LANGUAGE OF THE LOUISIADE. 288 



peopled ? Taking- the numerals as affording* in the 

 present instance the most convenient materials for 

 hasty comparison^ I find words in common — not 

 onty with those of other divisions of the Pelagian 

 Negroes/ as the inhabitants of the north coast of 

 New Guinea on the one hand^ and New Ireland on 

 the other^ but also with the Malay and the various 

 Polynesian languages or dialects spoken from New 

 Zealand to Tahiti-t This latter affinity between 

 the woolly and straight-haired sections of oceanic 

 blacks appears to me to render it more curious 

 and unexpected that the language of the Louisiade 

 should completely differ from that of the northern 

 part of Torres Strait^ J the inhabitants of both being 

 connected by strong general similarity and occa- 

 sionally identity in manners and customs^ and 

 having many physical characteristics common to 

 both. Yet while the natives of the Louisiade use 

 the decimal system of the Mala3^s and Polynesians^ 

 the Torres Strait islanders have simple words to 

 express the numerals one and two only^ while three 

 is represented by a compound.§ 



* Natural History of Man, by J. C. Pritchard, M.D. 2n(i ed. 

 p. 326. 



f D'Urville's Voyage de I'Astrolabe. Philologie. Tom. ii. 



X Jukes' Voyage of the Fly, vol. ii. p. 2/4. 



§ These remarks I give as written in my journal, with the sole 

 exception of the term Pelagian Negroes. The reader is referred 

 to Dr. Latham's observations on my Vocabularies in the Appendix 

 to this work. 



