NOTE TO THE READER. 
In the orthography of most African words and proper 
names in this book, especially in those which are 
written for the first time, I have followed what seems 
to me- the* simplest and most satisfactory phonetic 
system—that of Dr. Lepsius 5 standard alphabet. 
As this may be new to some of my readers, I may 
mention here that the vowels are generally pronounced 
as in Italian, viz.:— 
a = ah; e = eh; i — ee; o = oh ; 6 — aw; u — oo. 
In diphthongs, the sound of each vowel may be 
distinctly heard, as ai ~ ah-ee; on = oh-oo. 
Those consonants which differ in look from the 
Roman character, are— 
V 
C, pron. ch; j, pron. as an English, j ; n, pron. ng'; s, pron. sh; 
and others, which are of less frequent occurrence, are explained fully 
in Chapter XX. 
As frequently recurring examples of this orthography, 
I may instance,— 
V 
“ Caga ”—pronounced “ Chaga ; ” 
“ Mosi ” ,, “ Moshy; ” and 
“Jipe” „ “Jeepay.” 
I have only diverged from this system where the 
