376 Ibn HuokuVs Account of Seestan. [No. 5. 



Note by A. Speengee. The original MS. from which this account of 

 Afghanistan and the account of Sind which has been published by Major 

 Anderson with most valuable remarks and identifications in p. 49 of this 

 volume, have been taken is in the Moty Mahall library at Lucknow. It is a 

 volume in folio of 276 pp. 17 lines in a page. We are informed in the 

 postscript that it had been copied in A. H. 589 from a " t very correct" MS, 

 The first leaf of the book and consequently the beginning of the preface is 

 wanting, and we are therefore left in ignorance as to the name of the author. 

 The title of the book is according to the postscript Aslikal albildd or Dia- 

 grams of the country (of the Islam) . The diacritical points are wanting in 

 most instances and many letters cannot be well distinguished from each 

 other. The book was copied for me in 1847 with great care, and subse- 

 quently it was compared with the original, but the copyist has in doubtful 

 instances decided in favour of the most likely reading, and no doubt some- 

 times he has gone wrong. It is therefore much to be regretted that this 

 copy is the only one available for Major Anderson.* 



Though the beginning of the preface is wanting, the greater portion of 

 the Introduction is preserved. 



It contains the plan of the work which I give here in a translation. 

 " Then (after having given a map of the world), I have devoted a separate 

 Diagram to every country of the Islam, in which I show its frontiers, the 

 shape of the country, the principal towns, and in fact every thing neces- 

 sary to know. The Diagrams are accompanied by a text. I have divided 

 the dominions of the Islam into twenty countries ; I begin with Arabia, 

 for this peninsula contains the Ka'bah, and Makkah which is unquestion- 

 ably the most important city and the centre of the peninsula; after 

 Makkah I describe the country of the Bedouins, then I proceed to the 

 description of the Persian gulph which surrounds the greater part of 

 Arabia, 3. the Maghrib, 4. Egypt, 5. Syria, 6. the Mediterranean, 7. Meso- 

 potamia, 8. the 'iraq, 9. Khuzistan, 10. Faris, 11. Kerman, 12. Manciirah 

 and the adjacent countries, f which are Sind, India and part of the Mo/^am- 

 madan territory, (in India,) 13. Adzarbayjan, 14. the districts of the Jibal, 



* Since writing the above, I sent the proof-sheet of the original text to Capt. 

 H. F. Hayes, Asst. Resident at Lucknow, who has obligingly compared it with the 

 original MSS. in Moty Mahall. 



f Here a space of about six inches is left blank, and in the margin are the words ; 



'* This space is for the Map of the World (but it is not large enough, therefore 

 the copyist has deviated from the original from which he transcribed) and it stands 

 in the opposite page." 



