The voyage from which I have just returned was undertaken with the view of opening a trade with the Chinese colonies on the island of Borneo; and, that my narrative may be the better understood, I shall first give a short sketch of the situation of those colonies.

The following sketch of the history of the principality of Pándya, one of the earliest political divisions of southern India, was compiled several years ago, from documents contained in the manuscript collections of the late Colonel Mackenzie. It was prepared before the completion and publication of my catalogue of those collections, and it was my intention to have revised it at some future period, with the assistance of such further materials as a more thorough examination, of its authorities might have supplied. At the same time, I commenced similar epitomes of the history of the other chief states of the Peninsula, purposing in like manner to give them the benefit of future revision and comparison with additional sources of information. Time, however, passes away, and I have not had any opportunity of carrying my intentions into execution. When such an occasion may offer is still uncertain, and I have thought, therefore, that it may not be unacceptable to the Royal Asiatic Society to be put at once in possession of what I have effected, at least as far as relates to the kindom of Pándya. From my subsequent investigation of the Mackenzie Collection, I do not expect that any material accession to our knowledge of the remote condition of the Pándya kingdom will be derived from it; but, at any rate, so much as is here supplied will, in the mean time, contribute to throw some light upon a dark period of Pándya history, and may pave the way for its more complete and more successful elucidation.

The Tennasserim coast affords several valuable products; yet its advantages in this respect are, to a certain extent, counterbalanced by a paucity of inhabitants, a want for which no natural fertility of soil or happiness of situation can compensate.

The toddy is collected in vessels perfectly clean, into each of which a small quantity of the ál, or banyan-tree is put, to retard fermentation, and correct astringencies. Before the liquor begins to ferment, it is strained through a clean cloth, and boiled in a pan of brass, or other metal, until the impurities rise to the surface, when they are carefully skimmed off. When the liquor has lost its watery colour, and become a little reddish, it is poured into another pan, and boiled over a strong fire, the scum being again taken off as it accumulates. The fire is then gradually diminished, until a white scum appears on the surface, and increases to a froth. The liquor then becomes adhesive, and of a consistency to be removed from the fire, which is ascertained by allowing a little of it to cool, and by drawing it into a thread between the finger and thumb. If the thread does not break when drawn to about an inch in length, the syrup is removed from the fire, poured into another vessel, and left to cool till it is little more than lukewarm. A little crystallised jagrí, or course sugarcandy, is then mixed with it, and the whole is poured into a fresh vessel, having an aperture and stopple in the bottom, so accommodated as to allow the uncrystallised part to ooze out. Crystallisation is completed in about a week, when the stopple is removed to allow the remaining fluid to escape, and, at the end of another week, the crystallised sugar is taken and placed near a fire in a góní, or sack. The expense of manufacture is about one penny and one-eighth per pound, exclusive of the cost of vessels.

Towards the conclusion of the first part of these Observations, I took occasion to notice the supposed cause or causes of the variation of colour that is found amongst the different nations of the world; and referred to the somewhat opposite opinions of several distinguished writers on this point. I shall now proceed to offer a few remarks on the influence of climate on the tempers and dispositions of men; and we believe that nothing is more evident than its effects on these, totally unconnected with intellectual qualities, in their definite sense. The English are unequal in their spirits, being alternately animated and gloomy; so we find our climate changeable, more so, I may say, than that of any other country in the world. The Romans of these days are grave, ardent, and conscientious; the inhabitants of Naples are cheerful, thoughtless, and enthusiastic, and many of them so giddy in their manner as almost to impress us with a notion that they are under the partial influence of some inebriating liquor: differences which we can in no way account for, but as they may be occasioned by the very opposite climates of the banks of the Tiber and the Bay of Naples.

[It will be of use to the future historian of British India, to know the precise periods at which the British government granted to the natives of the Island of Ceylon, and of the different parts of India, those rights which are alike calculated to elevate both their moral and their political character; and, also, to be enabled to refer to the opinions which were entertained at the time upon the subject, by the people of the country. One of the most important of these rights was that of sitting upon juries, and of being tried by juries of their own countrymen. It is, therefore, thought advisable to record the period, and to give some account of the circumstances under which the British government granted this right to the natives of the Island of Ceylon, and to the natives of the different parts of India; and, also, to give a copy of a paper written to Mr. GræMe, the late Governor of Madras, by Rám Ráz, who was native Chief Judge of the Mysore country, and one of the most enlightened of the Hindú inhabitants of the peninsula of India.

I. May that uncreated triple celestial tree which is adorned and clasped by Srí, Saraswatí, and Umá, resembling beauteous climbing plants, be propitious to you.

1. This race (or Vansa-tree) having burst forth from that moon as a root, which is in the forest-like knot of the braided hair of that Mahá Déva who has been worshipped by Brahmá, and other immortals; being watered by the pure stream of the sacred river, flourished wonderfully, and grew to an extreme height; from its crown, branches resembling streamers spread themselves, and became lofty under the white, umbrella-like shadow of such a moon.

