GOTTLIEB WILHELM

LEITNER (184o-1899)  , Anglo-Hungarian orientalist, was born at Budapest in 1840 . He was the son of a physician, and was educated at Malta Protestant college . At the age of fifteen he acted as an interpreter in the Crimean War . He entered King's College, London, in 1858, and in 1861 was appointed professor of Arabic and Mahommedan law . He became principal of the government college at Lahore in 1864, and there originated the term " Dardistan " for a portion of the mountains on the north-west frontier, which was subsequently recognized to be a purely artificial distinction . He collected much valuable information on Graeco-Buddhist art and the origins of Indian art . He spoke, read and wrote twenty-five languages . He founded an oriental institute at Woking, and for some years edited the Asiatic Quarterly Review . He died at Bonn in 1899 . See J . H . Stocqueler, Life and Labours of Dr Leitner (1875) .