May 23, 1859.] OBITUARY.— LOFTUS—SCHLAGINTWEIT. 259' 



William Kennett Loftus, who, thougli not a Fellow of this 

 Society, had contributed some important papers to its Journal,* 

 comprising Notes of a Journey from Busrah to Bagdad, and on the 

 Determination of the Eiver Eulseus of the Greek Historians, died 

 in November last, at the age of thirty-seven, on board the Ty- 

 burnia, on his way home from India. Mr. Loftus was a good 

 scholar, and had passed much of his life in the East. He served 

 four years in Mesopotamia under Colonel Williams (now Sir W. F. 

 Williams of Kars), as naturalist and geologist to the expedition sent 

 out for the settlement of the Persian frontiers. On his term of 

 service expiring, he was sent by the Assyrian Society to investigate 

 the ruins of Babylon and other ancient Biblical cities. The results 

 were published in a book entitled ' Travels and Eesearches in 

 Chaldaea and Susiana,' which reflected much credit on this young 

 geographer and archaeologist. Afterwards appointed as a geological 

 surveyor on the Great Survey of India, he laboured zealously at his 

 work till he was struck down by a sun- stroke. He went to Ean- 

 goon to recruit his health, and not succeeding, was ordered home> 

 and died on the voyage. 



Adolphe Schlagintaveit. — In closing this obituary, it is my melan- 

 choly duty to state that the event which was foreshadowed in the 

 Address of last year has been realized; and that the bold and 

 accomplished explorer, Adolphe Schlagintweit, is no more ! 



The documents which attest that he was assassinated before 

 the walls of Kashgar (midway between Ydrkand and Kokan) 

 were officially transmitted by Lord Stanley, the Secretary for 

 India in Council, and laid before the Society."]' It appears that 

 Adolphe Schlagintweit, who took a route farther to the west than 

 his brothers Hermann and Eobert, had succeeded in penetrating 

 farther than they did into Central Asia ; for he not only reached 

 Yarkand, where he was well received, but was on his route to 

 Kokan, when, in one of those religious forays made by the 

 fanatical Turks or Crescentaders from Kokan against the Chinese, 

 he was killed in August, 1857, by order of a savage Mohammedan 

 chief, named Wulli Khan. 



When we know that the deceased had overcome the greatest 

 difficulties of his perilous journey, had traversed the western pro- 



* See vols. xxvi. and xxvii. 



f These papers have since been printed by his brothers Hermann and Robert for private 

 distribution. 



