The meaning of the above letter appears to be as follows: "The Malim of the Arab boat to all the people of the Maldives stopping at Galle. We "The chief's greeting: the boats now at this port are the Arab boat of Finladu, the offering boats of Fadiyaru and Ahammadidi, and the boats of Manduge and Hiti-gas-darhu-ge; all the people are in good health; send what news you have at your port: I hereby send what news there is at this port. A new governor is come from Europe; the king of England is dead. Very many greetings. have sold at this port Himiti fish for seventy-seven dollars, Maleatolu fish for sixty-seven, and Fadingfulu fish weighed (?) for forty-seven ; having sold the fish, we are waiting for the price. Very many greetings. This is written on Thursday. If God permits, I shall sail in fourteen days; such is my wish." NOTE. IN consequence of the commercial intercourse which subsists between the inhabitants of the islands of Maldiva and those of the island of Ceylon, Sir A. Johnston, when Chief Justice and President of His Majesty's Council at Ceylon, made a collection, at the time he was preparing a customary code for the observance of the different classes of people on the island of Ceylon, of the customs and usages observed by the natives of the islands of Maldiva, as well in criminal as in civil cases, and procured from some of the natives who came over to Ceylon, for the purposes of trade, such information as they could afford him relative to the religion, history, language, written characters, fisheries, the variety of the vegetable productions of the islands, and the coral formations on them and in their neighbourhood. In the course of his inquiries he procured several copies of the Maldiva alphabet, a vocabulary in the Maldiva language, with translations opposite each word in Cingalese and Tamul, one of the letters from the sultan to the governor of Ceylon, a copy of a song which was popular amongst the Maldiva mariners, and sung by them when they were working, in order to enable them to keep time; two copies of their charts; a copy of the Maldiva translation of the New Ephemeris; one of the fore-staffs; and a copy in the Maldiva language of the book of astrology, according to which their navigators decided These are the vessels which bring the annual presents to the government of Ceylon, mentioned in the following page. upon the days of departure from, and the days of arrival at, different places, and the probable success of their voyage. Sir Alexander some time ago presented the above things to the Asiatic Society, and gave the following memorandum respecting the inhabitants of Maldiva, as the result of his inquiries. The inhabitants of the islands of Maldiva are supposed to be descended from some Cingalese inhabitants of Ceylon, who were wrecked on one of the Maldiva islands between four and five hundred years ago. In consequence of that circumstance, a commercial intercourse has been kept up between the islands of Maldiva and Ceylon for many ages. The sultan of the Maldiva islands sends an agent or minister every year to the government of Ceylon, with presents consisting of some very curious mats, manufactured on the Maldiva islands; some sweetmeats of many different descriptions; a considerable quantity of dried fish, consisting of bonitos, albicores, and a fish called by the inhabitants of the Maldivas the black fish, or comboli mas; a piece of the sea cocoa-nut, to which the natives of the Maldivas attribute great medical properties; and some of the small shells, known throughout India by the name of Cowries, which are found in great numbers in the neighbourhood of the Maldiva islands, and which are used as a description of circulating medium in Bengal. As soon as the Maldiva agent arrives at Colombo, the governor of the island appoints a day for his landing and for his reception, and receives him with considerable form at the Government-house, a guard of soldiers, with an officer at their head, being appointed to attend him when he lands at the beach. After his public audience with the governor is over, and he has delivered all his presents, and a letter from the sultan of the Maldivas to the governor, he asks, and always receives, permission for himself and his countrymen to trade for the season during which they remain in Ceylon. As soon as he has done his commercial transactions, and is ready to return to the Maldivas, he receives a certain number of presents from the governor for the sultan, consisting of broad-cloth, and stationery of all descriptions, and having received a letter from the governor to the sultan, takes his departure, and returns to the Maldivas. During the S.W. monsoon, a great many Maldiva vessels come to trade both at Point de Galle and Colombo. They are much better built, and are of a prettier shape, than the dhonies or vessels which come to those ports from most parts of India, and are said to sail very well. The late Marquis of Londonderry, when Secretary of State for the colonies, had determined, upon the suggestions of Sir Alexander ARTICLE IV.