Few experiences are as exasperating as being obliged to resort to tedious hand calculation because the reference works available for the purpose of verifying historical eclipse observations are plainly inadequate. To those of us concerned with the history of East Asia who are intimidated enough by the chore of balancing the monthly bank statement, F. R. Stephenson's and M. A. Houlden's Atlas of historical eclipse maps will be a most welcome addition to the reference library.

In Tigrinya, the cardinal numbers from 5 to 9 show a hushing sibilant instead of the hissing sibilant which is found in the corresponding ordinal numbers, i.e., 5th to 9th, and the multiples of ten, i.e., 50 to 90. We cite the forms as given by W. Leslau (1941: 127 ff.)

The late Walter Simon discussed the Tibetan particle re in two important articles published in this journal: ‘The Tibetan particle re’ (BSOAS, xxx, 1, 1967, 117–26) and ‘Tibetan re in its wider context’ (BSOAS, xxxi, 3, 1968, 555–62).

The participle ghaţita (from the root ghaţ) has a wide range of meanings, but is quite restricted when applied to windows in a house or palace. Our purpose here is to clarify this specific usage by reference to texts and archaeological remains. As such, this note elucidates the cultural milieu of the term.

I read with interest the brief report on the Persian–Tamil inscription on a stone tablet recording the reconstruction of the Āmbūr Fort in Tamilnadu, and now preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum (BSOAS, XLIX, 3, 1986, 553–7). As a Tamil epigraphist, I was particularly interested in the Tamil text edited by J. R. Marr (ibid., 553, n. 3). Unfortunately, he has misread two words (each occurring twice), made wrong segmentations of two other words and omitted the last word in the text. These happen to be crucial words and consequently his translation has suffered. The Tamil characters of the epigraph are almost modern and they can be made out quite clearly from the excellent reproduction (ibid., pi. I). Without more ado, I proceed to furnish a revised transliteration and translation of the Tamil record with brief notes on some of the interesting expressions occurring in it.