4<6 AVOYAGETO 



»7T7- were fo diiferent from ours, that it was difficult to fix them 



July. 



to the objeft of inquiry. Or, if this could be obtained, to 

 learn an unknown tongue, from an inftru(5lor who did not 

 know a fingle word of any language that his fcholar was 

 converfant with, could not promife to produce much. But 

 even, when thefe difficulties were furmounted, there ftill re- 

 mained a fruitful fource of miftake. I mean, inaccuracy in 

 catching, exadly, the true found of a word, to which our 

 ears had never been accuftomed, from perfons whofe mode 

 of pronunciation was, in general, fo indiftinft, that it feldom 

 happened that any two of us, in writing down the fame 

 word, from the fame mouth, made ufe of the fame vowels, 

 in reprefenting it. Nay, we even, very commonly, differed 

 about confonants, the founds of which are leafl liable to am- 

 biguity. Befides all this, we found, by experience, that we 

 had been led into ftrange corruptions of fome of the moll 

 common words, either from the natives endeavouring to 

 imitate us, or from our having mifunderllood them. Thus, 

 cheeto was univerfally ufed by us, to exprefs a thief, though 

 totally different from the real word, in the language of 

 Tongataboo. The miftake arofe from a prior one, into 

 which v/e had run, when at New Zealand. For though the 

 word that fignifies thief there, be abfolutely the fame that 

 belongs to the dialecft of the Friendly Iflands (being kaechaa 

 at both places), yet, by fome blunder, we had ufed the word 

 teete, firil at New Zealand, and, afterward, at Tongataboo, 

 on our arrival there. The natives, endeavouring to imitate 

 us, as nearly as they could, and fo fabricating the word 

 cheeto, this, by a complication of miftakes, was adopted by 

 us as their own. All pollible care has been taken to make 

 the following table as correal as pofiible : 



Englifli. 



