remarkable how many stories are common to Europe and Asia, and that, not only in works of imagination, but in facts attributed to real personages, and recorded in history. One example may suffice out of many which might be brought forward. The stratagem of turning loose oxen, with torches on their horns, by which Hannibal is said to have escaped from Fabius, is attributed by the Afghauns, with all its particulars, to one of their own chiefs; and the scene of it is fixed in the neighbourhood of Heraut. In the same manner, a vast number of our jests are told in Asia, and half of Joe Miller might be disputed between "the facetious Tom Killigrew," and "a certain scholar," of some city in the east.

The funerals of the Afghauns do not differ from those of the other Mahommedans; a man in his last moments is attended by a Moolla, who admonishes him to repent of his sins; the sick man repeats his creed, and appropriate prayers, and expires with his face to Mecca, proclaiming that there is no God but God, and that Mahomet is his prophet. When he is dead, the corpse is washed, wrapped up in a shroud, and buried, after the usual prayers have been said by a Moollah, and joined in by the numerous relations and neighbours, who attend the funeral. If the deceased was rich, Moollahs are employed to read the Koraun for some days over his grave.

The ceremony of circumcision is the same in all Mahommedan countries. It is attended with a feast and great rejoicing.

CHAP. IV.

EDUCATION, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE OF THE afghauns.

ALL the Afghauns are sent in their infancy to a Moollah for

education. Some learn no more than their regular Namauz, and other occasional prayers and passages of the Koraun, with the ceremonies of their religion, and the duties of a Mussulman. About Peshawer, and among the Dooraunees, the next step is to learn to read the Koraun in Arabic, often without understanding it; but in other tribes this study is reserved for a more advanced stage. This is the education of the lower orders, of whom not a quarter can read their own language.

The rich keep Moolahs in their houses to teach their children, but allow them all the power of a common schoolmaster. The Moollah who had charge of the prime minister's son (a boy of sixteen when I saw him), told me that he kept him to his book for almost the whole day.

There is a schoolmaster in every village and camp, who is maintained by a piece of land allotted to him, and by a small contribution which he receives from his scholars. His office is sometimes united with that of the priest of the village; but it is oftener distinct, especially in large places. In towns there are regular schools, like those in European countries, where the master is maintained by his scholars alone. The sum commonly paid to a schoolmaster in Peshawer, is about fifteen pence a-month; but the payments are in proportion to the circumstances of the boy's father. In most parts of the country, the boys live with their fathers, and only attend the school during the day; but among the Berdooraunees, a boy is sent at a

very early age to a distant village, where he lives in the mosque, subsists by alms, and has little or no intercourse with his parents, but is taken care of by the schoolmaster under whom he has been placed.

The following is the course of study pursued about Peshawer: a child begins its letters (in conformity to a traditional injunction of the Prophet) when it is four years, four months, and four days old; but its studies are immediately laid aside, and not resumed till it is six or seven years old, when it learns its letters, and is taught to read a little Persian poem of Saadis, which points out the beauty of each of the virtues, and the deformity of each of the vices, in very simple, and not inelegant language. This takes from four months to a year, according to the child's capacity. After this, common people learn the Koraun, and study some books in their own language; people of decent fortune proceed to read the Persian classics, and a little of the Arabic grammar: boys who are to be brought up as Moollahs, give a great deal of their time to this last study, which, as the Arabic grammars are very elaborate, and comprehend a great deal of science, that we do not mix with the rudiments of a language, sometimes occupies several years. When a young When a young Moollah has made sufficient proficiency in this study, he goes to Peshawer, Hushtnuggur, or some other place famous for its Moollahs, and begins on logic, law, and theology. No further knowledge is required to complete a Moollah's education, but many push their researches into ethics, metaphysics, and the system of physics known in the east, as well as history, poetry, and medicine, which last is a fashionable study for men of all professions. For those studies, and for the more advanced branches of theology and law, they often travel to distant cities, and even to Bokhaura, which is a great seat of Mahommedan learning; but Peshawer seems, on the whole, to be the most learned city in these countries, and many more students come thither from Bokhaura, than repair to that city from Peshawer. India has not a great reputation for learning, and the heresy of the Persians makes all Soonnees avoid the infection of their colleges.

