1 64 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDS CH. vn 



fathom and ten fathoms are the only terms I have heard 

 among them. By these they convey the size of anything, 

 as a house, a boat, depth of the sea, etc., but when they 

 speak of distances from one place to another they have no 

 way of making themselves understood but by the number of 

 days it takes them in their canoes to go the distance. 



Their language appeared to me to be very soft and tuneful; 

 it abounds in vowels, and was easily pronounced by us, while 

 ours was to them absolutely impracticable. I instance par- 

 ticularly my own name, which I took much pains to teach 

 them and they to learn ; after three days' fruitless trial I 

 was forced to select from their many attempts To/pane, the 

 only one I had been able to get from them that had the 

 least similitude to it. Spanish or Italian words they pro- 

 nounced with ease, provided they ended with a vowel, for 

 few or none of theirs end with a consonant. 



I cannot say that I am sufficiently acquainted with it to 

 pronounce whether it is copious or not; in one respect, 

 however, it is beyond measure inferior to all European 

 languages, and that is in its almost total want of inflection 

 both of nouns and verbs, few or none of the former having 

 more than one case or the latter one tense. Notwithstand- 

 ing this want, however, we found it very easy to make 

 ourselves understood in matters of common necessaries, how- 

 ever paradoxical it may appear to an European. 



They have certain suffixes and make very frequent use 

 of them. This puzzled us at first very much, though they 

 are but few in number. An instance or two may be 

 necessary to make myself understood, as they do not exist 

 in any modern European language. One asks another 

 " Harre nea ? " " Where are you going ? " The other answers 

 " Ivahinera," " To my wives," on which the first questioning 

 him still further "Ivahinera ? " " To your wives?" is answered 

 " Ivahinereiaa," " Yes, I am going to my wives." Here the 

 suffixes era and eiaa save several words to both parties. 



From the vocabularies given in Le Maire's voyage (see 

 Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes, torn. i. p. 4 1 1 ) 

 1 By C. de Brosse, 1756. 



