In February 1937, a peace between the Hadramawt sultanates, the Qu[ain]aytī and Kathīrī and their tribes, totally unprecedented in the history of that region, was brought about essentially by the efforts of two men: Sayyid Sir Abū Bakr al-Kāf and Harold Ingrams, the first political officer in Hadramawt. This peace was known universally thereafter as “Ingrams Peace”, although the word “truce” is much in evidence in the contemporary documents studied below.

The prime object of this article is to examine in some detail some of the contemporary British documents directly or indirectly relevant to the phenomenon (for such it undoubtedly was!) of the late 1930s–early 1940s called “Ingrams Peace”. It is quite unashamedly a view of events through British eyes, through the eyes of the key players in the drama. They are allowed as far as is possible to speak for themselves. Let us first introduce the characters involved and set the scene.

The article provides an edition and translation of eight early Islamic acknowledgment (iqrār) deeds written in Early New Persian, which are preserved in the National Library of Israel. The acknowledgment deeds are part of a rich trove of manuscripts known as the “Afghan Genizah”, reportedly found in the area of Bāmiyān in central Afghanistan. Dated between the years 395–430/1005–1039, the eight discussed acknowledgment deeds are probably the earliest extant legal documents written in New Persian. This implies that Islamic legal documents were drawn up in New Persian in the area of Bāmiyān—and perhaps in other eastern Iranian territories—as early as the beginning of the 5th/11th century. Furthermore, a thorough examination of the formulaic structure of these acknowledgment deeds reveals their reliance on Arabic legal formulae, which may reflect an early stage of legal writing in New Persian.

It has been claimed that the ninth-century shipwreck found near the island of Belitung, Indonesia, is that of an Arabian ship. The evidence for this is examined in detail, and found to be less than convincing. The identifications of samples of wood from the wreck are shown to be unreliable at species level. The construction technique of the ship appears to resemble that of the eastern Indian Ocean, not the western Indian Ocean. Various items from the wreck connect it with Southeast Asia: a piloncito coin probably came from Java. Very little from the ship suggests any link at all with the western Indian Ocean. Overall, the strongest probability is that the ship was built in Southeast Asia.

The inscriptions connected with the Myazedi pagoda at Pagan, Burma, are inscribed on two pillars. One of these pillars stands within the walls of the pagoda and is four-sided, having four inscriptions of the same general purport expressed in four different languages, viz., Pali, Burmese, Talaing, and an unidentified language. The other pillar is in the Kubyaukkyi cave, to the west of the pagoda. It has three inscriptions, which are apparently replicas of those that are on the first pillar excepting the Talaing version, which (it seems) is wanting; but they are not in such a good state of preservation as are those on the first pillar.

Numerous attempts have at different times been made by a variety of authors to identify the two plants which in the authorised version of the Scriptures are translated Mustard Tree and Hyssop. That these attempts have not been so satisfactory to others, as to set the questions at rest, is evident from fresh plants being continually adduced, even in recent works, as possessed of the requisite characteristics. It may be inferred that these do not appear, to the author of this paper, to have been more successful than preceding endeavours, from his making a fresh, and which to many will appear a presumptuous attempt to determine what has baffled so many able inquirers. Few fields, however, are so barren, even after they seem to have been cleared by the most skilful reapers, as not to yield some grains to the careful gleaner. So, continued attention to any one pursuit, never fails to throw light, not only on itself, but also on other, and what at first appear but remotely connected subjects. Thus it has been in the study of ancient for the purpose of elucidating modern Materia Medica, and of both in connexion with the Botany of the East, that the author has been led to conclusions, which seem to elucidate some of the disputed points in Biblical botany.

It is well known that the Chinese have had a little organ called shêng or yü for many ages, made with bamboo pipes which are fitted with free reeds, and played by suction. The words shêng and huang, the reed, occur in the Odes which date from before 500 b.c., and are traditionally explained as referring to an instrument like that which is still in use. But attention has not, I think, been called to the fact that a reed organ from the West was brought to China in the thirteenth century, and created so much interest at the time that it was reconstructed to play the Chinese scale. Ten or twelve of these instruments seem to have been made and to have been used in the Imperial orchestra during the Yüan dynasty (1280–1368), but I cannot find that they were used after that period. Three descriptions of the Hsing lung shêng, as the organ was named, have been found in books of the fourteenth century, and translations of these are here given, with explanatory notes very kindly contributed by the Reverend Canon F. W. Galpin.

