[monogrammed R A S] [Royal Asiatic Society]
Dear Sir
I am prostrated by a severe attack of bronchitis which has confined me to the house for nearly a month past and am hardly in a condition to give you a satisfactory reply to your enquiry.
I believe I have copied the whole or nearly the whole of the diluvial tablets: these have been lithographed and, as I understood it, were to have constituted a portion of the 4th Vol of Inscriptions. It had been decided that the 35 plates which I sent you were to have been published separately as a half portion of that Volume. I can learn nothing as to the cause of this not having been done! but during Smiths absence in Mesopotamia I completed up to the 64th Sheet – proofs of which have been all delivered to the Museum but not a corrected Sheet have I been able to obtain – consequently if I had the proofs they would be of no use to you for I am well aware that they are full of errors for save the fragment which was photographed the whole are in such a mutilated condition that a great deal of it has been mere guesswork. The whole volume might have been published months since but since Norris’s death I have lost all direct communication with Sir Henry Rawlinson who has left the whole direction of the work in Smiths hands – and he is too much wrapped up in his own immediate views and pursuits to do any thing and I am subjected to such a strict surveillance that I am only allowed to make my copy in the presence of an attendant! Formerly I could have sent you at least my original rough copy – but now I am expected to give it up when I have done with it to the Museum – It has been an unfortunate thing for me and for the work that it was ever committed to Mr Smith’s hands, during Mr Norris’ life – they disagreed so much as to readings and interpretations that Mr N. was very reluctant to assist me & Mr S. has sometimes left me without a communication for Weeks together – with him it was always tomorrow! tomorrow! – The truth is that you really learned gentlemen have so petted and flattered and fondled Mr S– that it appears to me to have entirely unsettled his brain when combined with the false and fulsome adulation of the “daily [sic] Telegraph” – Previously to the unfortunate discovery of what is termed the “diluvial Tablet” he was a modest unassuming Student glad to get any information he could obtain from any body – Now he is as difficult of access as a prime minister and his time seems as as [sic] precious & his answers as sure as if he and he only were the repository of all cuneiform knowledge! but is this so? I only know that I cannot follow his readings, but then I am nobody – and my doubts go for nothing! What he is again dispatched to Asia for – I can’t make out & I don’t think he knows. I hope you won’t be offended at my expressing myself so freely – I rather fear I offended Sir Henry Rawlinson by exp saying when the Telegraph sent him (Mr S) that he was gone on a wild goose chase
Dr Sir Yrs truly
R. E. Bowler
8 York Terrace
St Johns Wood
London