The original inhabitants of Mount Atlas, and of nearly all the provinces of Maghrib-ul-Aksa, or the present empire of Marocco, are usually divided into two tribes — namely, the Berebbers and the Shelluhhs, both descended from the ancient Mauritanians and Gætulians; perhaps even from the Libyes of Sallust. These two tribes differ essentially from each other; and it is not without reason, that those travellers and geographers, to whom we are indebted for the best information with respect to Marocco, have asserted that the Shelluhhs are not Berebbers. The Moors, or Arabian inhabitants of the country, consider them as two nations of a different origin; as well on account of their manners and the diversity of their natural dispositions, as from the entirely distinct profile of the face, and from their dialects, which differ so much, that they cannot converse together without the aid of an interpreter. Mr. James Grey Jackson, in his Account of the Empire of Marocco, and of the District of Sus, confirms this assertion by a list of words of common use in both languages; and, most certainly, they prove nothing less than a common origin. But such differences, radical or accidental, may be met with in almost all the sister languages. It is, for instance, a curious fact, that the very leading Shelluhh words, which Mr. Jackson quotes as altogether differing from the Berebber, as woman, wife, boy, girl, &c. differ just as much, if not more, in the Swedish, Danish, German, and Dutch languages, which, most undoubtedly, are of one and the same origin. This observation holds good even with respect to the Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian languages. What is more certain, and beyond all doubt, is, that the pretended Berebbers and Shelluhhs live separately and that they bear very little, if any, relation to each other. Although their habitations are sometimes very near, they never have any social intercourse; nor does an instance exist of individuals of one tribe having intermarried with the other.

1. In adoration of the Varaha Avatar.

2. May Vishnu, who in the shape of a boar upheld this world, preserve you!

Jagadeka Malla Rájá, descended from the Chámushya family, was a renowned and celebrated king.

He is deservedly commemorated by the whole earth, the asylum of the world. He was the first of the rájáas, named Vishnu Vardhana Vijayáditya, &c.

Though the Chinese never instituted Olympic games, at which their orators, poets, and historians, might challenge competitors and receive the applause of the nation — though they never knew that liberty, which, while disenthralling the human, mind, extends the sphere of thought and research,—they only want orators, in order to equal the most celebrated nation of the west, not in classical productions, but in prolific and elaborate volumes.

On the full-moon day of the month Wes´k (Thursday, the 29th of May, 1828), the principal chiefs and other Kandyans, zealous professors of the Buddhist religion, celebrated the festival Dalada Pink´ma, when the following arrangements were made.

This province, the government of which is now administered by the British, formed in ancient times the greater part of the principality, or fiefship, of the Sétu-pattis, the chiefs or guardians of the passage leading from the continent of India to the island of Ráméswara, and thence to the opposite coast of Ceylon, called Ráma's Bridge, or Adam's Bridge. These chieftains, dating their authority from the period of the establishment of a place of pilgrimage on the island of Ráméswara, by the Great Ráma, claim an antiquity even higher than that of the Pándyans, or kings of Madura, but to whom, it would appear, that they were, in general, tributary, though now and then asserting and maintaining their independence. Of their history, however, we are not now to speak, but of the province as it was in the year 1814, when the data were taken from which chiefly the following account is compiled. It lies between the ninth and tenth degrees of north latitude, and the seventy-eighth and seventy-ninth of east longitude; is bounded on the north by the provinces of Tanjore and Pudukotta, on the south and east by the sea, and on the west by the districts of Tinnevelly, Madura, and Sivaganga; and comprehends an area of nearly two thousand five hundred square miles. Its general aspect is that of high and low lands, the latter having numerous artificial lakes, constructed for the purpose of promoting cultivation; the former exhibiting a variety of dry grain-fields, while the northern districts abound with extensive groves of Palmyra trees, with scarcely a vestige of jungle. The whole is divided into seventeen districts, comprising one thousand six hundred and sixtyeight towns and principal and subordinate villages, with a population, at the period to which we allude, of about one hundred and fifty-seven thousand.

A thinly peopled country can only carry on an advantageous commerce under the following circumstances. It must be an emporium to which the commodities of various nations are sent, not for its consumption, but to be shipped to other ports; or it must yield produce which is denied, or scantily allowed) by nature to other regions, and which can be raised and manufactured by the industry of a few.

The several ceremonies and external observances of religion practised by the different castes of Tamils or Hindús, having been made the subject of a former Essay, my present intention is to particularise those which are peculiar to the Moors, as far as they have come within the reach of my observation; and also to note the striking similarity they bear to the ceremonies of the Jews. I shall first, however, offer a few preliminary remarks on their origin, and on the etymology of the various epithets by which they are commonly designated and distinguished among other tribes of natives.

In reference to the statement, published in the last Number of the Society's Journal, of the allusion which I, as Chairman of the Committee of Correspondence, had made in my Report, at the last Anniversary Meeting, to the account given by Dr. Robertson in the Appendix to his Historical Disquisition on Ancient India, of the opinions of Mr. Baily and Mr. Playfair, as to the extreme age of the Hindú astronomical tables, I have to request, with a view of affording the readers of the Journal the most recent information upon the subject, and thereby preventing them from drawing any erroneous inference from the supposed antiquity of those tables, that you will be so good as to publish in the Journal the following statement of the very scientific and very able opinion of the celebrated M. La Place, as to the real age of the same tables. It is copied from Harte's Translation of La Place's Système du Monde, pp. 220, 221, 222. (Dublin, 1830.)

In fulfilment of the expectation promulgated in the Fourth Number of our Quarterly Journal, I do myself the honour to submit to the Society the conclusion of my notices of Land Tenures in Dukhun, embracing the holding of that important functionary, the Pateel (usually called Potail), or headman of towns and villages. This office, together with the village accountants, are, no doubt, co-eval with those of the Deshmook and Deshpandeh, already described.

The accompanying plate is a representation of the cast of an ancient seal, in the possession of the late Sir Charles Wilkins, the circumstances of the discovery of which will be best explained by the following letter: —

“The impression of a Hindú seal, which Captain Colebrooke had the honour of laying before Mr. Wilkins to be deciphered, was found by him at Asseer-ghur, a fortress belonging to Dowlut-Rao Scindia, eleven miles and three-quarters north, 9° east of Burhanpoor; in latit. 21° 27′ north, and forty-eight miles east of the meridian of Aurungabad.