In his paper L'Arrivée des Portugais en Chine, published in T'oung Pao in 1912, M. Cordier, before giving a more detailed account of the events in the Further East following on the taking of Malacca in 1511, gave a lucid sketch of the events accompanying the first establishment of Portuguese power in Eastern seas. I consider that these events require to be further set forth, for as far as I am aware the existing histories do not give any adequate and consecutive account of the struggle for the mastery of the Arabian Sea carried out by the Portuguese against the Muḥammadan states, and more especially against the Turks, who in the sixteenth century were the most powerful military state in the world. In this paper I propose to deal with this subject to the best of my ability.

The diamond tracts of India lie between 13° and 25° N. lat; they occur in irregular arid patches, sometimes basin-shaped, in hilly districts on the great elevated plains bordering the more considerable rivers that have an easterly and southerly course to the Bay of Bengal. Diamonds of considerable size are not rarely found in the sands of these streams and of their tributaries; but their geognostic situs must be referred to the sandstone and sandstone conglomerate, which will be described at more length in the detailed accounts I am about to offer of the various localities in which this gem occurs, commencing with those of the Ceded Districts on the southern limit of the great diamond area just mentioned.

The fact seems strange that thirty years elapsed between the known discovery of inscribed bones and tortoise shells near An-yang and the first systematic exploration of the site. Towards the end of 1928 digging was begun by an expedition sent by the National Research Institute of History and Philology, and partly financed by the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution. The work suffered from obstruction owing to the prevailing unrest; but several times it has been resumed, and three volumes have appeared under the title Preliminary Reports of Excavations at Anyang. These give interim accounts of the varied results which provide important contributions to history and archaeology.

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.

This one of the most northerly of the Kurdish dialects, spoken by a large tribe of Kurds inhabiting the mountains around Erzerum and to the east towards Bayazid, may be reckoned as one of the most important of the Turko-Kurd tongues on account of the regularity of conjugations of its verbs and richness of grammatical form as compared with other Kurdish tongues. With very few differences it may be classed as a companion dialect to that termed by Lerch and others who have studied northern Kurdish dialects, Kermānjī. A very harsh pronunciation is adopted by the Shādī Kurds, which renders their dialect incomprehensible to the southern Kurd. As in the Kermānjī, the influence of the Chaldean (Neo-Syriac) dialects is here and there apparent, and in a few instances Arabic is employed. Turkish, which might be expected to have furnished a proportion of the common words used, has been very sparsely employed. Considered as a whole, and allowing for differences created by corruption of pronunciation, the dialect appears as a well-preserved old Persian tongue. The Shādi Kurds, in common with some other tribes of the south, claim that their dialect is ancient Persian, and have reserved for it the name of Fārisī.

Henry Thomas Colebrooke, the subject of this memoir, was born in London, on the 15th. June, 1765, and was the youngest of seven children. His father, Sir George Colebrooke, Baronet, was for many years chairman of the East India Company.

As a boy, he was of a quiet retired disposition, seldom mixing in any of the usual amusements of childhood, and was distinguished at an early age among his brothers and sisters for his extreme fondness for reading. In allusion to this, he used to say to them, that by his habits and tastes he was best fitted for the profession of a clergyman, and expressed a strong desire to his father that he might be placed in the church.

It is a matter of no small difficulty to give a general view of the Religion of India, and so to arrange the different Deities composing the Hindu Pantheon, as to place before the student of Hindu Mythology a connected and harmonious system of the religious belief of the natives of Hindustan. Brahmá for example is styled the Creator of the Universe, and yet almost totally disregarded, not even a single temple being erected to his honour, although creation is one of the chief grounds of religious worship. Vishnu in the system stands forth as the Preserver, but in the eye of his votaries consisting of myriads in every part of the country, the world owes its origin, as well as its preservation to him; and Siva, though systematic writers tell us he is to be regarded as the author of Destruction, and the third God of the Hindu Triad, is worshipped by millions as the Supreme God, the Preserver as well as the Destroyer, the Imparter equally with the Taker away of life. Again, no small proportion of the Hindu nation ascribe the origin of the system of the Universe to a female divinity, whom they consider the Mother of all the Gods, and to whom also they attribute a principal share in its government.

