And after the life of these days, In the feasts of the Silver Mountain, the heavenly courts, The abode of blessedness: And in the Light Of the Happy Fields, May he dwell a life Eternal, holy, In the presence of the gods Who inhabit Assyria.”—H. F. TALBOT. Here is undoubtedly expressed a belief in the soul’s immortality, which also appears in the following prayer for the spirit of a dying man:— “Like a bird may it fly to a lofty place! To the holy hands of its god may it ascend!” A PENITENTIAL PSALM. “O my Lord! my sins are many, my trespasses are great; and the wrath of the gods has plagued me with disease, and with sickness and sorrow. I fainted: but no one stretched forth his hand! I groaned: but no one drew nigh! I cried aloud: but no one heard! O Lord! do not abandon thy servant! In the waters of the great storm, seize his hand! The sins which he has committed, turn thou to righteousness.”—H. F. TALBOT. HITTITE INSCRIPTIONS. =Altaic Hieroglyphs.=—Inscriptions on stones and various objects, in an unknown system of hieroglyphics, have been found near Damascus and elsewhere in the East. They have been ascribed to the Hittites (the _Khita_ of the Egyptian monuments, the _Khittim_ of Scripture), a powerful race of northern Syria, who were constantly at war with the Babylonians, successfully opposed both Assyria and Egypt, and in the thirteenth century B.C. extended their power as far west as the Ægean Sea. It is claimed that the symbols are “the prototypes whence the cuneiform system was developed,” and that the language is an Altaic (Turanian or Accadian) dialect. The date assigned is 1400 B.C. (See opposite engraving of an inscribed stone from Jerabis.) Scholars are now engaged in an attempt to decipher these inscriptions. (The reader is referred to _Sayce’s “The Hittites: the Story of a Forgotten Empire.”_) [Illustration: The inscribed stone described.] ARABIC LITERATURE. =Himyaritic Inscriptions.=—The high-spirited war-loving tribes that roved over the tablelands of Arabia, as well as the more refined inhabitants of her ports on the Red Sea, doubtless cultivated letters. We may suppose the former to have given their florid fancies vent in pastorals, rude songs for the desert bivouac, or triumphal odes. More finished species of poetry would have been congenial to the courtly residents of the cities, whose knowledge of the world was extended by trading expeditions to India, and along the African coast as far as the Mozambique Channel. Yet of this probable literature we possess little that is older than the era of Mohammed (600 A.D.), at which time the Arabians awoke to a new life, for centuries leading the van of the nations in the march of literature and science. But the little that we have is not without interest.