and did not seem greatly to value. The MSS. were of various kinds, on parchment, red goat-skins, and cotton paper. This writing on red goat-skins is supposed to be peculiar to the black jews; the art of dyeing skins red was practised by the jews as far back as the time of Moses, who coloured the skins of rams in this way.

The white jews, who look upon the black jews as an inferior race, showed Dr. Buchanan an ancient brass plate on which was engraved the charter of freedom given them by a king of Malabar in the year of the world 4250 or A.D. 490, also a narrative in Hebrew telling how their forefathers fled from before Titus; how other jews followed them from Judea, bringing with them the silver trumpets saved when the second temple was destroyed; how strife sprang up among them and one side called in the aid of an indian king, who came upon them with a great army, destroyed their houses, palaces, and strongholds, killed some and carried the others away captive; and how by the successive persecution of bigoted portuguese, grasping hollanders, and their bloodthirsty hindoo conquerors, they were reduced to a small weak and poor tribe.

After Dr. Buchanan's visit, these jews were supposed to have quite sunk and declined in every way, but a friend having placed in the hands of the Rev. Mr. Forster two hebrew rolls of handwriting, he opened them and found that they were exquisitely done, one roll on parchment, the other on red goat-skin. Both manuscripts came from the jewish treasury at Cochin and were given by the jewish high-priest to the officer from whom Mr. Forster's friend received them.

The handwriting on red goat-skin proved to be a copy of the canonical Book of Esther; but the one on parchment not only disproves the idea of these jews being utterly sunk in ignorance as they were said to be, but gives an unbroken picture of their history, wanderings, and sufferings from the days when they hung up their harps by the waters of Babylon.

These records were written, or rather engraved, upon brazen or copper tablets, at first in Hebrew, but later on in the Malabar language and characters. These tablets were carried off by the dutch, nearly a hundred years ago, to Amsterdam. The jews however sent some of their learned rabbis to Holland to make copies of them in order to draw up a history. The request was granted, a piece of condescension on the part of those who stole them which merits to be recorded, and from these copies was drawn up the history which Mr. Forster obtained in this way. Some of the original copper tablets of the time of Nebuchadnazar had become illegible, as one may easily believe, but translations had been made into the Malabar dialects, and engraved on fresh tablets. account is important, as this history is now considered to prove how authentic jewish records really are.

The

All this is credible enough. The marvellous tenacity with which these people have clung to the rites and prejudices of their forefathers has enabled them to rise above those storms which have laid the mightiest empires in the dust, but the next account of them is so extraordinary, that it may possibly excite some scepticism; as my object is however rather to draw attention to the light these investigations may throw on the history of races than to go fully into the

matter, I will simply give a brief sketch of the subject, and then leave the reader to draw his own conclusions.

I have already said that Eldad the Danite had found settlements of the ten lost tribes among the Tartars. It is hardly likely that such a statement would escape ridicule. Like many an old tale it was laughed at by some, refuted by others, and neglected by the rest. Now we are told it is true, and that the fact of a great hebrew colony among the Chozar jews is as certain as any historical fact in the annals of the world. The royal family of this great tartar tribe were jews. "None save a jew of the royal house could ascend the golden throne of the Chozars, and a jew beggar of kingly blood might, if he happened to be next of kin, be taken from the market-place and seated on the empty throne." For three centuries these Chozars

were the lords of central Asia.

Mr. Forster tells us that almost the first name that met his eye in Ptolemy's land of the Chozars was that of Tos Manasseh, "the far- banished Manasseh." Further on he found the name of the people of Macha, the very name given by Eldad as the seat of the lost tribes of Simeon, Ephraim, and Manasseh. In the home of the same race in D'Anville he found preserved the well-known names of Esther and Ashor; and lastly on the very confines of China he found in Ptolemy the mountains of Isagur,* and on a mountain range moreover, exactly as its seat is represented in the much-questioned letter of Eldad.†

Now among the Chozars we find repeated the same

The lost tribe of Issachar.

A New Key, &c., p. 319.

strange thing as at Malabar, namely the separation into white and black tribes. In Afghan again the small ugly black Naussers claim to be the children of Israel just the same as the others do.

The great founder of all these distant colonies seems to have been the illustrious Nebuchadnazar, one of the greatest kings and lawgivers of any age. This extraordinary man, when he besieged Tyre, sent out expeditions both by sea and land to sweep the phoenician colonies from before them. This step just mentioned by Strabo, is fully confirmed by the Cochin manuscript, which states that he sent a large body of emigrants to the south of Spain, that they landed in Andalusia, where they founded Lusina on the Tagus, Toledo, Maqueda, and Escalona, names derived from the Hebrew.* Toledo is the oldest town in Spain, and the oldest building in it is a jewish synagogue. When Alphonso the Sixth recovered Toledo from the Saracens, he was appealed to by its jewish population, on the ground that they were not the descendants of the murderers of Christ, but of the ten tribes, whom Nebuchadnazar had sent thither as colonists. The appeal was graciously answered, and the transaction was ordered by the king to be enrolled in the archives of Toledo; so I suppose their arguments or proofs had great weight in those days at least.

It is quite possible that they reached England at a very early period. Lord Lyttelton in his life of that great king, Henry the Second, says,† "That they (the jews) had been here several centuries before the

* Derived from Makedda and Askalon.

+ Life of Henry the Second, by George Lord Lyttelton, vol. 3, p. 265.

entrance of the Normans (though probably not in so great numbers) seems to be proved by a canon published by Egbriht, archbishop of York, in the year 740, which forbids any Christians to be present at the jewish feasts."

Supposing these facts are true they are utterly unprecedented. These jewish colonies assailed by every power of destruction have not only maintained an existence but survive in full vigour and bid fair to retain their pristine power and numbers. The jews must have outlived nearly if not quite every empire contemporary with their early history; and as to the colonies of these empires they are either obliterated or survive only in the vilest and most degraded forms. Strange mystery of life!

This vast extent of colonies formed and upheld by the outcasts of a vanquished and degraded race seems almost incredible, but all the searching and grubbing among old monuments and traditions which has been carried on of late years, seems to prove that the world of historic times was peopled to a very great extent in this way. Possibly they effected some good in their fashion; they may have carried with them the of commerce; they may have told the rude people they sought out about the manners, buildings, and arts of the East, and thus sown the seed of improvement of which they were as unconscious bearers as the stream which bears to our shores the fruits and seeds of a tropic land.

germs

Such then are the few faint outlines of far-off traditions. Like figures seen through the mists of dawn, dim, uncertain, and grotesque in their outline, but none the less real, we view the phantom fathers of