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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
make draughts of letters with a bodkin upon smooth plain boards of wood , covered with fine white land . ' Harris ' s Col ? of Voyages , ( 1705 ) U 265 .
I have an anonymous-volume , ( Svo . ) published the same year , ( J 705 ) entitled cc The Agreement of the Customs of tfce East Indians , with those of the Jews and other antient people / ' The author , who " left the kingdom of Bengala in 1702 , ' * has an *< article ' ( xxii .
p . 116 ) Of the manner in which the Indians write , end what they mte use of instead of ' paper . He says , u The Indians write upon the leaf of a tree , which is called La .
tomer , and is a kwd of a palm tee *) but whose leaves are not so long as those of an ordinary palm tree . They are strong and thick , ind they write upon them with a pencil . When their letters are
drawn , ; some rub over all the leaf with black , and so fill up the characters that are written ; but the greater part do only draw the letters with an iron pencil . These leaves require no great labour to
. prepare them , it being sufficient to * dty them * and then lay them by Reside of one another , for they rcshaped like a fan . When they are dried sufficiently , they have foe colour of straw , but by length ° ftime they grow very bright . "
There was published in 1718 a Election of-paperson " the Prop-Ration of the Gospel , in the - ^ st / ' occasioned by the Danish jnwsitm to Malabar . One of these Quoted in your present volume * P * 287 )» There is among th . em , f An Account of the Religion J ?** Go vemntettt , Learning and pconomy of * -the . Malabariaiife " * answer to one of the > queries
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sent from Europe , the missionary ^ B . Ziegenbalg in his letter , *• dated at Tranquebar , on the coast of Coromandel , 170 SV ' gives the foU lowing account . — 6 C The Malabarians d © not know
how to handle pen and ink , but they take the palm leaf in the left , and an iron stile or pencil in the right hand , and write with it as fast as we do with pen and paper . Yet it requireth a great deal of patience and exercise , to write with
so heavy a pencil every day , and from morning to night , and to hold the palm leaf in the left hand , without laying or resting the same on any thing at all . u On their left thumb thev have
a pretty long nail with a nook cut in it . To this they fasten the sharp end of the pencil , whilst the upper end is held by the fingers of the right hand * The olie or palm leaf , they hold with the
four fingers of the left hand , and putting the thumb , which supports the pencil , on the top of the leaf , they move it forwards till a line is finished , after which' they take back the leaf and begin ano * tber . I can write indeed in the
same manner as the Malabarians do ; but since I have no great occasion for it , ( whilst I can dictate every thing to a Malabarick writer ) 1 have made no extraordinary proficiency in this piece of curiosity . However , I do not question , but I should be as nimble a writer as
a MalabariaVy if I did but hatidle my leaf and pencil for a whole wtek together ^ in order to use ' itty fingers to this exercise . ** The letters on the palm leaves look black ; , aiwl the leaves them * selves yf ! $ bwish . The cause of wfeicli 15 , a sort of oil mixed witk saJFfonmtinder , and other ingre-
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Eastern Origin of Lancaster ' s Improvements in Education . bQl
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1811, page 591, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2421/page/15/
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