2nd s. NO 34., Aug. 23. '66.] 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



147 



anrl seventy years after the battle of Marathon. 

 He proceeds to make the following remarks : 



"If before Herodotus no important historical -work was 

 written upon those events, pray consider what changes, 

 during so long a period, may have taken place in a tra- 

 dition which was not fixed by writing, and how many 

 fabulous additions may have been made to it. It is well 

 known that the account of Napoleon's expedition to 

 Egypt has already assumed, in the mouth of the Egyptian 

 Arabs, such a fabulous appearance that it might seem to 

 have required a century to develop it ; and instances of 

 the same kind occur frequentl}'. At a time when an oc- 

 currence engrosses the mind of everj'body, the account of 

 it undergoes incredible changes: events are transposed 

 from an earlier to a later time, and vice versa ; we can 

 scarcely form an idea of this vivacity and elasticity of 

 traditions, because in our days everything is immediately 

 put upon record." — Vol. i. p. 320. ed. Schmitz. 



In another part of the same work, the following 

 observations occur during an examination of Livy's 

 belief that the name of Alexander the Great was 

 not known to the contemporary Romans : 



" Maritime communications in antiquity were very 

 active and extensive, and the notions commonly enter- 

 tained on this subject are quite erroneous : after the ex- 

 pulsion of the kings, Roman ships sailed as far as Spain, 

 as we see from the treaty with Carthage. The Romans 

 therefore might very well know about Alexander. At 

 the present time reports of European occurrences reach 

 the interior of Africa, Persia, and China, with inconceiv- 

 able rapidity. Thus the French revolution was known 

 in the distaiit East at an early period, but in a peculiar 

 manner ; but the people in Persia and on the coast of 

 Arabia could not understand it. I have heard strange 

 things from those who had travelled in those countries ; 

 even in China it was very soon known. The present in- 

 surrection of the Greeks was known in the interior of 

 Africa; in the year 1823, the attention of everybody in 

 Sacatoo and Borneo was occupied with it ; it was imagined 

 to be a general war between Christians and Mahometans. 

 As nations little more than half savages knew of these 

 things, why should not the highly civilised nations of an- 

 cient Italy'have heard of Alexander's progress and con- 

 quests ? Whoever could tell of these things was no doubt 

 listened to by thousands. During the Seven Years' war, 

 my father met in Yemen the minister Fati Achmed, who 

 knew about the war, and by the many questions he asked 

 about the relations between England and France, he 

 showed that he took great interest in them. He had maps 

 of countries of which he could not read the names, but he 

 nevertheless formed some notions from them. In Japan, 

 there exists a complete European atlas in Japanese cha- 

 racters ; and from it the geography of Europe has been 

 learned for the last forty years, although the Japanese 

 exclude Europeans. — lb. vol. ii. p. 418." 



As the barbarous and semi-barbarous nations 

 of Asia and Africa have in general no newspapers, 

 or books relating to recent history ; as they have 

 not even a letter-post, and the art of writing is 

 confined to a small number of persons ; their 

 knowledge of contemporary occurrences must be 

 derived almost exclusively from oral information. 

 The oral reports which are thus passed on, with- 

 out verification by reference to any written source, 

 cannot fail to undergo extensive alterations in their 

 progress ; especially as the notions entertained re- 



specting foreign countries by a people who possess 

 no maps or books of geography, must be ia the 

 highest degree confused and imperfect. Such re- 

 ports are moreover likely to be modified by the 

 peculiar ideas current among the nations which 

 receives the account. Thus the Kaffirs in Southern 

 Africa are said to have heard of the hostilities in 

 the Crimea ; but to have believed that the English 

 had been fighting against the spirits of their 

 countrymen who had been killed in the late 

 Kaffir wars. In the passages above cited, Niebuhr 

 alludes to the peculiar form in which the accounts 

 of the French Revolution penetrated into the 

 heart of Asia; and to the modifications which 

 Napoleon's expedition to Egypt underwent in the 

 mouths of the Egyptian Arabs. Can any of your 

 correspondents throw light upon this subject, and 

 give examples, either from his own experience or 

 from books, of the ideas entertained by Oriental 

 and African nations as to the recent events of 

 European history, such as those mentioned by 

 Niebuhr ? L. 



Minav HhutvitS. 



Prince Charles Edward's Stay in Manchester in 

 1745. — In the next Part of Byrom's Remains 

 (vol. ii. Part ii.) will be given a very curious and 

 interesting detailed account of the prince's arrival 

 and stay in Manchester in 1745, which has never 

 before been printed. If any of your correspon- 

 dents are in possession of any unpublished letters, 

 or other MSS. or broadsides, illustrative of that 

 event, and would entrust them to the care of the 

 Editor, it would greatly oblige him, as it is his 

 wish to make the account as complete as possible. 



R. Pakkinson. 



St. Bees. 



Egyptian Locks. — The ancient Egyptian wooden 

 locks, having moveable pins dropping into and 

 securing the bolts, are still commonly used in 

 Egypt. From some sculptures on the temple at 

 Karnac, M. Denon infers that the invention is 

 four thousand years old. Locks identical in con- 

 struction are used in the Faroe Islands ; and I 

 have one from Shanghai similar in principle, but 

 improved in its details. Can any of your readers 

 inform me whether the Egyptian lock is to be 

 found in use elsewhere ? J. Chgbb. 



57. St. Paul's. 



Zooks. — Derivation ? 



A.A.D. 



Death at Will — We all die in good time, in 

 the natural course of events, and most of us ex- 

 pect to find that "good time" come quite soon 

 enough ; but it appears that there have been in- 

 dividuals who, to oblige their friends, have died 

 somehow, — and to please themselves have come to 



