HEPORT OX THE CONGRESS OF ORIENTALISTS. 



229 



the Concert-house, where a band enlivened the monotony of 

 the conversation. In accordance with what is apparently the 

 German custom, each person paid for what he required, l)ut as 

 the refreshments available were not always to the taste of the 

 nationalities represented, the trade done by the waiters of the 

 institution was small. The assem])ly was welcomed by 

 Professor Windisch, of Leipzig, president of the Congress 

 and also of the German Oriental Society. He was followed 

 by the Chairman of the Senate, Dr. D. Behrmann, whose 

 speech of welcome was a specially gratifying one to the 

 Assyriologists present, and showed what an important place 

 their study had taken in the circle of researches dealing with 

 the East, and this has been emphasized, as many of my 

 audience are aware, by the interest which the German Em- 

 peror has taken and probably still takes in it, as is shown l^y 

 his luiving attended Professor Fried. Delitzsch's lectures, con- 

 cerning which I shall have something to say later on. Dr. 

 Behrmann, in the course of his remarks, pointed out that a 

 hundred years before, on the 4th September, 1802, Grotefend 

 laid before the Society of Sciences at Gottingen his paper upon 

 the decipherment of the Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions, in 

 which he had reasoned out at least eight letters of that system 

 of writing. In a manner never hoped for (he continued) light 

 had been thrown upon the gloom of antiquity, for the boundary 

 of knowable things had been shifted back a fourth part of ten 

 millenniums. It was difficult to say whether the century 

 wdiich had just begun would be as fruitful in discoveries as 

 that which had so lately come to a close, but there was no 

 doubt that the members of the Congress would work full of 

 strenuous earnestness into the future, then on the evening of 

 the present century ; a thankful posterity -xvould say, in the 

 words of the Arabic proverb, Al-fahra lil-mvMccli,icci in alisann 

 ''l-muqtcdi, " Honour to the beginner, even though his suc- 

 cessor has done better." 



We found that the sections of the Congress would meet in 

 the Concert-house, where the first reception had been held, with 

 the exception of the Egyptian and the Indian sections, which 

 met at the State laboratory. This was naturally in the highest 

 degree inconvenient for those who took an interest in these 

 subjects and in the doings of the other sections, the two build- 

 ings being rather far apart. Moreover, the sundered sections 

 did not come very often into contact, and, therefore., did not 

 have an opportunity of exchanging ideas and notes. 



In all probability one of the most tedious things in connection 



