In the spring of 1921 Captain Geoffrey Bailey sent me two pairs of tracings made from Indian standards captured in the battle of Seringapatam, 4th May, 1799. The standards are among the treasures of the chapel of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. On examination they proved to be of considerable interest, and readers of the Bulletin will perhaps be glad to have an opportunity of studying them in the facsimiles which, through the kindness of the editor, I am able to present, along with such notes as may be necessary for their elucidation.

The following abbreviations have been used: L. = Lamu dialect, Mb. = Mombasa, Z. = Zanzibar, Kr. = Krapf, M. = Madan, T. = Taylor, H. = Howe (this refers to information or suggestions furnished by the Eev. W. G. Howe—formerly of the United Methodist Mission, Ribe—who has rendered valuable help in the preparation of these notes)

Nothing is more disconcerting to the student of early Muslim history than the way in which Tabarī and the other historians alternate between detailed and comprehensive narrative and jottings of the most meagre and involved nature, filled out, in some cases, by picturesque but obviously legendary tales. These faults, which are to a large degree inherent in the method of compilation from oral tradition, come out most clearly in the narrative of the brilliant series of campaigns by which the Arab general Qutayba ibn Muslim conquered and annexed the lands eastward from Herāt and the Oxus to the Pamīr, during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Walīd I (a.d. 705–15). Thus we are given a fairly sufficient account of the long drawn out operations against Bukhārā, but none of the actual conquest and colonization of the city : much 'of the expeditions against various princes subject to the kingdom of Tukhāristān, but practically nothing of the annexation of Tukhāristān itself.

The subject to which I venture to invite your attention is not altogether new to the members of the Royal Asiatic Society. Three years ago, at a meeting of the Society on 14th March, 1916, with Sir Charles Lyall in the chair, when the Campbell Memorial Gold Medal was awarded to Professor Macdonell, of Oxford, the latter in his reply touched upon the desirability of creating, on behalf of British Sanskrit scholars, some opportunity of study and research in India. “The only remedy,” Professor Macdonell said, “seems to be the establishment of a school of research for Europeans at some centre of Sanskrit learning, preferably Benares, like the School of Classical Archæology at Athens or the French School at Hanoi in Indo-China. It will be a reproach to this country if we cannot establish something of this kind in India, with all our obligations to advance education and learning in connexion with the ancient civilization and literature of the vast Indian Empire.”

When in 1916 the School of Oriental Studies was established on the old premises of the London Institution in Finsbury Circus, an agreement was come to whereby King's College, University College, and the University of London handed over to the School as a temporary loan all their Oriental books, in exchange for an equivalent number of European books belonging to the Library of the Institution.

The dawn of the nineteenth century marks a new era in the history of Arabic literature. After five centuries of mental lethargy, beginning with the irruption of the Mongols into the Muslim world in the thirteenth century, a renewed zeal for learning has dispelled the gloom which so long overshadowed the Arabic-speaking countries. Many factors were at work to bring about a beneficial change. The West began to take varied interest in the dormant East by collecting and studying its long-forgotten literatures.