194 cook's VOYAGE TO JAN. 



agreement of language is by no means a proof of the 

 contrary.* 



" However, we must have a far more intimate ac- 

 quaintance with the languages spoken here and in 

 the more northern parts of New Holland, before we 

 can be warranted to pronounce that they are totally 

 different. Nay, we have good grounds for the 

 opposite opinion; for we found that the animal called 

 kangooroo at Endeavour River, was known under the 

 same name here; and I need not observe that it is 

 scarcely possible to suppose that this was not trans- 

 mitted from one another, but accidentally adopted 

 by two nations, differing in language and extraction. 

 Besides, as it seems very improbable that the Van 

 Diemen's Land inhabitants should have ever lost the 

 use of canoes or sailing vessels, if they had been 

 originally conveyed thither by sea, we must neces- 

 sarily admit that they, as well as the kangooroo itself 

 have been stragglers by land from the more northern 

 parts of the country. And if there be any force in 

 this observation, while it traces the origin of the 

 people, it will, at the same time, serve to fix another 



* The ingenious Author of Recherches sur les Americains, illuS' 

 trates the grounds of this assertion in the following satisfactory 

 manner: " C'est quelque chose de surprenant, que la foule des 

 idiomes, tous varies entr'eux, que parlent les naturels de l'Am6- 

 rique Septentrionale. Qu'on reduise ces idiomes a des racines, 

 qu'on les simplifie, qu'on en separe les dialectes et les jargons 

 derives, il en resulte toujours cinq ou six langues-meres, respect- 

 ivement incomprehensibles. On a observe la meme singularity 

 dans la Siberie et la Tartarie, ou le nombre des idiomes, et des 

 dialectes, est egalement multiplie; et rien n'est plus commun, que 

 d'y voir deux hordes voisines qui ne se comprennent point. On 

 rtrouve cette meme multiplicity de jargons dans toutes les Pro- 

 vinces de 1'AmeYique Mendionale." [He might also have included 

 Africa.] "11 y a beaucoup d'apparence que la me sauvage, en 

 dispersant les homines par petites troupes isolees dans des bois ejjais, 

 occasione necessairement cette grande diver site des langues dont 

 le nombre diminue a mesure que la socit, en rassemblant les 

 barbares vagabonds, en forme un corps de nation. Alors l'idiome 

 le plus riche, ou le moins pauvre en mots, devient dominant, et 

 absorbe les autres." Tom. i. p. 159, 160. 



18 



