^6 Voyage of the Nov am. 



period have been baptized in the islands of Cliowra and 

 Bampoka. 



During tliis visit to Enuang and Malacca, it had been one 

 of the objects aimed at by the members of the Expedition to 

 di'aw up a small vocabulary of the language of the natives, 

 when it speedily aj^peared that, despite the proximity of the 

 two islands, the dialects used by the inhabitants were en- 

 tirely different. Even for trees and plants, for the feathered 

 inhabitants of the forests, as well as domestic animals, the in- 

 habitants of the central groups of islands have different names. 

 The cocoa-palm and its noble fruit, the betel and its ingredients, 

 are here known by entirely different names. The accurate 

 transcription of each individual word into German as pro- 

 nounced by the native was hard work. It took us two days 

 to make a vocabulary of one hundred words ! And even this 

 slight success would have been impossible but for our service- 

 able Chinese friend, Bing-Hong, who had gone to school for 

 two years at Pulo-Penang, and could read and write English 

 with tolerable readiness and accuracy. The distortion of their 

 mouths is one main reason why the natives pronounce the 

 greater number of their words almost unintelligibly ; it is 

 more a lisping mutter than a language. Hence, apparently, 

 their ability to follow out the concatenation of ideas is so 

 slightly developed, that it is only with much difficulty they 

 can be made to comprehend the particular subject respecting 

 which the information was wanted. For example, if it was 

 wished to know the word in their language which expressed 



