ral tribes about Cape Verde.

2. _Serawolli._--On the Middle Senegal, different, in many respects,
from the Sereres, the Wolofs, and the Fulahs; nations with which they
are in geographical contact.

3. _The Feloops._--Between the Gambia and Cacheo, along the coast.

4. _The Papels._--South of the Cacheo; and also coastmen.

5. _The Balantes._--Coast-men to the south of the Papels.

6. _The Bagnon._--Conterminous with the Feloops of the river Cacheo.

7. _The Bissago._--Fierce occupants of the islands so-called.

8. _The Naloos._--On the Nun and river Grande.

9. _The Sapi._--Conterminous with the Naloo, and like all the preceding
tribes, from the Feloops downwards, pre-eminently rude, fierce,
intractable, and imperfectly known.

Southward, the unrepresented languages are equally numerous--especially
for the Ivory Coast, and for the Delta of the Niger. Of these I shall
only notice one--the Vey.

The settlement with which the tribes speaking the Vey language is in
contact is one of which the tongue is English, but not the political
relations. It is the American free Negro settlement of Liberia.

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. Koe