seven more or less connected in shape with the Palm-runes, without including the crosses which may belong to any age. The the and the

are perfect with their variants, the x and the. Less remarkable are the the and the seven-branched tree No. 2 gives four

types: viz., the I, the X, the X, and the F:

gave

in this category the five crosses are noticeable, varying from the simple to a complex modification of the Swastika (); that peculiarly Aryan symbol which rise first to the Christian "Gammadion," and lastly to the Maltese Cross. No. 3 gives three signs: the T, the Y, and the, besides the two crosses plain (X) and crotchetted (X). Lastly, No. 4 gives two: the and the . In Table 1, also, we find the Phoenician Alif (), and the same occurs eight (nine ?) times in the Sigle, which are printed (p. 236) in my little volume upon "Etruscan Bologna."

I venture to suggest that these graffiti are true letters and not mere marks. Similarly in the Wusúm ("tribal signs") of the Bedawin, we find distinct survival, real significance underlying what seems to be simply arbitrary. For instance, the circlet affected by the great 'Anezah, or Central Arabian family, is the archaic form of the Arabic Ayn, the Hebrew Oin, which begins the racial

name.

60

The following communication to the Archæographo Triestino suggests a further extension of the system also possibly Etruscan.

In September, 1876, I had occasion to visit the island-town Ossero, in the Gulf of Fiume, whose waters bathe the southern and the south-eastern shores of the Istrian peninsula. Landing at La Cavanilla, an ancient Suez Canal in miniature, spanned by a bridge right worthy of the Argonautic days, we were met by his Reverence Don Giovanni Bolmarcich, Archiprete of the Community, who was good enough to show us his finds and the places which had produced them. Amongst the number was a common-shaped sepulchral lamp (lume eterno) which struck me forcibly. The inscribed lines may have been, as suggested by the learned Dr. Carl Kunz, Director of the Museum of Antiquities, Trieste, the trick of a waggish apprentice; but they are disposed upon a true Fleasgh or RuniStaff, which mere scratches would hardly be, and there is evident method in their ordering. If it be asked what El-Mushajjar and Ogham-Runes have to do in the Archipelago of Istria, I reply that " Palmrunes appear in impossible places; and that the Lion of Marathon, which named the Piræus Porto Leone, and which still stands before the Arsenal, Venice, is covered as to the shoulders with legible Runic inscriptions. The following illustration shows the lamp in natural size, and the marks were drawn for me, in order to correct and control my own copy, by Don Giovanni.

Fascicolo ii., vol. v. of 1877.

୪୭

Amongst the impossible places where Ogham and Mushajjar-like lines appear must be included the tattoo of the New Guinea savages. Mr. Park Harrison has given the "characters tattooed on a Motu woman" from the south-eastern coast, whose arms, especially the right, and both whose breasts bare such types as Y and A. Philologists will bear in mind the curious resemblance which has been traced between Phoenician characters and the Rejang alphabet of Sumatra, which is mostly Phoenician inverted. In fact, it would not surprise me if future students established the fact that the whole world knows only one alphabet (properly so called), and that that is Phoenician.

I here conclude for the present my notices of the connection between the Ogham-Runes, "whose origin is still hidden in darkness," and the equally mysterious Mushajjar," or Arabic branched alphabet. Prof. J. Rhys, let me repeat, believes that the former is "derived in some way from the Phoenician alphabet "; but he holds his theory to be highly hypothetical"; and he "would be only too glad to substitute facts for suppositions." It is my conviction that Ogham descends from an older and

even nobler stock. I hope some day to restore it to the East, and to prove that, in the former ElMushajjar, it originated among the Nabathæo-Chaldeans. It would, indeed, be curious if the Ogham alphabet of the old schoolmaster, King Fenius (the Phoenician?), concerning whom Irish tradition speaks with such a confident and catholic voice, should once more be traced back to the Plains of Shinar.

RICHARD F. BURTON.

THE EARTHLY PARADISE OF EUROPEAN

MYTHOLOGY.

BY C. F. KEARY, ESQ.

(Read November 27th, 1878.)

WHEN Christianity drew a curtain in front of the past creeds of Heathen Europe, a veil through which many an old belief was left still faintly visible, she succeeded more than with most things in blotting out the images which in former days had gathered round the idea of a future state. It is almost as if the new religion were content to leave this world under much the same governance as before, provided only she were secured the undisputed possession of the world beyond the grave. So the heathen gods were not altogether ousted from their seats. The cloak of Odin-that blue mantle, the air, of which the sagas tell us-fell upon the shoulders of St. Martin; his sword descended to St. Michael or St. George Elias or Nicholas drove the chariot of Helios or wielded the thunders of Thor.1 They changed their names but not their characters, passing for a while behind the scene to be refurnished for

1 Wuttke Deutsche Volksaberglaube, p. 19, and Grimm Deut. Myth., pp. 127, 946, and 68 N., 371, 4th Ed. Elias Id., p. 144.