The beginnings of the novel as a literary art in Egypt are so recent that the student of contemporary Arabic literature might well be excused for seeking to trace some genetic connection between its development and the earlier productions of the Syrian school of writers. But except for the possibility that the success of the Syrian novelists (whose works have been admirably described by Professor Kratchkowsky in the study frequently quoted in the previous articles of this series, and now available in a German translation) may have encouraged the Egyptian writers to produce a class of works which would appeal to the same public, the literary movement which forms the subject of the present article has remained in general entirely independent of the Syrian historical novel. Western influences, which are very marked in the later stages, have been exercised directly, but Egyptian recreational literature continued for a long time to lean rather on classical and conventional models. It is only very slowly and hesitatingly that it has emancipated itself, and its progress in this direction has been sporadic and individual rather than the result of a steady evolution.

It seems an odd coincidence that within the last three years there should have appeared four different studies devoted to the work of Ibn Khaldūn, considering that in the half-century following the issue of de Slane's translation of the Muqaddima, apart from von Kremer's study and a few short articles drawing the attention of a wider circle of students in various countries to its significance, it was not until 1917 that the first monograph on the subject was published by Dr. Ṭāhā Ḥusain. This work, like most of the earlier articles, dealt primarily with the sociological aspects of Ibn Khaldūn's historical theory, and the same interest predominates in all but one of the three or four articles published since 1917. Of the latest studies it may be said that, though still giving prominence to the social aspect,they cover as a whole a rather wider ground. Dr. Gaston Bouthoul, indeed, limits himself in his title to Ibn Khaldun's “Social Philosophy”, but the contents of his essay overleap these bounds, especially the first thirty pages, devoted to a very suggestive analysis of the personality and intellectual outlook of the historian. Professor Schmidt's tractate is in the nature of a survey of the field ; he assembles and examines the views of earlier writers on different aspects of Ibn Khaldun's work, but does not put forward any synthesis of his own. Lastly, the two recent German works of Drs. Kamil Ayad and Erwin Rosenthal mark a return towards the more strictly

The School of Oriental Studies has bought a small collection of Ismaili books which were the property of a Bohra mullah in India. He died about three years ago, and some of his books went to his son who had become a Christian. Having no interest in Ismaili theology he arranged with a missionary to sell them outside India. It looks as if the library had been divided in a way typical of India, one heir getting the first volume of a work and another the second.

Hardly ever has Islam survived a more disastrous and more mournful event than the destruction of Baghdād by the Mongols of Hūlāghū Khān in the middle of the month of al-Muharram of the year 656/January, 1258. The Mongol conqueror, after having subdued the Assassins, turned against the capital of the ‘Abbāsids and captured it without any resistance. The fall of the ‘Abbāsid caliphate was followed by a veritable reign of terror which lasted for forty days. Baghdad was plundered during this dismal period, its entire population was massacred mercilessly with the exception of the Christians, the co-religionists of Hūlāghū Khān's wife and father. The Caliph al-Musta'ṣim and his sons fell victims to the fury of the enraged conqueror, who put them to death. And to complete the disaster, a great conflagration destroyed many parts of the city.

A thorough and scientific treatment of the historiography of the African Muslim peoples and institutions south of the Zambesi is a long-felt and eminent want. As yet, this particular field of research has hardly been explored, and its results, if collected and evaluated, would add tangibly to our contemporary knowledge of Oriental penetration in lands where Europeans have founded new homes and fostered a vitalist conception of Occidental civilization.

In one of the contributions to the volume of Indian Studies presented to Professor Rapson (BSOS., vi, 2, pp. 285 ff.), Dr. L. D. Barnett criticizes the explanation of the term Pramnai in Strabo's Geogr., xv, 1, 70 (C. 719), given by Mr. E. R. Bevan (CHI., i, 421). Instead of the identification of the Pramnai with the prāmānikas Dr. Barnett proposes to see in the word a Sanskrit prājña. I must confess not to be convinced by the explanation of Dr. Barnett, neither from the point of view of an antagonism between brāhmanas and sectaries, who, “opposed to Aupanisada Brahmans, and to Brahmans generally”, “endeavoured by means of a carefully disciplined and studiously harmless life to attain to prajñā, practical cleverness, skill in grasping the principles of their crude creed, and in adjusting their conduct to its Procrustean demands”; nor from the philological point of view.