-A short Account of the Sherley Family, by (Read 17th February, 1838.) By the kindness of the Right Honourable Lord Western, an ancient painting is exhibited to the Society, which merits attention, if it were merely as a curious specimen of antiquity; but it will interest the Meeting more l especialy from the nature of its subject and the circumstances connected with its being brought into Europe at all, and with its appearance here this day. To persons who have not travelled in the East the design may be considered almost an enigmą, but which I hope I shall be able satisfactorily to solve'. The painting came into the possession of the nobleman who has had the kindness to permit its exhibition here, owing to his connection with the family of Sherley, of Wiston, in Sussex, of whom I shall proceed to give some account. All those who have read anything of the early travels in the East, prior to the establishment of our Indian empire, are aware that there were some gentlemen of this name in Persia, at the Court of Shah Abbass, in the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century; and that one of them, Sir Robert, came to England twice as Ambassador to the Court of James I. A few years ago a small work entitled The Three Brothers, was published in this city, which comprises much of what remains of the history of the three Sherleys, and from that work, as well as from other notices, which I have been able to pick up, I have drawn materials for the paper I now propose to read to you. The author of The Genealogies of the Sherley Family, a Latin manuscript in the British Museum, with an ardent attachment to that house, traces it from the time of Edward the Confessor, in the male line, to the illustrious scions above named, and assures us that it had the honour to be allied not only to the Royal blood of England, both Saxon and Norman, but likewise to that of France, Scotland, Denmark, Arragon, Leon, Castile, the Sacred Roman Empire, and almost all the princely houses in Christendom; and amongst the English nobility to the Dukes of Norfolk and Buckingham, Earls of Arundel, Oxford, Northumberland, Shrewsbury, The painting is described in p. 214 of No. X. of this Society's Journal for 1838. Kent, Derby, Worcester, Huntingdon, Pembroke, Nottingham, Suffolk, Berkshire, and the Barons of Berkley; and according to the same author, their achievements were as noble, and as various, as their alliances were illustrious. Perhaps no three persons of one family ever experienced adventures at the same time so uncommon and so interesting. Sir Thomas, Sir Anthony, and Sir Robert Sherley, were the sons of Sir Thomas Sherley, of Wisneston, or Wiston, in Sussex, by Anne, his wife, the daughter of Sir Thomas Kemp, Knight. These three brothers, not content with gaining laurels in the military fields of Europe, were inflamed with an ardent desire to wage war against the Turks, then deemed the natural enemies of all Christendom; and this chivalrous spirit led them to undertake a series of enterprises, which, in the present day, would be condemned as absurd, though quite in character with the manners of the age in which they lived. The interest of the narrative I am about to communicate, will be greatly enhanced by the comparison which it affords of the manners and customs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whether in Europe or Asia, as compared with those of our own times in many instances, and of the true picture it exhibits of Oriental customs even at the present day. We are not informed when Sir Thomas Sherley, the eldest of the brothers, was born, but it appears that he was early instructed in the military art, and that he commanded 300 men in Holland, where he conducted himself with such credit, that in 1589, the Lord Willoughby conferred upon him the honor of Knighthood. His other brothers, after distinguishing themselves in Europe, proceeded to the East, to war against the Turks, in 1599, and Sir Thomas deeming the theatre of Christian warfare too narrow for his ambition, "left (says his biographer, Fuller) an aged father and a fair inheritance in Sussex, resolved to undertake sea voyages in foreign parts, to the great honour of his nation but small enriching of himself." A particular and very interesting account of the deeds of Sir Thomas Sherley, and of his captivity, and the miseries he endured while imprisoned at Constantinople, are to be found in the Genealogica Historia Domus De Sherley, a MS. in the Harleian Library, No. 4023. The substance of that account is as follows:-Being determined to do something by which he might gain renown, and having resolved many schemes in his head, he at length resolved to make war against the Infidels (the Turks) for the honour of the religion of |