155 



chance, or idle amusement, with letters or sylla- 

 bic characters. Mr. Truter* relates, that in the 

 southern extremity of Africa, among the Bet- 

 juanas, he saw children busy in tracing on a 

 rock, with some sharp instrument, characters 

 which bore the most perfect resemblance with 

 the P and the M of the Roman alphabet ; not- 

 withstanding which, these rude tribes were per- 

 fectly ignorant of writing. 



This want of letters observed in the new con- 

 tinent, at the time of its second discovery by 

 Christopher Columbus, leads to the idea, that 

 the tribes of the Tartar or Mongul race, which 

 we may suppose to have passed from the east of 

 Asia to America, were not in possession of al- 

 phabetical writing ; or what is less probable, 

 that, having relapsed into barbarism under the 

 influence of a climate less favorable to the display 

 of the understanding, they had lost this won- 

 derful art, known only to a very small number 

 of individuals. We shall not here examine the 

 question, whether the Devanagari alphabet is of 

 remote antiquity on the banks of the Indus and 

 the Ganges ; or whether, as Strabo-f- asserts 

 from Megasthenes, the Hindoos were ignorant 

 of writing before the conquests of Alexaader. 

 Farther to the east and the north in the region 



* Bertuch, Geogr. Ephem. B. 12, s. 67. 

 f Strabo, lib. 15, p. 1035—1044. 



