108 EASTER ISLAND. 



This vocabulary is a very extraordinary performance ; it consists of one hun- 

 dred full- written folio pages; the words alphabetically arranged, and all the 

 syllables accented. It appears from a passage in the "Voyage of the Duff" 

 that a copy of this vocabulary was of great use to the missionaries who were 

 first sent to Otaheite in this ship. 



Such a vocabulary, so composed, can not fail of interest. It is not 

 known that it has been preserved ; therefore we shall find an interest in 

 the passage from the "Voyage of the Duff" which Barrow notes. It is 

 found on page 1 3 of the volume : 



An ingenious clergyman of Portsmouth kindly furnished Dr. Haweis and 

 Mr. Greatheed [he sounds like an extract from the Pilgrim's Progress] with a 

 manuscript vocabulary of the Otaheitean language, and an account of the 

 country, which providentially he had preserved from the mutineers who were 

 seized by the Pandora and brought to Portsmouth for their trial, which was of 

 unspeakable service to the missionaries, both for the help which it afforded 

 them to learn before their arrival much of this unknown tongue, and also as 

 giving the most inviting and encouraging description of the natives, and the 

 cordial reception which they might expect. 



This was the reception when the Duff reached her distant haven: 

 "There were soon not less than one hundred of them dancing and 

 capering like frantic persons about our decks crying 'Tayo! Tayo!" 

 Courtesy, even extended by savages, demands its response in kind; 

 the Englishmen organized a prayer meeting an hour and a quarter 

 long and sang the hymn "O'er the gloomy hills of darkness." 



Tahiti within its own seas remained a place ; in the dimmed recollec- 

 tion of the more distant wanderers it took on cloud structure and became 

 a tradition ; in Hawaii it served to designate any remote wonderland 

 which might be considered to lie far beyond the quest of any canoe. In 

 memory of the real Tahiti the map of Kahoolawe still shows upon its 

 ultimate point the name Ke Ala i Kahiki, the road to Tahiti. Of the 

 fabulous Tahiti we have an interesting record in the great Hawaiian 

 chant, the Mele of Kualii, which was ancient literature when Cook dis- 

 covered the islands. The problem of placing this Tahiti upon the map, 

 the Tahiti of the incomprehensible white man, has defied all attempts 

 at solution. The text and translation we owe to Judge Fornander.* 



O Kahiki, moku kai a loa, 

 Aina o Olopana i noho ai ! 

 Iloko ka moku, iwaho ka la; 

 O ke aloalo o ka la, ka moku, ke hiki mai. 

 Ane ua ike oe? 

 Ua ike. 

 Ua ike hoi au ia Kahiki. 

 He moku leo pahaohao wale Kahiki. 

 No Kahiki kanaka i pii a luna 

 A ka iwi kuamoo o ka lani; 

 A luna, keehi iho. 

 Nana iho ia lalo. 



*>< 



The Polynesian Race," vol. ii, page 285. 



