Chap. III. INDIAN LANGUAGES. 199 



appearance, widely different language, learn Tupi on 

 their arrival at Ega, where it is the common idiom. 

 This perhaps may be attributed chiefly to the gram- 

 matical forms of all the Indian tongues being the same, 

 although the words are different. As far as I could 

 learn, the feature is common to all, of placing the 

 preposition after the noun, making it, in fact, a post- 

 position, thus : " he is come the village from ; " " go 

 him with, the plantation to," and so forth. The ideas to 

 be expressed in their limited sphere of life and thought 

 are few ; consequently the stock of words is extremely 

 small ; besides, all Indians have the same way of think- 

 ing, and the same objects to talk about ; these circum- 

 stances also contribute to the ease with which they 

 learn each other's language. Hordes of the same tribe 

 living on the same branch rivers, speak mutually unin- 

 telligible languages ; this happens with the Miranhas 

 on the Japura, and with the Collinas on the Jurua ; 

 whilst Tupi is spoken with little corruption along the 

 banks of the main Amazons for a distance of 2500 

 miles. The purity of Tupi is kept up by frequent 

 communication amongst the natives, from one end to 

 the other of the main river ; how complete and long- 

 continued must be the isolation in which the small 

 groups of savages have lived in other parts, to have 

 caused so complete a segregation of dialects ! It is 

 probable that the strange inflexibility of the Indian 

 organisation, both bodily and mental, is owing to the 

 isolation in which each small tribe has lived, and to 

 the narrow round of life and thought, and close inter- 

 marriages for countless generations, which are the neces- 



