INDIA OFFICE TREASURES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 969, 12 May 1930, Page 9

INDIA OFFICE TREASURES

HISTORIC DOCUMENTS AND RELICS HUGE STONE FROM BABYLON In any book on “Unknown London’* a chapter might well be devoted to the India Office, in Whitehall, and tho treasures that it holds. A prosaic and perhaps dull place when work has to be done, it is also a museum in which are stored many documents and relics of historic interest, and it bouses a library of 200,000 volumes, some o£ them extremely valuable. One relic is a huge slab of stono bearing an inscription by Nebuchadnezzar 11., the great King of Babvlon, who flourished B.C. 605-561. The stone, which was found among the ruins of Babylon, contains the King's name and titles and a record of all his important public works, such as the building of temples, fortifications, and quays. It is a kind of official stone “minute book” of—as Nebuchadnezzar said—“this great Babylon which 1 have built.” “If Abraham wrote anything, this is the kind of cuneiform writing which he used,” said an official to a reporter yesterday. Of the 200.000 volumes in the library, 35,000 are volumes of manuscript in Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic and other tongues. Among them is Tippu Sultan's Register of Dreams, with interpretations in his own handwriting. “Judging by the size of the book, sleeping must have been one of tho Sultan s principal said an official. “He lived about 17S0. We also have his Koran.” A wonderful Pali M.S.S. is written on hundreds of palm leaves of gold The writing is cut in with a knife. Oliver Cromwell’s signature is attached to one document, and there is an interesting letter written by Nelson. The Court of Directors of the old Last India Company presented their thanks to “The Right Hon. Rear-Ad-“fral Lord Nelson,” for his “very great and Important services by the ever memorable victory obtained over the "79s* Fleet on August 1,2 aud 3. Nelson, whose handwriting Is bold and legible, replied in graceful language, “1 am incapable of finding words to convey my feeling for the unprecedented honour done me bv the Company.” • 9“. the walls are some magnificent paintings, including a tine full-length portrait of Warren Hastings by Romney. Charles Lamb is depicted holding a pen which rests on a number of official documents—but lovers of Elia Will, perhaps, insist that he was really writing an essay surreptitiously "iu office hours.”