474 Transactions — Miscellaneous. 



Howracjgy, Howracki, Shourackie, E'Orackee. No less a 

 person than Dr. Forster, one of Cook's companions, wrote 

 pooadughiedugghie for putangitangi, the paradise duck, and 

 diggowaghwagh for piwakawaka, the pretty fantail. And 

 when words were converted into sentences the puzzle was 

 complete. How great, then, was the advance when a fixed 

 value was given to the consonants and the vowels were pro- 

 nounced in the open or Italian way. Quite an interesting 

 digression could be made on this portion of the subject if time 

 permitted. The credit of this method belongs principally to 

 the London and to the Church Missionary Societies ; and 

 the language, or rather dialect, which was thus first reduced 

 to order was that of Tahiti, or, as Captain Cook called it, 

 " Otaheite." The Tongan was the second, and very skilfully 

 this was accomplished by Dr. John Martin in 1818. To this 

 gentleman's zeal and ability we are indebted not only for a 

 most valuable contribution to philology, but also for securing 

 to us what must otherwise have been lost — " Mariner's Ac- 

 count of his Residence in Tonga as a Castaway Sailor from 

 1805 to 1810." This interesting and important book owes 

 everything to Dr. Martin's editing. The New Zealand was 

 the third in order to undergo this process of reduction to 

 grammatical rule. "Fixing" was the term used by the 

 Church Missionary Society. Yearlv it became more im- 

 portant that this should be effected ; for want of it the pro- 

 gress of the mission was seriously impeded, and so in 1820 

 Mr. Kendall visited England, accompanied by the great Nga- 

 puhi chiefs Hongi and Waikato. It was the former who, 

 upon his return to New Zealand, converted the valuable 

 presents he had received into guns and gunpowder, and with 

 these new and unaccustomed weapons marched through the 

 North Island waging a cruel and relentless warfare upon his 

 helpless countrymen, who were armed only in native fashion. 



Considering the vast distance Mr. Kendall and his com- 

 panions had come, their sojourn in England was very short, 

 being of but four months' duration. Doubtless Hongi was 

 restless to carry out the sanguinary schemes he had so long 

 contemplated and so secretly concealed. Two of these four 

 months were spent at Cambridge, under the auspices of the 

 Church Missionary Society, in conference with the Rev. Pro- 

 fessor Lee, who was known as the society's Orientalist. He 

 was a man of remarkable linguistic attainments, and his his- 

 tory is well worth a moment's digression. A native of 

 Shrewsbury, he followed the humble occupation of carpenter, 

 but managed to devote considerable time to his favourite 

 study of languages. His facility in acquiring them was so 

 great that when but twenty-five years of age he had gained 

 a very competent knowledge not only of Latin, Greek, and 



