| Show AFTER RARE BOOKS it has been thought or rather more correctly speaking only fondly hoped by the learned men throughout christendom that among the chronicles of the Kai Kal rouia roula there would some day be found the missing classics the lost books of euclid and livy among others says bays the fortnightly review indeed in some of 0 the more ancient books of travel on morocco it la Is expressly stated that many of the manuscripts that were saved from the burning of the alexandrian library were taken to seville granada and fez in weighing these statements I 1 think it should be remembered that the was waa founded at the very least years after the fire that was so ao disastrous to learning and that these manuscripts would have had a lot of knocking about before they fou found ad a home on the shelves in the subterranean cellars of the Kai rouin I 1 think it possible on leaving seville and granada the moors way may have brom brought bt ofte with them to morocco many odthe pie precious cious volumes which are known to have been in these libraries bat which have now disappeared for the last fifty years it has been the effort of every european minister accredited to morocco to obtain some information regarding these treasures but the sultan has always sturdily asserted that there were no books at all in the Kal rouin or that they had bad crumbled into dust from age loag cen ago my inquiries though hardly in a measure commensurate with the labor and amount of time expended were certainly more sue due ful there can be no BO two opinions as to the presence of a very large number of ancient manuscripts in the Kai Rai roulo roula library and these volumes a creditable thing for the lazy and indolent moors are certainly the object of very great cars care the trustees af the have 1 a regular staff of custodians chosen from the university professors and teachers who ari are charged with the safekeeping ot the books and the cellars ar ari ara a an annually nual inspected and the books repaired when the necessity arises I 1 should say that bar accidents of fire in the future when the library is thrown open the will be found in a very fair state of preservation upon another poi point ut my informants all agreed they said that in the library there here are quite a number of boo books j in written in strange unknown tongues generally my genial thalba friends asserted they were written in greek but on my showing them a book in german they were unanimously of opinion that this was the language in which the volumes were written so I 1 stul am forced to the conclusion that an any writing which ahio h is not arabic to is greek to Y the fu furies kies and thalba of fez fes |
