100 The Rev. Dr. Wall on the Nature, Age, and Origin of the 



have learned Greek writing before the Septuagint version of the Bible came 

 into their possession, I am quite ready to admit that they were previously in 

 habits of communication with the Egyptians when under the dominion of Greeks, 

 and subsequently of Romans, who, from their artful policy, still continued to 

 make use of the same European writing as their predecessors in the Egyptian 

 documents of state. But the Egyptians themselves, as I think any one who 

 reads the first volume of my work with attention must clearly see, acquired no 

 knowledge of the nature of alphabetic writing till they became Christians. 

 Before that event took place, their writing, like that now employed by the 

 Chinese in the expression of foreign names, was beneath the very lowest grade 

 of syllabary ; for it failed in the essential requisite of being limited to a fixed 

 determinate number of signs. Beyond this defective system they never advanced 

 till they were induced more particularly to study the Greek written language, 

 in consequence of its having become to them the medium of religious instruction; 

 and then at length they arrived at the construction of the Coptic alphabet. It 

 is, therefore, utterly improbable that the Abyssinians,whohad far less intercourse 

 with Greeks, and who, besides, were a very indolent people, should have attained 

 to such a familiarity with the Greek method of writing as enabled them to intro- 

 duce from it a very important improvement into their own, until they were by a 

 similar inducement led to pay some attention to the nature of that method. 



A limit to the age of the Sanscrit alphabet having now been fixed, the next 

 point to be investigated is, whether this limit harmonizes with history ; not, I mean, 

 with the boasting accounts of the Brahmans, upon which no sort of dependance 

 can be placed, but with those of writers uninfluenced upon the subject by any 

 motives of national prejudice or partiality. That long before the time when, 

 according to the above representation, the Indians may be supposed to have com- 

 pleted their alphabet, they had intercourse with the Greeks and even with the 

 Romans, is matter of historic record of unquestionable authority ; and is besides, 

 in reference to the latter people, corroborated by the recent discovery of Roman 

 coins that must have been buried in India before the end of the second century.* 



* In the second volume of Asiatic Researches, page 332, is inserted a letter, — of Alexander 

 Davidson, Esq., dated Madras, July 12, 1787, — from which I give the following extract : — "As a 

 peasant near Nelor, about 100 miles north-west of Madras, was ploughing on the side of a stony, 

 craggy hill, his plough was obstructed by some brick-work. He dug, and discovered the remains of 



