In the Vey language, it had been known for some time to the American missionaries, that there were _written books_, a fact not likely to be undervalued by those who felt warmly on the social and civilizational prospects of the coloured divisions of our species. One of these books was discovered by Lieutenant Forbes, of H.M.S. the Bonetta; local inquiry was further made by the Rev. W. S. Koelle; and the MS. was critically analyzed by Mr. Norris, of the Asiatic Society.[12] The phenomenon, if properly measured, is by no means a very significant one; since, although the Vey alphabet, the invention of a man now living, so far differs from the Mandingo, as to be spelt by the _syllable_ rather than the _letter_, it is anything but an independent creation of the Negro brain. Doala Bukara, its composer, an imperfect Mahometan, had seen Mahometan books, and, although he was no Christian, had seen an English Bible also. He knew, then, what spelling or writing was. He knew, too, the phonetic analysis of the Mandingo, a tongue closely allied to his own. And this is nine parts out of ten in the so-called invention of alphabets. The true claims of Doala, in this way, are those of the phonetic reformers in England, as compared with those of Toth or Cadmus--real but moderate. His own account of the matter, as he gave it to Mr. Koelle, was, that the fact of sounds being _written_, haunted him in a dream, wherein he was shown a series of signs adapted to his native tongue. These he forgot in the morning; but remembered the impression. So he consulted his friends; and they and he, laying their heads together, coined new ones. The king of the country made its introduction a matter of state, and built a large house in Dshondu, as a day-school. But a war with the Guru people disturbed both the learners and teachers, so that the latter removed to Bandakoro, where all grown-up people, of both sexes, can now read and write. This alphabet is a _syllabarium_. The books written in it are essentially Mahometan; the Koran appearing in them much in the same way as the Bible appears in the more degenerate legends of the middle ages. How far the Vey alphabet will be an instrument of civilization, is a difficult question. For my own part, I half regret its evolution; since the Arabic that served for the Mandingo, would have served for the Vey as well--or if not the Arabic, the English. As a measure of African capacity it is of some value; and in this respect, it speaks for the Negro just as the Cherokee alphabet speaks for the American Indian. This latter was invented by a native named Sequoyah. Like Doala, he knew what reading was. Like Doala, too, he had a language adapted to a _syllabarium_. Hence, both the Vey and the Cherokee, the two latest coinages in the way of alphabets, are both syllabic. We now move southwards to the--