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3 among certain families, particularly those which removed from their primary seats three or four hundred years ago. It is of course not to be supposed that every Jha is the owner of Sanskrit MSS., but those which my travelling pandit thought worthy of note were met with in the homes of the Jhas, and many of whom have something or other to show which is rare and interesting. Rangpur and Dinajpur. 5. The remarks above made do not, however, apply to the districts of Rangpur and Dinajpur, which form exceptions in this respect. Though situated in close proximity to the districts where the Sanskrit language flourished for centuries, they have few old pandit families to show, and fewer Sanskrit MSS. This is to be accounted for partly to Rangpur having been for some time held by the Buddhist Pal Rajas, and partly to the insalubrity of the climate which is alike prejudicial to paper and to human life, and in which the sedentary life of pandits is not generally safe. It is true that some of the Sena Rajas of Bengal held their courts for a time at Rangpur, but they soon retired to establish their metropolis at a more healthy spot, and their Brahmanic followers seem to have followed their example, leaving the foot of the hills and its deadly Terai mostly to the aboriginal races. Anyhow there are few pandits in Rangpur and Dinajpur with whom rare Sanskrit MSS. are to be met with. Much time and some expense was incurred here, but without any adequate return. Sankara Matha at Puri. 6. In a memorandum, submited by me to the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1869, I gave some account of the celebrated Sankara Matha at Puri. For some time after, it was my endeavour to obtain an inventory of the rich literary treasures gathered by the Dandis at that place. In 1885 I had an offer of aid from the Collector of Puri, but my pandit went to the place when it was too late; he found that Mr. Metcalfe, the then Commissioner of the Orissa Division, had already secured a descriptive catalogue of the library of the Matha. This catalogue was subsequently communicated by Mr. Metcalfe to the Asiatic Society, and I had an opportunity of seeing it. It embraces the names of over 1200 works, more than half of which were duplicates and triplicates. Of the remainder many are of value as old codices;