Few nations, either ancient or modern, have surpassed the Amazirgs, or lineal descendants of the primitive inhabitants of northern Africa, in power to produce a more ingenious and contemplative writer than the one now before us. And yet this writer, equally profound as an historian and as a statesman, has hitherto been so little known in Europe, that the majority of our Arabic scholars have but very confused notions of his scientific and literary merits, and to many, even his name is almost unknown. In the East, and in Africa, however, the great historical work he has composed, has given him a celebrity which no lapse of time, nor any vicissitude of events, will ever impair or lessen.

The very limited accounts of the varieties of the Wild Dog to be met with in Shaw's Zoology, in Blumenbach's admirable Manual of Natural History, and in the splendid edition of Cuvier's Règne Animal, now publishing in England, in Rees's Cyclopædia, and in one or two other works within my reach, lead me to believe that the accompanying drawing and description of the Wild Dog of the Western Ghats may prove acceptable to the Society.

The Council of the Royal Asiatic Society, fully coinciding with the sentiments expressed by its Secretary at the General Meeting held on the 2d of March, has accordingly ordered that the substance of the remarks made by Mr. Haughton should, in justice to Mr. Colebrooke, be printed with Colonel Vans Kennedy's paper, as follows:—

Substance of Mr. (now Sir Graves C.) Haughton's Remarks.

This manufacture has been named Lacquered Ware, from an idea, I suppose, that lac forms a part of it; but this is a mistake, no lac is used, and the bright red colour is given by vermilion, which is made by the Burmese from cinnabar (ayain), imported by the Chinese caravans from Yun-nan.

I am induced to offer to the Society a sketch of the personal ornaments on the alto-relievo figures, male and female, in the Budd'ha cave temple of Carli, from having remarked an apparent identity in the majority of the sculptured ornaments, with those worn by that remarkable, erratic, carrying and armed, but essentially pastoral people, the Brinjaris; a people whose origin and history admit of further development. My acquaintance with the Brinjaris is too limited to justify me in advancing any opinion on a community of taste between them and the ancient Budd'has, and although such community, if existing in the constitution of European society, would not excite attention, it will be considered, at least, curious in India, where the classes of society are not less marked by caste than by habits of life, opinions, dress, and personal ornaments.

It would give me great pleasure, were it in my power to explain the little I have remarked on the nature of the pearl-oyster, in the style the subject requires. Having had opportunities of obtaining a general knowledge of most fisheries, I cannot but regret that my attention was so wholly absorbed by professional pursuits, that very little was bestowed on the natural history or habits of the animal in question.

In December 1828, when quartered in Colombo (Ceylon), I joined a party on a shooting excursion, in the course of which we visited Anarájapura, and some other places of interest. Having made a few rough sketches and some memoranda, which I have been led to believe are not devoid of interest, and having found that the information which I procured on the spot is borne out and confirmed in a remarkable manner by the Mahávansi, the Rájavali, and the Rájaratnácari, three native histories, for translations of which, now in progress of publication* by Mr. Upham, we are indebted to Sir Alexander Johnston, I have been induced to lay a few of the outlines and memoranda before the Society.

Tuesday, the 8th of Rajab 1209 (29th January 1795), having been fixed upon for delivering, with splendour and ceremony, the imperial letters and presents entrusted to me, the , or officer acting as master of the ceremonies, and the secretary to the King, waited upon us three days previous, and announced that they had His Majesty's commands to regulate the forms and ceremonies of the audience, and that they were most anxious to do every thing in their power to honour and oblige us.

The Baron De Sacy, in his essay on the inscriptions and sculptures at Naksh-i-Rustam, by way of reconciling the historical relation to the representation itself, is led to assert that the design illustrates the conquest of Ardashír over the last sovereign of the Arsacidœ, or the contest for the crown. The inscription on the horse belonging to the monarch, supposed to be one of the Arsacidœ, as copied from Niebuhr's plate, is ΤΟΓ ΤΟΠΡΟCΩΠΟΝ ΔΙΟC ΘΕΟΥ, and M. de Sacy imagines that the Greek who traced it, if the word be ΘΕΟΥ, was ignorant of the deity whose name is inserted in the other inscription, i.e. μασδασνγ, and gives it as his opinion that the inscription, rightly translated, originally meant,

“This is the representation of the god Hormuzd,”

one of the last Sassanian kings. From an inspection of the monument, I conceive this to be an error.

A'ryab'hatta, who flourished in the beginning of the thirty-seventh century of the Cáli Yuga, of which four thousand nine hundred and twenty years have passed, has in his work, the Aryab'hatiyam, in which he mentions the period of his birth, exhibited the proportion of the diameter to the circumference of the circle as 20000 to 62832, in the following verse:

Chaturadhicam ṣatamashṭaguṇandwáshashṭistathá sahasráṇám Ayutadwaya vishcambhasyásannó vritta pariṇáhah.

The foundation for the following remarks, or the text, as it were, on which I shall comment, will be Mr. Erskine's very learned and curious essay “on the sacred books and religion of the Pársís.” My opinion, it is true, differs almost entirely from that of Mr. Erskine; but I feel convinced that neither this truly liberal and amiable scholar, nor the Literary Society, will be displeased at seeing the same object represented in two different points of view. Either of the opposite opinions, or perhaps both of them, may be false, and yet the discussion of the subject may effect a step towards that truth and clearness which are the noble ends of every reasonable inquiry. But should you think my remarks fall too far short of this object, or are otherwise too crude and imperfect, I beg you will pardon the attempt, and purify the pages in the favourite element of the Pársís.

In my late researches in that part of the Deccan lying between the sources and junction of the Bíma and Mota Mola rivers, I met with the cocoons of the silk-worm which is called Kolísurra by the Mahrattas. The insect is an object of interest to the manufacturer from the strength of the fibre in the silk it produces.

The sepulchral stone with the Phænician inscription, I found at Maghráwah, a little village in the Beylik of Tunis, situated on the northern declivity of the range of hills, which separates Muhadhar-al-Hammaáah Walád Ayár, the ancient Tucca Terebenthina, from the plain of Zirrz inhabited by the Bení Riss, a branch of Dthrídis, and on which are seen the ruins of Assura, now called Zanfür. I feel inclined to imagine that Maghráwah occupies the situation of one of those Libyo-Phœnician towns or villages which were never colonized by the Romans; for though we find several fragments of coarsely-executed basreliefs representing men and animals, evidently of a date anterior to the epoch when sculpture attained any degree of perfection, yet I saw not a single vestige of the workmanship either of the later Carthaginians or of their conquerors. Not the smallest fragment of either capital, frieze, or cornice is descernible. About an hour and a-half's distance from Maghráwah, in the direction of Zanfúr, is the small village of Lheys, where are found similar remains, mixed however with fragments of Roman inscriptions and sculpture.

In the north-western extremity of our Indian possessions, and under the tropic, is situated the small and sterile territory of Cutch, of importance to the government from its advanced position, but of more attraction to the student of history from its western shore being washed by the waters of the classic Indus and from its proximity to the scene of Alexander's glories. Divested, however, of these alluring enticements to enter on its history, Cutch is a country peculiarly situated. To the west it has the inconstant and ever varying Indus. To the north and east the tract called Runn, which is alternately a dry sandy desert and a muddy inland lake. To the south it has the Gulf of Cutch and the Indian Ocean, with waters receding yearly from its shores.