142 EXCURSIONS ROUND LONDON'. 



of certain shapeless figures and knots, which 

 they called quippos. Had the Europeans not 

 annihilated that interesting nation, we mio-ht 



.O ' O 



perhaps have gradually beheld that wonder- 

 ful invention reach the same degree of per- 

 fection as alphabetical writing. 



We conceive that it might have been pos- 

 sible for these people, like ourselves, to have 



overleapt the immense distance which se- 



1 



parates allegorical from alphabetical wri- 

 ting. 



Chance might perhaps have led them to 

 that astonishing invention ; though it must 

 have required the most transcendant genius 

 to supply the place of the vast mass of hiero- 

 glyphics by the sole combination of a few 

 elementary signs. 



Never perhaps has the wonderful inven- 

 tion of alphabetical writing been sufficient- 

 ly appreciated. It is impossible to treat 

 of speech and writing without regarding 

 it as one of the greatest discoveries of the 



o 



human mind ; as a discovery, which, if 



the 



