ART. XVIII.-Some Buddhist Bronzes, and Relics of Buddha. By ROBERT SEWELL, M.R.A.S....... ART. XIX.—Sinhalese Copper-plate Grants in the British G. E. GERINI. Chula Kanta Mangala.... RAMKRISHNA GOPAL BHANDARKAR. Early History ART. XXI.-Southern Chin Vocabulary (Minbu District). By BERNARD HOUGHTON, M.R.A.S.. ART. XXV.-Arabic Inscriptions in Egypt. By H. C. KAY. ART. XXVI.-The Li São Poem and its Author. Part III: GRAHAM SANDBERG. Handbook of Colloquial Tibetan. Reviewed by W. W. ROCKHILL.... PAGE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. ART. I.-Description of Mesopotamia and Baghdad, written about the year 900 A.D. by Ibn Serapion. The Arabic Text edited from a MS. in the British Museum Library, with Translation and Notes. By GUY LE STRange. INTRODUCTION. THE Geography of Mesopotamia during the epoch of the Baghdad Caliphate has not, I think, received the attention which the subject deserves. With the exception of the small maps found in the Spruner-Menke Atlas, I believe no detailed description or delineation of the country at this date has been attempted. Yet it must be admitted that the history of the Abbasids is almost incomprehensible without such an aid; for the physical and political condition of the country was not then what it is now, as a glance at the accompanying map will show. The basis of this map is the description of the two rivers, Euphrates and Tigris, with their affluents and inter-communicating canals, which was written by Ibn Serapion at the beginning of the fourth century A.н., corresponding with the tenth A.D. The text now published for the first time is from the unique MS. of one volume of his work preserved in the British Museum Library (Add. MS. 23,379). Of Ibn Serapion, personally, I believe J.B.A.S. 1895. 1 |