1132 Asiatic Society. [_^o. 107. 



veyed to the family estate in Inverness-shire.* They have remained however undis- 

 tiirbed in Soho Square ever since. A few weeks ago I happened to have a pupil 

 who lived in the same house, and from his description of some of the MSS. I felt 

 and expressed my wishes to see them, in which request I was most readily indulged. 



' The first, indeed I may say the only, work that caught my attention was a large 

 Arabic manuscript of a historical nature, written in a beautiful and very old Naskhi 

 hand, with many pictures very creditably executed, all things considered. On the 

 back of this rare volume is written in a distinct Persian hand " Tarikh i Tabari " and 

 as if this were not sufficient, there is a note written in Persian, on a blank pao'e, folio 

 154, of which the following is a literal translation — " The name of this book is The 

 Tarikh i Tabari, (the History or Chronicle of Tabari,) the author's autograph. The 

 whole number of leaves when complete, amounted to 303 ; now however, some one 

 has stolen and carried off one half of it, or about 150 leaves. It was written by the 

 author's own hand, in the year of the Hegira 706 (a. d. 1306-7)." 



* The information intended to be conveyed in this note, is, unfortunately rendered 

 very suspicious, by the date given in the conclusion ; as Tabari had flourished some 

 450 lunar years earlier. On examining the work itself, I found that the Muham- 

 medan history came down to the last of the Khalifas of Bagdad ; hence it could not 

 be the original Tabari. As P'Herbelot, however, has mentioned two writers who 

 have continued the history of Tabari down to their own times, I thought this might 

 possibly be one of them, and in order to verify the circumstance, I took the Persian 

 version with me next day to compare them ; but after making the most liberal 

 allowance for the freedom generally used by Oriental translators, I found that the two 

 could never have been intended for the same work. 



' Resolved, if possible, to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion respecting the MS., 

 I requested a very intelligent nativef of India to accompany me to see it. The 

 moment this gentleman looked at it, he told me that whether it was Tabari or not, he 

 had seen the identical book some months back in a house where he visited. On 

 further inquiry, I learned that the book to which he alluded belonged to the Asiatic 

 Society. Next day I examined the Society's MS. and found, as I had concluded, 

 that it forms part of the half that is missing in Colonel Baillie's MS. In proof of 

 this, I may mention that the ink and the handwriting are the same in both. The 

 length and breadth and number of lines in each page are the same, and the paintings 

 are in the same style in both. The works had been numbered originally by leaves 

 or folia, as is usual in Oriental MS. ; these numbers still remain on the second page 

 of each leaf, and every leaf of the Society's fragment is missing in Colonel Baillie's 

 work. There is no question then, that as Sadi hath it, "they are limbs of one 

 another," for assuredly they originally consisted of but one work. 



'Colonel Baillie's MS. contains at present 151 folia or leaves, being as nearly 

 as possible one half the original number, as stated in the Pei'sian note. The last 

 leaf is numbered 218, so that sixty-seven leaves are wanting to complete the work 

 from the beginning to the last leaf now remaining. Of these, there are seven leaves 

 in the Society's fragment on the history of Muhammad. They are numbered 

 (in their order) 57, 58, 63, 64, 66, 70, and 74, all of which are, of course, missing in 

 Colonel Baillie's MS. If these seven leaves were restored to their places in Colonel 



* Colonel Baillie's Books and Manuscripts are entailed property. 

 + Mir Afzal Ali, Vakil from the Mahdraj of Satara. 



