Nevertheless, the real alphabet was a joint production—i.e. of Doala and others; since, in the morning, he could not remember the signs shown him by night. Therefore, he and his friends put their heads together, and coined new ones. The king of the country made its introduction a matter of state, and built a large house in Dshondu, as a day-school. But a war with the Guru people disturbed both the learners and teachers, so that the latter removed to Bandakoro, where all grown-up people, of both sexes, can now read and write.
The Vei alphabet is a syllabarium; of which the preceding was a specimen.[170]
South of the Gambia, the Mandingo area, although extended so far in the interior, does not quite reach the coast, so that the lower portions of the rivers Caçamanca, Cacheo, Nunez, &c., are occupied by tribes not as yet distinctly recognised to be Mandingo. Neither are they as yet considered as allied either to the Woloff, or to each other. Speaking languages, mutually unintelligible, they are typical Negroes of the rudest and savagest kind; all being pagans. At Sierra Leone, the Mandingo reappears on the coast, i.e. amongst the Bullom and Timmani tribes.
SAPI-FELÚPS.
Of these the most northern are—
THE FELÚP.
Locality.—The forests and low-lands at the mouth of the Caçamanca.
Language.—With miscellaneous, but without special affinities.