Liberia '•^ 



few. On my second arrival at Cape Mount, November 2nd, 

 1850, when I wanted to visit him again, I was informed that he 

 had departed this life several months previously. Thus, how- 

 ever, he was spared the grief of seeing Bandakoro taken and 

 laid waste by his enemies : he was permitted to descend to the 

 grave in peace, whereas his brother, Jara Barakora, one of 

 his assistants in the introduction of the new mode of writing, 

 fell at the capture of Bandakora, in the night of October 27th, 

 1850, after a brave resistance, in which he himself killed four 

 men with the sword. Doalu died of a cutaneous disease, called 

 in their own language ' konje-kira,' ' i.e. ball-sickness, which 

 produced in him such extraordinary drowsiness that he often fell 

 asleep while taking his meals." 



The syllabarium which follows is copied mainly from the 

 forms given by Forbes and Koelle, which in all probability are 

 more exactly those invented by Doalu Bukere and his friends 

 than are the cursive characters still in use after some sixty 

 years amongst the Vai of Liberia. A close inspection of these 

 characters will reveal the fact that many of them are clumsy 

 adaptations of Roman letters or of conventional signs employed 

 by Europeans : only two or three bear any resemblance to 

 Arabic characters. 



There was little " logic " about this invention, and the tax 

 on the memory and patience in using this syllabarium to write a 

 language so easily rendered in Roman letters must be somewhat 

 severe ; yet, as already mentioned, the Vai people obstinately 

 cling to the invention of Doalu Bukere and use it increasingly 

 for literary correspondence (they have taken to letter-writing as 

 much as the Baganda). But they have improved on Doalu 



' This phrase means sickness of the glands ( ? scrofula) or of the kidneys. 

 It was, however, probably an early case of "sleeping-sickness."— H. H. J. 



1114 



