Mr. Pickering on Rasles’ Dictionary. 567 
‘They have several letters which are sounded wholly from the throat without 
any motion of the lips; ow, for example, is one of the number, and in writing, we 
denote this by the figure 8, in order to distinguish it from other characters. I used 
to spend a part of a day in their huts to hear them talk. It was necessary to give 
the closest attention, in order to connect what they said and to conjecture their 
meaning. Sometimes I succeeded, but more frequently I made mistakes; be- 
cause, not having been trained to the use of their gutturals, I only repeated parts 
of words, and thus furnished them with occasions of laughing at me. At length, 
after five months’ constant application, I accomplished so much as to understand 
all their terms; but that was not enough to enable me to express myself so as to 
satisfy their taste. 
“Tstill had along progress to make, in order to master the turn and genius of their 
language, which are altogether different from the turn and genius of our European 
languages. In order to save time, and to qualify myself to exercise my office, 
I selected some of the savages, who had the most intelligence and the best style 
of speaking. I then expressed to them in my rude terms some of the articles in 
the catechism; and they rendered them for me with all the delicacy of expression 
of their idiom; these I committed to writing immediately, and thus in a short time 
I made a Dictionary, and also a Catechism containing the principles and mysteries 
of religion.” * 
The Dictionary here mentioned was, without doubt, the identical manuscript 
which is now, for the first time, printed in the present volume. The author has 
left no other account of it; nor has he, either in the work itself or in his Letters 
given any other explanation of the characters of his alphabet, than the short remark 
above quoted respecting the sound which he calls a guttural, and which he denotes 
in his Letter by ow, and the figure 8, but in his Dictionary by the character 8; 
borrowed from the Greeks. 
The MS. is a small quarto volume, in Father Rasles’ own handwriting; and on 
the first leaf the author has made the following note, which is placed at the head 
of the present edition: “1691. Tl y aun an que je suis parmi les sauvages, je 
commence & mettre en ordre en forme de dictionaire les mots que j’apprens.” * 
Immediately below this, on the same page is added, in an old handwriting, the fol- 
* Lettres Edif., ubi supr. 
t “ It is now a year that I have been among the savages ;. and I begin to set down in order, in 
the form of a Dictionary, the words I learn.” 