This year on the eve of his 80th birthday, which we now celebrate, Sir Mortimer Wheeler has been responsible for drafting the report on the UNESCO Mission to Mohenjo Daro. No honour could be better deserved, or give him greater satisfaction, than the implementation of the important and judicious recommendations on which he and his colleagues have agreed for the conservation of this world-famous site and, complementary to this, for its excavation down to the deeply waterlogged levels. For all who are aware of the massive remains of superimposed architecture which still adorns Mohenjo Daro it is staggering to learn that even below the present average flood-plain level “recent borings have shown at more than one spot that brickwork in fact goes down as much as 60 feet (18 m.)”. A combination of international skills, engineering, hydrological, and archaeological, are available to encompass that great task, which is one that deserves the large funds required. Moreover the lessons which would be learned from the application of the practical techniques would be directly relevant to the opening and exploration of world-famous ancient sites in the great alluvial valleys of Western Asia—Nile and Tigris, Euphrates and Ganges as well as the Indus.

The coin is a drachma of the Sasanian king Hormizd IV (a.d. 579–590), and is dated the tenth regnal year, equivalent to a.d. 587/8. Its formal description may be given as follows:

Obverse. Bust of Hormizd IV to right. To left, from 11 o'clock, Pahlavī inscription: ’pzwr “increase”. To right, from 1 o'clock (reading from the outside): ’wḥlmzdy “Hormizd”.

This book was edited for the first time by Professor Joseph Hell of Erlangen (Leiden, 1916), and since it is one of the oldest extant treatises on the literary history of the Arabs it will always be regarded as an important source of information. Unfortunately the printed text is very incorrect and often quite unintelligible. A large number of valuable emendations have been proposed by the late Professor H. Reckendorf in his review of the book (Orientalistische Literaturzeitung for May, 1917, columns 147–152), by Mr. C. A. Storey in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for April, 1918, pp. 349–355, and by Professor G. Levi della Vida in the Rivista degli Studi Orientali, vol. viii, pp. 611–636 (Rome, 1920). But many passages still remain obscure, and for this reason I venture to offer the following additional suggestions. If some of my remarks have been forestalled by others, I must apologise for my inadvertence. Mere misprints and incorrect vocalisations I have not thought it worth while to mention, except where they are likely to mislead the reader.

In the title of my paper the stress is to be laid upon the word ‘etymological.’ The vocabulary does not contain all the Māldivian words which I collected during the last five or six years, either from printed books, or from manuscripts hitherto unpublished, or from the lips of Māldivian natives. For it was by no means my intention to compile a Māldivian dictionary for practical use: this would be premature; it may perhaps be done at some future time. For the present my purpose is purely philological. The present object is to publish linguistic materials which may serve as a basis for a scientific phonology of the Māldivian language. My vocabulary is, therefore, both an introduction and a supplement to the third part of my “Māldivian Studies,” which deals with that subject. First, I have excluded, of course, from my vocabulary the numerous words borrowed from Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani, as they do not belong to the original stock of the Māldivian dialect. But I have omitted also generally those words which cannot be explained in a satisfactory way by the help of phonetic laws confirmed by other etymologies which are not open to doubt. There remains, nevertheless, a sufficient number of words to show clearly the character of the Māldivian language. It is merely a dialect, and not even a very ancient dialect, of Sinhalese. This result is, I think, also of historical interest; for it appears from it that the Māldive islands were occupied by Sinhalese people, but hardly at an earlier period than about eight or nine centuries ago.

Writers on the early history of South-East Asia have frequently referred to a country known to the Chinese as (Tun-sun), but so far no one has collated all the available texts to furnish the fullest possible description of this shadowy state. The following notes are an attempt to show that their assembly provides one of the earliest extant accounts of the Malay Peninsula.

The Khaláṣat-at-Tawáríkh is a history of India from the days of the Pandus and Kurus down to the defeat of Dárá Shikoh and the beginning of the reign of Aurangzeb. It was written two hundred years ago (1695–96) by an upcountry Hindu, whose name has been variously given as Sanjan, Suján, Saján, Shuján, and Subhán Rái. He does not name himself in his history, but he tells us that he was a native of Batála, in the Panjáb, and that he had been from his youth up in the employment of high officials as a munshi or secretary. Apparently he was a kshatriya by caste, but in my opinion he was almost, if not quite, a Sikh by religion.