nies,
which you have made so really clear and easy to be understood. This is as
yet the only piece of _real life_ of our blood relations in the land of
the five rivers. I have naturally taken possession of this treasure with
the greatest delight, and perfected the description for my problem by the
explanation of Yama (following on the whole Roth, who however overlooks
the demiurgic character), of the Ribhus (departing entirely, not only from
Neve's mistaken views, but also from what I have read elsewhere,
representing them as the three powers which divide and form matter,
namely, Air, Water, and Earth, to whom the fourth, Agni, was joined under
the guidance of Tvash'ar), and of the funeral ceremonies as the condition
of the laws of inheritance; where I return to my own beginning. And here
it strikes me at once that in the Vedas, so far as they are accessible to
me, there is not a trace to be found of the _joining together of the three
generations_ (the departed and his father and grandfather), and making
them the unity of the race through the sacrificial oblations. And yet the
_idea_ must be older than the Vedas, as this precise, though certainly not
accidental limitation is found with Solon and the Twelve Tables, just as
clearly as with Manu and all the books of laws, and the commentaries
collected by Colebrooke. You would of course have mentioned this in your
account if anything of the sort had existed in the tenth book. But even
the Pitris, the fathers, are not mentioned, but it passes on straight to
Yama the first ancestor. Haug, too, has discovered nothing; if you know
anything about it, communicate it to me in the course of May, for my
second volume goes to press on the 1st June. I shall read it aloud to
George and Miss Wynn here, between the 25th and 31st.

But my real desire is that you should send me one of your melodious and
graceful metrical translations of _your_ hymn, "Nor aught nor nought
existed." I must of course give it (it belongs with me to the period of
transition, therefore, comparatively speaking, late); and how can I
venture to translate it? I have, to be sure, done so with about five
poems, which Haug chose for me out of the first nine books, and translated
literally and then explained them to me; as well as with those which I
worked out of Wilson's two first volumes by the help of Roth and Haug. But
that is _your_ hymn, and I have already written my thanks for your
communication in my MS. and the