Excerpt from Address Delivered at the Opening of the Ninth International Congress of Orientalists: Held in London, September 5, 1892 It is generally at the end, not at the beginning of scientific meetings that votes of thanks are proposed. But in our case, when we owe our very existence to the valuable help received from so many quarters, it seems but right that we should express our gratitude at the very outset. Our first thanks are due to H. K. H. the Duke of York, for having granted us that sympathy and gracious support without which, I am afraid, our Congress would never have drawn its first breath, and our labours might indeed have been in vain. We could not venture to disturb a father's grief and ask H. B. H. the Prince of Wales to grant us his royal protection. But His Royal Highness has testified the warm interest which he feels for our Congress, as for everything that is likely to draw the bonds of friendship between England and her great Indian Empire more closely together, by authorising H. R. H. the Duke of York to act at the present Congress, as the worthy successor of H. M. the King of Sweden, the Royal Patron of our last Congress. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.