Conterminous with the Woloff, Fulah, Sungai, Howssa, Grebo, and Fantí areas.
Divisions.—1. Mandingo Proper. 2. Mandingos of Bambouk. 3. Bambarrans. 4. Yallonkas. 5. Susu. 6. Bullom. 7. Timmani. 8. Kossa.(?) 9. Pessa. 10. Vei. 11. Mendi. 12. Kissi. 13. Sokko. 14. Sulimana. 15. Sangara. 16. Kooranko.
Vocabularies.—For the first thirteen of the preceding divisions.
Physical conformation.—Hair, woolly; nose, depressed; lips, thick; stature, high; skin, black, with a tinge of yellow; sclerotica, tinged with yellow.
Religion.—Mahometanism and Paganism.
Alphabets.—1. The Arabic of the Mandingos Proper. 2. The Vei (syllabic).
Fig. 15.
This last deserves special notice. About the middle of January, 1849, Lieutenant Forbes, Commander of H.M.S. Bonetta, inquired of the missionaries of Sierra Leone, whether they had heard of a written language amongst the natives of those parts, since he himself possessed a book in the language of the natives near Cape Mount. The Rev. S. W. Koelle, a missionary of Sierra Leone, undertook a personal investigation of the matter. He found that it was not only composed within the memory of man, but that the composer was alive; a man of the Vei country, named Doala Bukara. Doala Bukara, although an imperfect Mahometan, had seen Arabic books, and, though no Christian, an English Bible. The fact of these being written, haunted him in a dream, wherein he was shown a series of letters adapted to his native tongue—the Vei.