An Account of a Journey in Kashmir by David Lockhart Robertson Lorimer and Letters from Emily Overend Lorimer to her Parents sent from Bahrain and Kerman [‎631v] (1284/1291)

2
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v-ithout getting stale, I amjreadlng with a view to abstracting it/<U\\
■for Lock a volume of Tundt/s Volkerpsjtchologle (Psychology of '
Peopled). l read his two volumes on the origins of language
some years ago in Oxford, but this one on nrimltlve myths and
religions is new to me. It is pretty stiff reading, but extra
ordinarily interesting, and relly wonderfully lucid and clear
-°- r> a Genian. And it will make I think the best foundation
for our anthropological efforts. ^ock will clearly not have time
to read it himself, but l think he would be able to get the gist
of it with labour from an abstract. It is Impressive to see
Primitive man at grips with the ideas of life and death and the
soul. I wonder what one would make of it oneself in his -olace.
Of course away back in these primitive myths and religions lies
the origin of folk lore and fairy tales and all the rest of it.
In the evenings we are reading Virgil together again. It is
great fun. in feel sure it would make Hilda's and Will's hair
curl Csorry, of course Will's curls already, that was my chief
objection to him at first sight I!) to hear our false qualities
and gorgeous howlers; but we ourselves without their prejudices
are really rather impressed to find how much we remember. And it
is very amusing to come back to plus Aeneas & Dido with a grown-up
knowledge of how to tackle the difficulties that seemed so very
mysterious in one' s second year of Latin. *ou seem to see it all
in a totally different perspective. The only thing that is
unchanged and I supose eternally unchangeable— is the futility
of the editors notes, they laboriously explain you the self-evlden
tell you that iron and close fastened bars" really means "close
fastened bars of iron" and that you may if you choose call this
blessed figure of sppech by the blessed name of Hendladys but not
a word do they breathe of any real difficulty that may crop up.
have always suspected, but am more than ever convinced now, that
editors are some kind of hereditary close corporation or a secret
society like the Masons; there is a misleading varied in thier
exposition of the obvious or their confounding of the already
ambiguous, but a perfect and touching unanimity in their evasion
® r ® al cru J* , "oc* is getting on with Homer, there finfortun-
wAfi, y f? 11 ? 0 ! f 9j- low hlrn at moment, though it win go hard
I * d 2 ri J ^y- 1 did spell out 400 lines of the
Iliad in Munich but M was carried off into the Edda Instead, and
?? ™ f v,2S U 5 8e for g° tten the Uttle that I had then picked up.
i- one had five or six existences, running concurrently it would
be very much easier to get through things. ’
y °A gath f r froin 811 this meandring, we have llttel outside
t S T 6 ar ? v f lht0 town las t Sat. we were shocked to see a
ou tside the European cemetery, and much relieved
11 was ? nly the funeral of some "Chaldean" Christian,
o? was ^interpreter for the Gendarmes; he was riding hi
tSi° ng ° ne ° f t,hese narrow hlghwalied lanes and just as he g.
leariw t tw rt C ?M , !? er i rou n d swept a drunken Gendarme at full gallop
h P ni^®?’!® 88 horses; the luckless cyclist had no chance,
he was badly mauled and died ln^ a few hours. Xho very sorry
or so tragic an accident we cannot be sorry that somethl&n serious
i