624 Continuation of Observations [Nov. 



these that all the good has hitherto been done ; the extension of 

 patronage followed rather than preceded or prompted the great disco- 

 veries of last year in Kabul*. 



The plates I have prepared to illustrate my subject have not been 

 numbered in the most convenient order for the purpose ; but as it is a 

 matter of indifference which line we commence upon, it will be fair to 

 give our first attention to Plate XXXIV. containing the so long post- 

 poned continuation of the coins and relics dug up by Capt. Cautley 

 at Behat, and noticed in the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society on 

 the 14th January last. 



The exhumation of this subterranean town has not perhaps been 

 followed up with so much vigour as it would have been, had not its 

 discoverer's attention been diverted to other antiquities of more 

 overwhelming interest — the fossil inhabitants of a former world — be- 

 fore which the modern reliques of a couple of thousand years shrink into 

 comparative insignificance. Perhaps indeed the notion of a city at the 

 spot indicated by these remains should be modified. Professor Wilson 

 writes me, that he cannot suggest any ancient city of note so situated; 

 yet if it existed so late as the 3rd or 4th century of our era, it ought 

 surely to be known. It may probably have been the site of a Buddhist 

 monastery, which became deserted during the persecutions of this 

 sect, and was then gradually destroyed and buried by the shifting 

 sands of the hill toiTents. Some of the relics now to be noticed 

 forcibly bear out this supposition. 



Plate XXXIV. Behat Group. 



The upper half of this plate contains a continuation of the relics 

 dug up at Behat by Captain Cautley. 



Fig. 1 is the object of principal interest, because it stamps the 

 locality as decidedly Buddhist, and leaves us to infer, that the coins 

 are the same, although their devices have nothing that can be posi- 

 tively asserted to be discriminative of this sect. The figure represents 

 two fragments of a circular ring of baked clay. In the inner circum- 

 ference are carved or stamped, a succession of small figures of Buddha 

 seated, apparently 12 in number; and on the upper surface, a circular 

 train of lizards. It is difficult to imagine the purpose to which 

 it could have been applied. In some respects it may be compared 



* We have arrested the press of this sheet to announce the arrival of the 

 second memoir by Mr. Masson, on the produce of his labours at Beghram — 

 the same announced some time since by Captain Wade. We shall hasten to 

 prepare lithographs of the numerous figures with which it is illustrated, although 

 s comparatively few (not more than 5 or 6') of them are altogether new after Gen. 

 Ventura's collection. — Ed. 



