532 Asiatic Society. [June, 



copies of the Vedas which were sent to France, as prepared, through Capt. A. Troyer, 

 agent of the Society in Paris. Since Mr. James Prinsef's departure for England 

 several further Pothis have been sent down, and are now ready for transmission. 

 The sum advanced has been exceeded by the charges for copying, and the balance 

 has been paid from Mr. James Prinsep's private funds, not from those of the So- 

 ciety. The copies in sheets were ready to be sent to Europe, and the account pre- 

 pared from Mr. James Prinsep's private books of sums remitted by him to Juddoo- 

 nath Pundit at Benares, shews an amount of Rs. 233: 7 : 9, as the balance due 

 by the Government of France; part of this amount however, viz. Rs. 196: 3: 6, was 

 advanced at Benares from funds realised there by sale of the Society's Oriental publica- 

 tions, as shewn in the account of Messrs. Tuttle and Charles, Mr. James Prinsep's 

 Agents. It remains for the Society now to declare whether the copying for the 

 French Government shall be considered as a private transaction between Mr. James 

 Prinsep and the French Government, or as executed by him as Secretary to the Society. 

 In the former case, the balance 196 : 3: 6, will be paid into the Society's Treasurer's hand, 

 and the copies of the Vedas now ready, will be sent on Mr. James Prinsep's pri- 

 vate account, with a claim for the balance from that Government; but if the Meeting 

 consider the transaction as their own, then the Society will have to pay the difference 

 between Rs. 196:3:6and 233: 7 : 9, viz., 37:4: 3, to Mr. James Prinsep's agents, and 

 to forward copies of Vedas officially through their Secretary to the Agent in Paris. 



Resolved unanimously— That the transaction is one which appertains to the Society; 

 that the copies of the Vedas be taken over, and the account closed. 



The Honble. Mr. Bird exhibited to the Meeting a sketch of the Camel carriage 

 in which Mr. Bird, of Allahabad, had recently made an official tour of 2000 miles 

 in Upper India. 



This sketch, with some papers on the subject, will appear in our next numbei\ 



Read extracts from a letter from Baron Hugel to the address of Mr. James 

 Phinsep. 



' Kritsing> near Vienna, Dec. 25, 1838. 



' I have received a few days ago, the four numbers of your Journal, Nos. 72 to 

 75, and I cannot find words to express the interest I took in following from the 

 beginning to the end, your extraordinary discoveries. It is really worthy of your 

 spirit, of your genius, to come to a fact of such immense consequences for history, but 

 I think it proves more than any thing else, of no direct intercourse between what is 

 called the Peninsula of India and Egypt — I mean of no trading vessels from Berenice 

 to any port of the Malabar coast. I don't believe in long voyages without sails in 

 those days, and the knowledge the Greeks and Egyptians possessed of India is much 

 better explained in the tablets of Girnar, than by the idea of savants travelling for 

 information without the vanity of telling it in their works. But when really Mission- 



