150 OCCASIONAL NOTES. 
present entertained concerning the or a Mahdi (see also an 
article by the same scholar in the “Revue Coloniale Inter- 
nationale” for January, 1886). In Azstory, Mr. P. A. TIELE 
continues his account of the Europeans in the Indian Archi- 
pelago, dealing with the period between 1611 and 1623. 
There are also two interesting contributions, from the pen of 
Mr. E. B. KIELSTRA, to our knowledge of W. Sumatra, the one 
treating of its history in the middle of last century, the other 
confining itself to the brief period of 1819-26, when he wars 
of the Padris began, and the island gradually passed from the 
hands of the English into those of the Dutch. L£¢thnologists 
will have welcomed with special interest the various elaborate 
treatises by Prof. G. A. WILKEN, viz., on the customs con- 
cerning betrothal and marriage among the people of the 
Indian Archipelago—a subject on which J. B. NEUMANN has 
lately given interesting details concerning the Battaks in 
Sumatra; on the custom of reckoning time by nights; on 
ithyophallic figures and kindred subjects; on traces of 
Shamanism as practised in the Indian Archipelago; and 
on the Papuas of the Geelvink Bay of New Guinea. Prof. 
PLEYTE, of Leiden, has supplied two papers, one on mnemonic 
and other marks, and another on prehistoric stone weapons 
and implements, while Mr. S. W. TRomp treats of the Bugi 
inhabitants of Kuteiin Borneo. There is one paper dealing 
with a practical commercial question, which no one would 
have sought for in the ‘“Bijdragen,’”’ on coffee culture in the 
Brazils, by Mr. K. F. VAN DELDEN-LAERNE. Lastly, we have 
to note a number of important articles on topics connected 
with /anguage and literature. And here, in a field in which 
he is thoroughly at home, Dr. SNOUCK HURGRONJE has a 
valuable collection of Meccan proverbs and proverbial sayings, 
while in another paper he corrects some current miscon- 
ceptions concerning the meaning of the term Hijra and the 
veiling of Muhammadan women. Prof. KERN, of Leiden, 
who combines with a scholarly knowledge of Sanskrit an 
acquaintance with Old-Javanese or Kavi in its extensive 
literature, and is one of the leading authorities on the inter- 
comparison of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, has con- 
tributed an article on the phonology of that class, and another 