It is reckoned a good work in the sight of God to promote learning, and, consequently, besides the King's colleges, there is an establishment in every village for maintaining students. The consequence is, that the country is over-run with half-taught Moollahs, who rather impede than promote the progress of real learning.

Before saying more about the learning of the Afghauns, it will be well to give some account of their language, which, as I have already mentioned, is called Pushtoo. Its origin is not easily discovered. A large portion of the words that compose it, spring from some unknown * root, and in this portion are included most of those words which, from the early necessity for designating the objects they represent, must have formed parts of the original language of the people; yet some of this very class belong to the Zend and Pehlevee ; such as the terms for father and mother, sister and brother. This seems also to be the case with the numerals; though the Zend and Pehlevee numerals bear so strong a resemblance to the Shanscrit ones, that it is difficult to distinguish them. Most of the verbs, and many of the particles again belong to the unknown root. The words connected with religion, government, and science, are mostly introduced from the Arabic through the Persian.

Of two hundred and eighteen hundred words which I compared t with the corresponding ones in Persian, Zend, Pehlevee, Shanscrit, Hindostaunee, Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Hebrew, and Chaldaic, I found one hundred and ten that could not be referred to any of

* It is probable many of these words might be traced to a known source, if diligently sifted by an Oriental scholar. I have explained, in the next note, the process they have undergone in my hands.

†The comparison was made in the following manner :-I drew up a Pushtoo vocabulary, which I believe was correct, and which had the advantage of being compared with one compiled by Mr. Irvine: similar vocabularies of the Zend and Pehlevee languages were made for me by a friend to whose kindness I have often been indebted. They were taken from two learned Parsees, and compared with Anquetil du Perron's lists. The same friend procured the Georgian, Armenian, Hebrew, and Chaldee vocabularies. My own acquaintance with Persian and Hindostanee was sufficient, with the help of diction

those languages, but seemed distinct and original. Of the remainder, by far the greater part were modern Persian; but some of these were introduced into the latter language from the Zend, and many more from the Pehlevee, while a good number were words of those languages not employed in modern Persian. Some of these Zend and Pehlevee words are, however, common to the Shanscrit, the three languages having a great affinity; and some words also occur, which are to be found in Shanscrit alone, as do five or six words of the Hindostaunee language. It is probable some Punjaubee words would also be detected, if the list were compared with a vocabulary of that language. Not one word of the two hundred and eighteen has the smallest appearance of being deducible from the Hebrew or Chaldaic, Georgian or Armenian.

The Afghauns use the Persian alphabet, and generally write in the Nushk character. As they have some sounds, which are not represented by any Persian letters, they express them by adding particular points or other marks to the nearest Persian letter. *

aries, for the purpose I had in view; and for the Shanscrit, each word was compared with all the numerous synonyms in the Amercosh, which were read to me by a Pundit. I have given part of my vocabulary in the Appendix (E).

Since I wrote the above, I have had an opportunity of examining a list of about one hundred Curdish words, and I find among them five of the hundred and ten which I have mentioned as original Afghaun words, besides several common to the Curdish and Persian both languages. I regret that I have not an opportunity of following up the investigation.

* These sounds are the hard D, T, and R, and the Csh of the Shanscrit. The favourite letters in Pushtoo seem to be the Ghain (the sound of which cannot be expressed in English characters, but which has a resemblance to the Northumberland Beer), and Zhay, which has the power of 2 in azure, or S in osier. Such is the fondness of the Afghauns for these letters, that they often change the Gs of words adopted from the Persian into Ghains, and the Zs (and even the Shs) into Zhs. They also often change F into P, D into T, and even D into L; and they frequently turn O into Wu, as Roz (day) Rwuz. The eastern Afghauns again have some permutations peculiar to themselves, thus they change Zh into G, and Sh into Kh. These changes sometimes disguise a word in such a manner, as to render it a matter of difficulty to discover its etymology. Nobody would suspect that Ghaug, the eastern Afghaunee for