206 Pickering on the Language and Inhabitants 
according to a modern French voyager of authority, it is in lati- 
tude 3° 3’ N. and longitude 128° 44 E.* 
The vocabulary accompanying this communication derives its 
principal value from the circumstance of its being the only one, 
which has been yet collected, of the language of these secluded 
islanders. As, however, a long time will probably elapse before 
we shall have the means of obtaining any additional information 
of this dialect, or of the wretchedly destitute and inconsiderable 
tribe of people who inhabit this little island, it will be of some 
utility, with a view to philological and ethnographical researches, 
to preserve this as one of the specimens of human speech, —as 
one fact in the history of the human race. 
Before proceeding, however, to any details respecting the lan- 
guage and people in question, I beg leave to ask the attention of 
the Academy to a few general remarks on that division of the globe 
to which, geographically speaking, this little island may be said to 
belong, and which is part of that general region commonly known 
by the name of Polynesia, or Oceania. 
This portion of the globe, in a general view, may be described 
as comprehending the belt of intertropical islands which extends 
from the western coast of America across the whole Pacific Ocean 
to the eastern shores of Asia, including, also, New Holland, New 
Zealand, and ‘a few less considerable islands, some of which, how- 
ever, lie several degrees without the southern tropic, though in- 
cluded in the description of ‘Oceania. 
That whole region has not hitherto attracted so much attention 
* M. de Rienzi, the well known navigator. See his valuable and copious 
description of ‘‘Oceanie,” published in the collection entitled ‘‘L’Univers 
Pittoresque, ou Histoire et Description de tous les Peuples,’’ etc. 3 vols. 
8vo. Paris, 1836. 
