuscripts were, in consequence, rare and expensive. Some local bibliophiles, understandably reluctant to give or sell volumes which they could not replace, nevertheless lent them for microfilming. There was, generally, considerable interest shown towards this work and, since returning to Ibadan, manuscripts have been received by post from self-appointed agents, which is most encouraging.