________________
SEPTEMBER, 1889.)
MISCELLANEA.
279
the names of the Bulgarian kings Talib and Mamin. On the coins of the second class is only read the name of An-Nasir-li-din-Allah. Saveliev considers them the last memorials of the independent Bulgarian Empire, and thinks that they were coined in great quantities.
These coins are generally copper, and of an antique type. The silver money is rarest with the inscription :- “Use life, short as an hour, in honourable works." The writer disagrees with Saveliev's opinion that many were coined. On the 2nd of December, 1887, some silver coins were brought to the writer from Al. Kagar. The discovery had been made while a grave was being dug. 104 silvercoins were found in a heap. There was no Jachi coin among them. Their condition showed that they had long been buried. They were rudely fashioned, and the inscriptions un. grammatical.
. He then proceeds to give a few of the most interesting
1. Obverse:- En-Nasir-li-din Allah, Comman. der of the Faithful.
Reverse :--a dindr, coined in Bulgaria.
The Khalifa's name is spelled wrong: and instead of dindr, which means gold coin, dörham, silver coin, should have been used.
2. Obverse and reverse the same as above, but on the reverse a kind of zigzag is out.
3. On the obverse there are three stare placed horizontally. Reverse: the inscription is, “Life is an hour; use it for piety."
Some of these coins are rare. The writer, during thirty years, has had only one example of No. 3. He eoncludes by stating that the coins are independent Bulgarian money, the coining of which continued after the conquest of the country by the Mongols till the establishment of an independent Jacht rule.
Finds of large hoards of money coined in the name of An-Nasir-li-din-Allah were not known up to this time.
(6) Nicholas Spathari, before his arrival in Russia; by P. Sirku.
There is a Chinese account in the Manchu language of the stay of Nicholas Spathari in Pekin. This document is valuable, because it explains the relations existing between Russia and China, Only some extracts have previously appeared in the Manchu Chrestomathy of Prof. Vasiliev. The writer of the article does not propose to give a complete account of Spathari, but some new material about him, especially from the Greek State Papers. He was born about 1625 in Moldavia, of a family which had come from the Peloponnesus, ana was educated at Constantinople. Here he acquired ancient Greek,
Turkish and Arabic, and afterwards probably finished his education at Padua. In 1653 Stephen Giorgitea seized the hospodarship of Moldavia from Basil Lupu, and Nicholas became his secretary and private friend. In 1657 George Ghika was hospodar, and into his good graces Spathari insinuated himself. But under a subsequent governor we find Spathari caught intriguing, and he had his nose cut off, hence he was called Kurnal or the snub-nosed. Afterwards on the recommendation of Dositheus, the patriarch of Jerusalem, he was received into the Russian service. In consequence of his great knowledge of foreign languages, the Tsar Alexis sent him as ambassador to China in 1675.
(c) List of Persian-Turko-Tatar and Arabic manuscripts in the Library of the University of St. Petersburg (concluded): entends from page 197 to page 220; by V. Rosen.
In a note at the conclusion, the writer thanks J. Gotwald for the presentation to the Library of a very old copy of the celebrated work of Gasalli. It is true that a Bulaq edition exists of this work ; but a good old manuscript always preserves its value, inasmuch as the greater part of the oriental editions are only reproductions of some one manuscript, and it is good to test them by other copies.
There is also an additional list of ten manu. scripts given by E. F. Kahl, which he collected in Bokhåra and Tashkand.
(d) The Wisdom of Balabar,' a Georgian version of the History of Varlaam and Joasaf.
The writer became acquainted with this Georgian version of the story of Barlaam and Joasaph during his stay in the Caucasus. He was told of two copies, one in possession of the priest of the Alaverd monastery, Simeon Gad. zeliev, and the other in that of Ivan Berdzenov, who died two years ago. There were also in Guria some persons with the name of Balaver, which might point not only to the existence of a book about Balavar, but also to its popularity in Georgia, because in that country personal names are often taken from popular works. In the Georgian Gaxette (Iveria), was an account of some books, which had been given to the Society for Spreading Education among the Georgians, and among these was mentioned the Wisdom of Balaver. When the writer was in Tiflis, he copied the whole MS. It was of the very recent date 1860, but this very circumstance gaye hopes of finding the original, and with this object he put a notice into the Iveria of his desire to find it. Soon after, in the Gasette, No. 104, there was a communication that the copy of the Wisdom of Balavar had been made from that of the
