OF THE j-^-bO-cnwtst jrATioxs. 209 



The Tdgala character is as difificult to read as it is 

 easy to write. It is written with an iron style on 

 bamboos and palm leaves, and the Spanish missiona- 

 ries assert, that the ancient mode of writing was 

 from top to bottom, like the Chinese. From the cir- 

 cumstance of their writing with an iron style oa 

 bamboos, and from the resemblance of the letters to 

 the Batta character, I should rather imagine that the 

 ancient Tagala mode of writing was from the bottom 

 to the top. The Tagala characters are still used in 

 Comintan, and in general among ih^Tagalas who have 

 not embraced Christianity; and -even by the Christian 

 converts, they are still preferred in epistolary corres- 

 pondence, though the contrary has been insinuated 

 by some of the missionaries, who alledge that the 

 roman alphabet was eagerly adopted, on account of 

 its being more easily read. 



Tlie Tdgala language, with a considerable number 

 of peculiar vocables, and great singularity of idiom, 

 is nevertheless to be considered as a cognate language 

 with MalayUj Bugis and Javanese. Few languages, 

 on a cursory examination, present a greater appear- 

 ance of Originality than the Tdgala. Though a mul- 

 titude of its t6rms agree precisely with those of the 

 languages just enumerated, though the more simple 

 idioms are precisely the same, and though the nouns 

 have neither, properly speaking, genders, numbers 

 nor cases, nor the verbs, moods, tenses or persons, 

 yet the idioms are rendered so complex, and the sim- 

 ple terms are so much metamorphosed, by a variety 

 of the most simple artifices, that it becomes quite 

 impossible for a person who understands all the ori- 

 ginal words in a sentence, either to recognize them 

 individually, or comprehend the meaning of th<* 

 Whok. In illustrating, therefore, the mechanism of 



P 



