to read and write in India. The Romans used white walls for writing
inscriptions on, in red chalk--answering the purpose of our
posting-bills--of which several instances were found on the walls of
Pompeii. Plutarch informs us that tradesmen wrote in some such manner
over their doors, and that auction bills ran thus:

"Julius Proculus will this day have an auction of his superfluous goods,
to pay his debts."

Next seems to have followed writing or engraving on stone, wood, ivory,
and metals, of which we have many early evidences. The Decalogue, or the
Ten Commandments, given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, was originally,
we are told in the Bible, written upon two tables of stone; the pillars
of Seth were of brick and stone; the laws of the Greeks were graven on
tables of brass, which were called _cyrbes_. Herodotus mentions a letter
written with a style on stone slabs, which Themistocles, the Athenian
general, sent to the Romans about B.C. 500; and we have another evidence
of the same period still existing--the so-called Borgian inscription,
which is a passport graven in bronze, entitling the holder to hospitable
reception wherever he demanded it. Upward of three thousand of such
engraved tablets, including the famous Roman laws of the Twelve Tables,
were consumed in the great fire which destroyed the Capitol in the time
of Vespasian.

I could cite a great many other evidences of early writing on stone or
brass, but will merely recommend you to see the Rosetta[25] inscription,
which is conspicuously placed in the British Museum. It is this very
interesting stone which, being partly Greek and partly Egyptian, has
enabled us to decipher so many Egyptian monuments.