There is not much evidence of regular commerce by sea between India and the Near East previous to about 700 b.c. The Bible (1 Kings x, 11; 2 Chron. ix, 21) speaks of Solomon (c. 1000 b.c.) as importing by sea gold and wood of almuggim or algummim trees from Ophir, likewise peacocks, the Hebrew name for which, tukki, comes from the Tamil tōgai, together with other things that were brought by the fleet of Tarshish. But Ophir cannot be located with certainty in India; almuggim or algummim are an unknown quantity (2 Chron. ii, 8, speaks of algum trees in Lebanon!); so perhaps these statements may be anachronisms. There is better evidence for an overland trade route. On the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser II (b.c. 860–825) are the figures of an Indian elephant and a rhinoceros brought as tribute to him by an Armenian tribe; and the Rig-veda (VIII, lxxviii, 2) mentions a golden manā, possibly the Assyrian maneh.

Though the development of the mining industiy consequent on European occupation has brought natives of several different tribes into Southern Rhodesia, there appears to be virtually but one indigenous language in this territory. The Zulu spoken by the Matebele and the Sesuto of Sebituane's people, who settled on the Zambezi about the middle of last century, are comparatively recent intrusions.

According to the Arabic proverb “the words of kings are the kings of words”. His Majesty the King in his speech at the opening of the School said, “The ancient literature and the art of India are of unique interest in the history of human endeavour.” He added that we must develop this “intellectual tradition”. One of the finest functions of the School would be to establish, in Lord Curzon's words, “a clearing house for ideas between the East and the West.”

The Lecturer first emphasised the importance of the study of Islam in view of the large number of Muhammadans in the British Empire, amounting (at the lowest estimate) to 90½ millions, and implying a problem of great importance to the statesman, the politician, the educationalist, and to all persons concerned with the larger problems of the globe. Whatever the total Muhammadan population of the world may be, and, in the absence of trustworthy religious statistics, or even of any form of census whatsoever in many of the countries concerned, it is impossible to say exactly what it amounts to,—(on the most careful reckoning, it is probably something between 200 and 230 millions)—the 90½ millions of Muhammadan British subjects form a large proportion of the whole, and have an importance beyond what mere numbers imply, because of the superior culture of large sections among them. He showed by illustrations how religious considerations enter more largely into the daily life of Muhammadan people than in Christian society; the religion of Islam claims to speak with authority in the domain of law, politics, and social organisation, as much as in the sphere of theology and ethics; the wisest and most carefully considered plans of statesmen and reformers run a risk of being wrecked upon the rock of fanaticism. In the world of Islam the foundations of society have been set in religion, in a manner that is hard to understand for the average European Christian who has entered on the inheritance of ancient Greece and Rome, and the institutions of the barbarian invaders who swept the Roman Empire away.