A literary history of Persia

48 HISTORY OF PERSIAN PHILOLOGYwhom he speaks in the highest terms (p. cccxlvi), and MrErskine. Having completed the translation of the Yasna,Vhpered^ and Vendidad, the Pahlawi Bundahish, the Si-ruza,Rivdyats, &c., and visited the sacred fire in itstemple, and thedakhmas^ or " towers of silence," Anquetil, again attacked byillness, and fearful of risking the loss of the precious harvest ofhis labours, resolved to renounce his further projects of travel,which included a journey to China. Again assisted by theEnglish, to whom, notwithstandingexisted between his country and theirs,the state of war whichhe did not fear toon lesappeal, knowing them, as he says, "genereux quandprend par un certain cote" (p. ccccxxxi), he sailed from Suratto Bombay, where, after, a sojourn of more than a month, heshipped himself and his precious manuscripts (180 in number,enumerated in detail at pp. dxxix-dxli of the first volume orhis work) on board the Bristol on. April 28, 1761, and arrivedat Portsmouth on November iyth of the same year. Therehe was compelled, greatly to his displeasure, to leave hismanuscripts in the custom-house, while he himself was sentwith other French prisoners to Wickham. As, however, hewas not a prisoner of war (being, indeed, under Englishprotection), permission was soon accorded him to return toFrance ; but, eagerly as he desired to see his native countryafter so long an absence, and, above all, to secure the safety ofthose precious and hardly-won documents which stillchieflyoccupied his thoughts, he would not quit this country withouta brief visit to Oxford, and a hasty inspection of the Avesticmanuscripts there preserved. "Je d^clarai net," he" says(p. ccccliv), que je ne quitterais pas 1'Angleterre sans avoirvu Oxford, puis qu'on m'y avait retenu prisonnier centre ledroit des gens.Le dsir de comparer mes manuscrits avecceux de cette clebre Universite n'avait pas peu ajoute auxraisons qui m'avaient comme forcde prendre, pour revenir enEurope, la voie Anglaise." Well furnished with letters orintroduction, he arrived at Oxford on January 17, 1762,