TO THE COURT OF AVA. 
117 
however, differ essentially in pronunciation from 
the usual sounds of the Dewa-nagari, as will be 
seen by the explanation which accompanies the 
annexed plate. The Bur man character, which 
consists, for the most part, of circles and segments 
of circles, has the advantage of simplicity, and of 
being readily acquired and written. In this re¬ 
spect it has, to a foreigner, an obvious advantage 
over most of the written characters of Western 
Asia. My friend, Mr. Judson, wrote it with 
more neatness and facility than almost any Bur- 
man, and several other European gentlemen also 
wrote it with fluency. The reverse of this is 
known to be the case with the written characters 
of Western Asia, especially with the Persian, 
which scarcely any European ever writes with 
elegance or propriety, or, indeed, attempts to 
write at all. So great is the difficulty with this 
last character, that the faculty of writing it with 
elegance is so overrated by the natives themselves, 
that they are too apt to confound good penman¬ 
ship with fine writing. It must be observed, at 
the same time, with respect to the Burman alpha¬ 
bet, that it is less suited to its purpose than most 
others derived from the same source; for many of 
the characters, although written, are often mute, 
while combinations of others are arbitrary sounds 
not contained in their elements. This occasions 
a difficulty in reading, or rather in learning to read, 
for it must at the same time be admitted that the 
