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CHRONOLOGIES AND CALENDARS.

Thus taking 1313: 3 per cent to be deducted gives 40: 40 from 1313 = 1272: then add 622, and that makes 1895. The other month I was reading a well-known Moslem journal, and on reciting a certain edict, the journal stated that it has been signed at the Mosque 'the 10th day of Shawall, 1313, which the Christians, in their ignorance, call the 24th March, 1896.'[1] In all my researches I have not met with any data so strikingly egotistical as this chronological memoranda. It calls for no comment.

60. Months.—The names of the months (so far as used in Christendom) call for some notice in this chapter:—January: this month was sacred to Janus, the god of the sun and the year. February: the Roman festival of Purification was held on the 15th of February. March, Mars month:—

"The stormy March has come at last
With wind, and cloud, and changing skies."[2]

April: there was no god attached to this month. May: the name of a goddess christened this month. June: some have accorded to Juno (the goddess) and others to Junius (the tribe name), the honour of giving a name to this month. July: this month was called Quintilis (the fifth month according to the pre-Ceasarian Calendar), but in honour to Julius Cæsar it was named after him, more especially as he was born in this month,[3] August: in like manner, this word was adopted in honour of Augustus Cæsar, (a) on account of his victories and (b) because he had entered upon

  1. The Christians, even by the Mussulman's criterion, cannot be more ignorant chronologically than Jewish, Buddhists, or Chinese.
  2. William Cullen Bryant; he died in 1878.
  3. The exact year A.U.C. and B.C. of Cæsar's birth is still in dispute 100 B.C. is usually given.