Tregeak.— T/te Track of a Word. 485 



Ocean. I will not pursue the word further to the westward, or 

 open up the great question as to its appearance in the European 

 languages. 



We have thus followed mata, the " eye," or " face," in its 

 various changes, through almost every possible corruption to 

 which a word is liable, (always excepting the peculiar Semitic 

 formation about radix,) and have seen that this word can have 

 entered into, or departed from, the Asiatic mainland by three 

 gateways — viz., 1st, by China and Japan ; 2nd, by the Malay 

 Peninsula ; 3rd, by the Arabian route, past Madagascar. Some 

 of the languages I have referred to are mere barbarous dialects, 

 of which I have been able to gather about fifty words of each for 

 purposes of comparison ; but these share with others, (Burmese 

 dialects, for example, of which I have been able to compare 500 

 principal words with Polynesian,) in that they have no other 

 apparent resemblance except in this most persistent word. 



I must not omit to notice one other point before concluding 

 — viz., that the zigzag course we have followed by no means 

 defines the vast area covered even by the modern use of this 

 word. Leaving out the Australians, the Papuans, and most 

 Melanesians to the south ; to the north excluding the Tungus 

 languages, the Mongols, Samoyeds, the Turkish forms of North- 

 west Asia, Finns, Laps, etc. ; and also the Dravidian tribes of 

 Southern India : then, (with these exceptions,) from Central 

 Asia to the south of New Zealand ; from near the shore of 

 Africa to islands near the coast of America, this word has 

 vitality. We trace it ill* spite of every disguise it assumes, aided 

 by one slight change after another, but with the track still 

 remaining visible. To use an oft-quoted word-example, no one 

 in his senses would compare the French jour (a day), with the 

 Latin dies (a day), unless he could track (either historically or 

 geographically) its changes through dies, diurno, giorno, jour. 

 So no one would compare the Thibetan mi with the Polynesian 

 viata, if it was not that we could trace it step by step at the 

 present hour through 7)iat, mah, viih, mi. But, (an important 

 " but,") every now and then we have been refi-eshed on our 

 search by the pure word starting up anew, (as in Northern 

 India, mutta,) and at the very extremity of our journey by the 

 reversion to the pure mata of Persia and Arabia. 



The questions to be considered as resulting from this inquiry 

 are these : — 



1. Did the Polynesians bring this word from the mainland, 

 either by China, Malacca, or the Arabian Gulf ? Or, 



2. Did they give the word to the mainland through either of 

 these paths ? Or, 



3. Is this word a living sole-survivor (an " apteryx of lan- 

 guage"), lingering in districts all over the south of the great 

 Asiatic continent ? 



