6.  In different places it has been more or less mixed and corrupted, but between the most dissimilar branches an evident sameness of many radical words is apparent, and in some, very distant from each other in point of situation, as for instance the Philippines and Madagascar, the deviation of the words is scarcely more than is observed in the dialects of neighbouring provinces of the same kingdom.  To render this comparison of languages more extensive, and if possible to bring all those spoken throughout the world into one point of view, is an object of which I have never lost sight, but my hopes of completing such a work are by no means sanguine.

PECULIAR WRITTEN CHARACTERS.

The principal of these Sumatran languages are the Botta, the Rejang, and the Lampong, whose difference is marked not so much by the want of correspondence in the terms as by the circumstance of their being expressed in distinct and peculiar written characters.  But whether this apparent difference be radical and essential, or only produced by accident and the lapse of time, may be thought to admit of doubt; and, in order that the reader may be enabled to form his own judgment, a plate containing the Alphabetical characters of each, with the mode of applying the orthographical marks to those of the Rejang language in particular, is annexed.  It would indeed be extraordinary, and perhaps singular in the history of human improvement, that divisions of people in the same island, with equal claims to originality, in stages of civilization nearly equal, and speaking languages derived from the same source, should employ characters different from each other, as well as from the rest of the world.  It will be found however that the alphabet used in the neighbouring island of Java (given by Corneille Le Brun), that used by the Tagala people of the Philippines (given by Thevenot), and by the Bugis people of Celebes (given by Captain Forrest), vary at least as much from these and from each other as the Rejang from the Batta.  The Sanskrit scholar will at the same time perceive in several of them an analogy to the rhythmical arrangement, terminating with a nasal, which distinguishes the alphabet of that ancient language whose influence is known to have been extensive in this quarter.  In the country of Achin, where the language differs considerably from the Malayan, the Arabic character has nevertheless been adopted, and on this account it has less claim to originality.

ON BARK OF TREES AND BAMBOO.

Their manuscripts of any bulk and importance are written with ink of their own making on the inner bark of a tree cut into slips of several feet in length and folded together in squares; each square or fold answering to a page or leaf.  For more common occasions they write on the outer coat of a joint of bamboo, sometimes whole but generally split into pieces of two or three inches in breadth, with the point of the weapon worn at their side, which serves the purpose of a stylus; and these writings, or scratchings rather, are often performed with a considerable degree of neatness.  Thus the Chinese also are said by their historians to have written on pieces of bamboo before they invented paper.  Of both kinds of manuscript I have many specimens in my possession.  The lines are formed from the left hand towards the right, contrary to the practice of the Malays and the Arabians.