Section II.—Block Prints. 
59 
1899 .] 
In a letter written by Mr. Backlund to Mr. Macartney, on tlie 8th 
April, 1898, tbe day after he had purchased the above-mentioned three 
block-print books, I find the following additional information:—“ If has 
been communicated to me by a person, who is well acquainted with these 
things [apparently the servant above referred to], that these books are 
not old, but are continually made now-a-days also ; and he pretends to 
know the printer also. The books are said to be prepared like this: 
after being printed, the sheets are hung up in the chimney in order to 
make them look old. They are now burnt in parts and covered with 
soot. When they have assumed as dark a colour as seems to be suitable, 
the soot is wiped off and the papers are nailed together into a book and 
taken out into the desert, ’where they are buried in the sand. Having 
remained there for some time they are “ discovered ” and brought out 
into the market in order to—make fools of the Europeans. Examine 
the paper in the books and you will find it quite of the same kind, as is 
produced in Khotan now-a-days; and the white spots in it here and 
there point it out not to be of an ancient date.” 
With regard to the three books, purchased by Mr. Backlund as 
related above, he informed me in a subsequent letter, dated the 10th 
October, 1898, that “ as he considered them useless, he handed them over 
to an English traveller, Mr. R. P. Cobbold; ” and that “ soon after having 
got rid of them, a man offered him some very fresh prints, which ho 
refused to take.” The books thus obtained by Mr Cobbold afterwards 
passed into the possession of the British Museum, and I shall have occa^ 
sion to refer to them again. 
I quote these letters so fully, in order that the case of the forgery- 
theory may be stated quite fairly. To Islam Akhuti’s behaviour and the 
servant’s denunciation too much force should not be attached. They 
are nothing more but what may be expected under the circumstances. 
The points enumerated by Mr. Backlund are those deserving considera¬ 
tion. And here it should be noted, in the first place, that they only 
refer to Khotanese block-prints, not to manuscripts, and secondly, that 
they are based on a very limited number of specimens. Mr. Backlund 
admits—what indeed is obvious—that forgery presupposes the existence 
of a genuine original which was imitated. The suggestion is that a 
distorted imitation of this original was made purposely, and that that fact 
accounts for the mystery of the scripts. This does not seem a plausible 
hypothesis. Ho intelligible original, such as the suggestion assumes to 
have existed, has been produced ; if it existed, the finder, surety, would 
have disposed of it first, and when his genuine stock was exhausted, he 
might then have had recourse to forgery to replenish his stock in trade. 
Something of this kind, indeed, as I imagine and as I shall presently 
