In a previous paper I discussed the typology of two collections of neolithic artifacts from the North Karnataka of India and discovered a close correspondence between them.

Professor E. ULLENDORFF is entitled to the grateful appreciation of all students of Ethiopic letters for having published anew the Falasha story of the ‘Death of Moses’. The first edition published by the late Dr. Jacques Faitlovitch in 1906 has, indeed, become very rare. Moreover, his editio princeps was based on a single manuscript, while Ullendorff's recension is the result of a painstaking comparison of Faitlovitch's text with a manuscript extant inthe National Library of Addis Ababa. Some variants of this manuscript were already knownfrom the notes appended to Professor Wolf Leslau's translation of the ‘Death of Moses’ in his Falasha anthology, New Haven, 1951. Now we have them all before us in the apparatus criticus of Ullendorff's edition. The collation of the Addis Ababa manuscript has yielded an improved text. Itso happens, however, that this is not yet the last stage in the research on this interesting opuscle.

In my articles on Fakhr al-dīn Gurgānl's poem Vīs-u-Rāmīn 1 I made a point of its realistic geographical and historical background which, in my opinion, connects it with the Arsacid tradition. One of the important places in the story is the castle of Gūrāb in which the heroine Vis was kept and which belonged to the family of her future rival Gul. Muslim geographers still referred to this place lying at the junction of the roads from Hamadān and Nihāvand to Karaj, and Gūrāb is mentioned in the course of the military operations of the Seljuk Sulḍān Mas'ūd (towards 541/1146), see Rāḥal al-ṣudūr, 242. In more recent times its titles to distinction had been forgotten.

In a footnote to page 1083 of K. C. Balderston's Thraliana (Oxford, 1942) we read Mrs. Thrale's opinion of our only full-length biography of Sir William Jones (1746–1794), that written by his friend Sir John Shore (later Lord Teign-mouth) and prefixed to the definitive edition of the great scholar's published works: “This Fashion of publishing Lives & Remains is a very amusing Fashion—& Sir William JOne's is the least entertaining among them all.” This judgement on Teignmouth's Memoirs is 'pretty generally shared by all who have read them with an eye to truth and proportion; the book is marred by the author's too patent anxiety to make of his hero a prophet of Clapham evangelicalism, and to mitigate the harshness of his uncompromising politics. For the bare facts of Jone's life and career Teignmouth may, nevertheless, be consulted with due caution: the purpose of this paper is to attempt to put into a proper perspective certain aspects of Jones's activities and character which have not been hitherto sufficiently delineated. Almost all the material used in this essay consists of unpublished letters from Jones to his one-time pupil and life-long friend; Lord Althorp, the 2nd Earl Spencer: I here record my gratitude to the present Earl Spencer, who most kindly lent me copies of a considerable range of this interesting correspondence.

The Persian land reform, both in its successes and failures, has lessons for other developing countries, not least Ethiopia. There are many similarities between the two countries. But there are also differences. Both are monarchies, and in both the head of state plays a key role in the government of the country. The Ethiopians and the Persians are both an ancient and proud people. Ethiopia and Iran are both enormous countries with a low population density. Both are characterized by immense variety, climatically, physically, in the different peoples which inhabit the country, and in their social structure. Both have frontier provinces with a population the same on both sides of the border. In both control by the central government of the outlying areas is fairly recent. Their land tenure systems have some resemblances, but that of Ethiopia is much more complex. Farming in both until recent times was mainly subsistence farming. Both have, on the whole, a robust and hard-working peasantry. Both have a large semi-nomadic population as well as a settled population. In both the vast majority of the population derive their livelihood from the land. Both have problems of soil erosion. Drought is common to both. But Ethiopia is much more favourably situated than Iran in these two respects: it has a much higher rainfall over most of the country and, on the whole, better soil conditions. But here perhaps the similarities end.

In his article in BSOAS, xv, 1953, pp. 588–597, Professor E. G. Pulleyblank has made a number of statements which, in my opinion, need explanation and correction. This is not the place to discuss wider problems of Chinese gentry society in detail; this will be done on another occasion. I limit my notes, therefore, to a few interesting points.