AND ANECDOTES. S51 in many respects considerably from the other modes of writing/* But this is incorrect; for the Mauritannick alphabet, excepting in the order of the letters, is precisely the same with the Oriental, as now written and spoken, with the exception only of the letters Fa and Kqf, and the formation even of these characters are alike. The punctuation only, differs in the West, that is, west of the Egyptian Nile. The Western punctuation of Fa, is one point below the letter, and the punctuation of the letter Kaf is one point above. In the East, the former letter has one point above, the latter has two. This is the only difference between the Eastern and the Western alphabets.

Richardson, (see his Grammar, page 5,) also says, that " the purest Arabic is spoken at Grand Cairo," but this is not correct: the language of Grand Cairo and of Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, and Marocco are much alike, but none of them are the pure Koraisch or Korannick Arabic, which is only spoken at Mekka, and among some of the tribes of Bedouins in the West. The language of the Woled Abbusebah, of the Howara, and of the Mograffira is the pure Arabic.

Finally, in a note in Richardson's Grammar, page 18, it is said, " Some of our European writers, and amongst others Voltaire, substitute Koran for Alcoran, but perhaps improperly, as D'Herbelot and other learned Orientalists, write uniformly VAlcoran, il Alcorano, the Alcoran.'* We have been too apt to copy the orthography of Oriental names from the Frendi, whose pronunciation of the Roman or European characters