Their language, which is widespread throughout Senegambia, may be taken as a typical Sudanese form of speech, unlike any other in its peculiar agglutinative structure, and unaffected even in its vocabulary by the Hamitic which has been current for ages on the opposite bank of the Senegal. A remarkable feature is the so-called "article," always postfixed and subject to a two-fold series of modifications, first in accordance with the initial consonant of the noun, for which there are six possible consonantal changes (_w_, _m_, _b_, _d_, _s_, _g_), and then according as the object is present, near, not near, and distant, for which there are again four possible vowel changes (_i_, _u_, _o_, _a_), or twenty-four altogether, a tremendous redundancy of useless variants as compared with the single English form _the_. Thus this Protean particle begins with _b_, _d_ or _w_ to agree with _baye_, father, _digene_, woman, or _fos_, horse, and then becomes _bi_, _bu_, _bo_, _ba_; _di_, _du_ etc.; _wi_, _wu_ etc. to express the presence and the varying distances of these objects: _baye-bi_ = father-the-here; _baye-bu_ = father-the-there; _baye-bo_ = father-the-yonder; _baye-ba_ = father-the-away in the distance. All this is curious enough; but the important point is that it probably gives us the clue to the enigmatic alliterative system of the Bantu languages as explained in _Ethnology_, p. 273, the position of course being reversed. Thus as in Zulu _in_- kose requires _en_- kulu, so in Wolof _baye_ requires _bi_, _di_gene _di_, and so on. There are other indications that the now perfected Bantu grew out of analogous but less developed processes still prevalent in the Sudanese tongues. Equally undeveloped is the Wolof process of making earthenware, as observed by M. F. Regnault amongst the natives brought to Paris for the Exhibition of 1895. He noticed how one of the women utilised a somewhat deep bowl resting on the ground in such a way as to be easily spun round by the hand, thus illustrating the transition between hand-made and turned pottery. Kneading a lump of clay, and thrusting it into the bowl, after sprinkling the sides with some black dust to prevent sticking, she made a hollow in the mass, enlarging and pressing it against the bowl with the back of the fingers bent in, the hand being all the time kept in a vertical position. At the same time the bowl was spun round with the left palm, this movement combined with the pressure exerted by the right hand causing the sides of the vessel to rise and take shape. When high enough it was finished off by thickening the clay to make a rim. This was held in the right hand and made fast to the mouth of the vessel by the friction caused by again turning the bowl with the left hand. This transitional process is frequently met with in Africa[143].