3622 years.

We have still to account for the time of the _settlement in the Punjab_
and formation of kingdoms there. This gives as the beginning approximately
= 4339 B. C.

And now I am very anxious to hear what you have made out, or whether you
have let the whole matter rest as it is. I have postponed everything, in
order to clear up the way as far as I can. I shall try to induce Weber to
visit me in the Whitsun holidays, to look into the details for me, that I
may not lay myself open to attack. Before that I shall have received
Haug's _entirely_ new _translation of the first Fargard_, which I shall
print as an Appendix, with his annotations. My _Chinese_ restoration has
turned out _most_ satisfactory.

I may now look forward to telling them: (1.) The rabbinical chronology is
false, it is impossible; it has every tradition opposed to it, most of all
so the biblical--therefore away with it! (2.) Science has not to _turn
back_, but now first to press really forward, and to restore: the question
is not the fixing of abstract speculative formulas, but the employing of
speculation and philology for the _reconstruction of the history of
humanity_, of which revelation is only a portion, though certainly the
centre if we believe in our moral consciousness of God.

This is about what I shall say, as my last word, in the Preface to the
sixth volume of "Egypt." Volumes IV. and V. _are_ printed. _Deo soli
gloria._

[73.]

CHARLOTTENBERG, _May 22, 1856._

MY DEAR FRIEND,--H. R. H. the Prince Regent, who starts for England
to-morrow, wishes to see Oxford, and _quietly_ and _instructively_. I
therefore give these lines to his private secretary, Herr Ullmann, that he
may by letter, or (if the time allows) by word of mouth, apply to you, to
fix _a day_. Herr Ullmann is the son of the famous Dr. U., the present
prelate and chief church-councilor, and a man of good intentions.

I have at last gone in for Vedic and Bactrian chronology, after having had
Dr. Haug of Bonn with me for eight days. He translated and read to me many
hymns from your two quartos (which he does very fluently), and a little of
Sayana's commentary. By this and by Lassen and Roth, and yours and Weber's
communications, I believe I have saved myself from the breakers, and I
hold my proofs as established:--

That the oldest Vedas were composed 3000-2500 B. C., and that everything
else is written in a learned dead Brahmanical language, a precipitate of