56 Rejoinder to Mr. Beames. [No. 1, 



but, however, that may be, it is quite certain that the word here in- 

 tended is rad, the teeth, and if Mr. Beames will only look a little 

 more closely, he will probably find it in his MS. 



In Mr. Beames's own phrase, ' Is not this enough ?' Yet one word 

 more : since he speaks of me as a self-constituted interpreter, let me 

 remind him that the MS. was in the first instance made over to 

 me by the chief authority in these Provinces. Subsequently I 

 received a requisition from another quarter that the book might 

 be sent to Calcutta to be photographed. As soon as it reached 

 Calcutta, Mr. Beames volunteered to edit it, and I have since seen 

 no more of it. Whether of the twain, I would ask, seems to be 

 rather the self-constituted interpreter ? Still, if the literary world 

 are satisfied with Mr. Beames's proficiency, I have no wish to 

 interfere with him ; and if he will only stay quiet for a year or two, 

 and in the mean time extend his knowledge of old Hindi by reading 

 a few books of the Ramayana under the guidance of any intelligent 

 native — whether Brahman or Baniya, it matters not — I see no reason 

 why he should not eventually produce a very creditable performance. 



Mainpuri, Dec. 29th, 1869. 



Postscript. — Within the last day or two I have had an opportunity 

 of seeing Mr. Beames's new edition of Sir H. Elliot's Supplementary 

 Glossary. The additional matter supplied by the editor, is not very 

 considerable; but under the word Gahlot, I notice that he quotes 4 

 lines from Chand, and refers the passage to the place which it oc- 

 cupies in his MS. of the Prithirajras. Singularly enough, it happens 

 that these very 4 lines, with some verbal differences, were included in 

 a specimen of the Hindi text given in an article of mine contributed 

 to this Society's Journal in February, 1869. I mention the coin- 

 cidence, because Mr. Beames has excused himself from criticising my 

 translation by saying that the Hindi, from, which I translate, is not 

 traceable in either of his copies. It is of course quite possible that 

 Mr. Beames may not have seen the parallel passage as quoted by me, 

 and may not have read any part of my article (since I have no 

 pretensions to rank among European scholars) but, under the word 

 C'handel, he apparently quotes from the very article, though without 

 acknowledgment. 



