1834.] Topes of Afghanistan. 331 



I have some idea of publishing a detached small volume in India, 

 (that is Calcutta,) " An Account of the Topes of Afghanistan," with 

 sketches of the whole. I apprehend that India is too limited a field to 

 expect any extensive sale for any literary work whatever, nor do I know 

 how the publication of works is managed in Calcutta, neither whether 

 engravers would be found to execute the plates. Of these there would 

 be some thirty or forty, or perhaps more. Neither am I satisfied that 

 any one would undertake the expence of publication, nor am I sure that 

 a publication by subscription would be sufficiently encouraged. I have 

 set in order a general and individual account of these topes, explaining 

 their site and identification as far as the relics extracted from them 

 testify, with my conjectures respecting all and each of them : these con- 

 jectures involve some points of history and geography not to be avoided. 

 I have also taken sketches of all of them, at a certain measured distance, 

 and used a camera lucida, that their comparative dimensions in the 

 sketches might be exactly preserved*. 



I have not heard whether M. Martin, on being despoiled, lost his 

 gold medal of Kadphises : as he justly prized it he always retained it 

 about his person, and it was the only one of his coins, excepting perhaps 

 the silver ones of Menander and Euthydemus, of each of which he had 

 one, that he did not forward by your medium to M. Allard. If he lost 

 it, it is fortunate that I preserved the sketch of it. (See PI. xiii.) 



I hear nothing conclusive here of your researches at the Peshawar 

 tope. Osman notes in his letter to me that the statues are very wonder- 

 ful and beautiful. I trust you will have found a prize there ; they are 

 certainly a very singular discovery, and may occasion a good deal of 

 speculation as to the nature of the monument ; it will be highly inter- 

 esting if their caste be recognizable. 



I inclose a copy of the inscriptions around the koti or box extract- 

 ed from a tope here, as noted in my last. This if you think fit may be 

 forwarded to Mr. Prinsep for notice in the Journalf, and he may in- 

 vite those who are competent to decypher it. There must surely be 

 individuals at Calcutta, certainly at Bombay among the Parsees, who 



* We should be most happy to second Mr. Masson's project, did we think that 

 he could be rewarded by any sale or subscription in Calcutta. It would certainly 

 be preferable to publish in Europe, with all the advantages of good engravers, a 

 large reading public, and the various facilities which publishers there enjoy of in- 

 terchange and communication with others of the profession at home and abroad. 

 There is besides a heavy duty on importing into England works printed in this part 

 of her dominions ! The camera lucida sketches will be most valuable. — Ed. 



f See plate xxii. and the remarks in page 319. — Ed. 

 U u 2 



