MATLERY.] PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF SIGNS. 347 
An amusing instance in which savages showed their preference to 
signs instead of even an onomatope may be quoted from Wilfred Pow- 
ell’s Observations on New Britain and neighboring Islands during Six 
Years’ Exploration, in Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc., vol. iii, No. 2 (new 
monthly series), February, 1881, p. 89, 90: “On one occasion, wishing 
to purchase a pig, and not knowing very well how to set about it, being 
ignorant of the dialect, which is totally different from that of the natives 
in the north, I asked Mr. Brown how I should manage, or what he 
thought would be the best way of making them understand. He said, 
‘Why don’t you try grunting?’ whereupon [ began to grunt most vocif- 
erously. The effect was magical. Some of them jumped back, holding 
their spears in readiness to throw; others ran away, covering their eyes 
with their hands, and all exhibited the utmost astonishment and alarm. 
In fact, it was so evident that they expected me to turn into a pig, and 
their alarm was so irresistibly comic, that Mr. Brown and I both burst 
out laughing, on which they gradually became more reassured, and 
those that had run away came back, and seeing us so heartily amused, 
and that I had not undergone any metamorphosis, began to laugh too; 
but when I drew a pig on the sand with a piece of stick, and made mo- 
tions of eating, it suddenly seemed to strike them what was the matter, 
for they all burst out laughing, nodding their heads, and several of 
them ran off, evidently in quest of the pig that was required.” 
POWERS OF SIGNS COMPARED WITH SPEECH. 
Sign language, being the mother utterance of nature, poetically styled 
by Lamartine the visible attitudes of the soul, is superior to all others 
in that it permits every one to find in nature an image to express his 
thoughts on the most needfi1l matters intelligently to any other person. 
The direct or substantial natural analogy peculiar to it prevents a con- 
fusion of ideas. It is to some extent possible to use words without un- 
derstanding them which yet may be understood by those addressed, 
but it is hardly possible to use signs without full comprehension of them. 
Separate words may also be comprehended by persons hearing them 
without the whole connected sense of the words taken together being 
caught, but signs are more intimately connected. Even those most 
appropriate will not be understood if the subject is beyond the compre- 
hension of their beholders. They would be as unintelligible as the wild 
clicks of his instrument, in an electric storm, would be to the telegrapher, 
or as the semaphore, driven by wind, to the signalist. In oral speech 
even onomatopes are arbitrary, the most strictly natural sounds striking 
the ear of different individuals and nationsin a manner wholly diverse. 
The instances given by SAYCE are in point. Exactly the same sound 
was intended to be reproduced in the “bilbit amphora” of Nevius, the 
“glut glué murmurat unda sonans” of the Latin Anthology, and the “puls” 
of Varro. The Persian “bulbul,” the “jugjug” of Gascoigne, and the 
“whitwhit” of others are all attempts at imitating the note of the night- 
