268 TRANSACTION'S OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [^^^ H- 



Raba manie Buda: bai to gukuniomi 

 Raba people Budha: priest company learned 

 Keikii kiidatta 

 guard has committed. 



Part II. Ta : giri ga fuju 



who : righteousness of bereft 



toji tsuka: saido tojikii 



closed tomb: a second time uncloses 



yavie tobai: inito Sagota tsu — 



widow's consort: King Sagota's successor 



gi: luito SJiidziita kiibiri bekii de 12 



King Shidzuta hang should not. 



Freely : " Mekuba buries king Metome, IMekuba's consort. Behold ! 

 the door stands shut ; may the tomb be kept free from injur}'. Sagota's 

 subordinate ruler of Yobakami, even Shidzuta, has committed the guard- 

 ianship to the learned company of Budha's priests of the Raba people. 



" Him, who, bereft of righteousness, forces open the closed tomb, the 

 consort of the widow, the successor of King Sagota, King Shidzuta, ought 

 he not to hang ? " 



M. Youferofif's copy of the inscription furnishes classical and gram- 

 matical Japanese, if somewhat archaic ; simple common sense language, 

 appropriate to a tombstone ; and idioms and historical references common 

 to the whole series of Siberian inscriptions. The emendations, if they 

 ought so to be called, of Messrs. Aspelin and Donner, are at variance 

 with all of these. These estimable gentlemen, to whom so great credit is 

 due for their arduous and unselfish labours, have, in spite of themselves, 

 been guilty of theorizing in regard to the equivalency of certain signs, 

 and all unwittingly, have furnished the student with an impure text, on 

 the basis of which progress is almost impossible. Higher criticism in 

 the region of the unknown is invariably certain to bring its author to grief, 

 as it has brought Dr. Sayce, and other students of the Hittite hierogly- 

 phics, such as Dr. Hayes Ward, in their comparisons of groups, of the 

 phonetic values of which they were in utter ignorance. A badly written 

 R may look like an A, but it is R all the same, and an imperfect G may 

 resemble a C without being such ; these are the mistakes of mankind in 

 general, who allow the eye to take the place of the mind, until logic 

 makes demands which no mere ocular comparison can satisfy, and thus 

 demonstrates the futility of their process. 



The divergence in certain parts between No. XVIII in Inscriptions de 

 rienissei and the same in M. Youferoffs collection, is so marked as, at 



