1888.] Address. 47 



Knen-liin, to NaicM. Here he was obliged to commence his homeward 

 journey, which he effected by Sachu, Ghainshe, Hami, Turfan, Kuchar, 

 and Yarkand to Leh, thus completing the circuit of Chinese Turkistan. 

 Much of this route lay over country never visited hitherto by a Euro- 

 pean and not likely to prove attractive in the future. As Mr. Carey 

 writes ; * the chief characteristic of the country is its extreme poverty : 

 it may be described as a huge desert fringed by a few small patches of 

 cultivation.' The paper is accompanied by a map prepared by Colonel 

 Haig, R. E., from Mr. Dalgleish's notes. We have also an account of 

 Prejevalsky's recent journeys and discoveries in Central Asia by Mr. 

 E. D. Morgan, and we may shortly expect the first instalment of the 

 traveller's own work on his last and perhaps most important expedition. 

 The Paris Geographical Society's Proceedings have a number of 

 papers on the French possessions in Tongking, amongst which mention 

 may be made of those on the Mekong river and the tribes inhabiting 

 its banks, by M.M. Gouin and L. de Mazenad. In the ' Missions Catho- 

 liques ' there is a useful map of the lower Mekong, compiled by the 

 missionaries, and in ' Excursions et Reconnaissances^'* a paper by M. 

 Aymonier on Annam, the country and people. We should also obtain 

 some valuable information from M. Dutreuil de Rhin's forthcoming 

 work on Tibet. The Berlin Geographical Society has the substance 

 of a lecture delivered by Dr. F. Sarasin of Basle on the lengthened 

 visit paid by him and his brother to Ceylon, during which they appear 

 to have thoroughly investigated the physical and ethnological pheno- 

 mena of the island. ' Globus ' has a series of articles on Merv and 

 Prejevalsky's travels, and ' Das Ausland,^ a short notice of a pil- 

 grimage to Jagannath. The Parliamentary blue-book containing the 

 ' Correspondence respecting the affairs of Central Asia ' is furnished 

 with maps which add much to its value, as it is presumed that they 

 contain the latest information available from the records of the Survey, 

 and, for those who are curious in this matter, the Russian official account 

 entitled ' Delimitation Afghane. Negociations entre la Russie et la 

 Grande Bretagne, 1872-85,' lately published by the Russian Foreign 

 office, gives the other side of the question. I must also mention Keane's 

 ' Geography of the Malay peninsula, Indo-China and the Eastern Archi- 

 pelago, Philippines and New Guinea,' and Dr. Bastian's * Indonesien 

 oder die luseln des Malayischen Archipels.' 



Indian Antiquary. — The Indian Antiquary upholds the high place 

 that it has deservedly taken, and I have again to record the continua- 

 tion of Mr. Fleet's * Sanskrit and old Kanarese inscriptions ' (Nos. 

 168-171), and, by the same writer, papers on the date of the poet Rajc4se- 

 khara, and on the Gupta era. Professor Kielhorn continues his notes 