A passage of the tale of Husrav and the Page (Pahl. Texts, pp. 29-30, in Unvala's edition, § 30) may form the starting-point for a discussion of kavāt. It has not so far been fully translated.

Pour les grammairiens tibétains, da drag (= faux d) est le nom d'un suffixe qui s'ajoute aux finales n, r, l.

La loi d'euphonie du da drag exige au debut de la syllabe suivante: t, Č, p.

On peut distinguer deux états du da drag:—

(1) le d est écrit.

(2) le d n'est pas écrit, mais la syllabe qui suit n, r, l, présente la forme qu'elle aurait si le da drag était écrit.

In 1925 P. Pelliot drew a very interesting comparison between the Mongol and the Tungus names for the four cardinal points. This comparison was followed by S. M. ShirokogorofFs detailed study of the Northern Tungus terms of orientation, to which W. Kotwicz added a short note on the Mongol terms. Later in 1928 the latter scholar touched on the same subject in nis article entitled “Sur les modes d'orientation en Asie Centrale”, in which the Turkish names for the four cardinal points are discussed. These noteworthy studies show clearly how in the above-mentioned languages the four cardinal points are expressed by various words signifying “right” and “left” and “front” and “back”, as well as “upward” and “downward”.

In 1802 Kino, a middle-aged Japanese peasant woman in a remote country place, declared that God, having many times tried unsuccessfully to manifest himself in saints and prophets, had “this time” (kono tabi) managed at last to find in her a vehicle for the delivery of his full and final message. From 1802 till 1826 (the year of her death God, through his intermediary Kompira, who plays the part that the archangel Gabriel plays in the Koran), inspired this illiterate peasant with a continuous flow of communications, which from 1811 onwards were taken down in writing and are preserved in some 300 rolls. On the strength of this revelation she founded a sect that despite prosecution in the nineteenth century to-day numbers about 40,000 followers, and which, though its ways of life owe something to Buddhist monasticism, can only be described as a separate religion.

India Office Catalogue of Hindustānī MSS., No. 3, Sharī'at Nāma, a Dakhnī poem by Shāh Malik: written on 48 small folios and containing 516 lines. We may deseribe it, as a compendium of Muslim doctrines.

The influence of Western literature is evident in all Madhusūdan's work, but particularly in the Meghanāda Badha Kāvya (1861) -an epoch-making poem, upon which his fame as a poet mainly rests. For the subject-matter of this poem he went to the Rāmāyaṇa. Why was this ? Was it in imitation of Kālidāsa and Bhavabhūti, or was it his love of Kṛittibāsa that led him to the Rāmāyaṇna? Perhaps it was none of these, but his reading of Homer and other poets of Europe which led him to choose a story from the classics of his own country.

The word Yogakṣema claims high antiquity. It is found used in the Vedic Saṃhitās, Brāhmaṇas, and Śrauta-Sūtras. (See Bloomfield's Concordance, p. 808a.) It occurs in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad, Bhṛgu-vallī, ii, 51, and in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, ii, 1, 2. Its best-known use is in the Bhagavad-gītā, ix, 22, while it is found further compounded as niryogakṛema in ii, 45 of the same work.

The phonetic text given below is a simplified “broad” transcription of story No. 5 on p. 37 of A Burmese Phonetic Reader, by Armstrong and Pe Maung Tin, and is based on experience gained in the practical use of the Reader with Burmans, and also in the teaching of Burmese phonetics in the Indian Institute, Oxford.

Apart of the island of the central Solomon Islands which was called Santa Ysabel by the Spanish discoverers is known as “Sambana” to the natives of Narovo (Eddystone) and Mandegusu islands, who used to raid it. The north end of the island is called Kia, and the southern end is known as Bugotu. There is no one native name for the whole of the island.