42 Aborigines of the Eastern Ghats. [No. 1. 



who speak them or by others, it is obvious that such precision can 

 never be reached. On the other hand, it is certain that practical 

 results of great value have been reached by a much less superfine 

 process than that insisted on, and that, if we suppose some thousands 

 of facts, so simple in their nature as the mere vocables of a language 

 are, collected with ordinary care, their failing to subserve effectually 

 some of the highest ends of ethnological science, more particularly 

 if taken in connexion with other available evidence, must result 

 rather from the incompetency of him to whom they are submitted, 

 than from their own intrinsic deficiency. Vocabularies illustrate 

 one another and furnish to the skilful no small means of correction 

 of palpable errors, if sufficiently numerous. They also furnish 

 means of sound induction from analogy, as I hope to prove by and 

 bye beyond the possibility of cavil. 



In a word, vocabularies seem to me very much like the little 

 instrument which Hamlet puts into the hands of Polonius ; a mere 

 bit of perforated wood, which yet in competent hands can be made 

 to discourse sweet music. Nor can I avoid some emotions of surprise 

 and pain (for to disparage vocabularies is to discourage their collec- 

 tion) when I see learned men citing with applause the inferences 

 built upon a few doubtful words picked out of a classic writer, or 

 perchance out of some old map, and which yet are supposed to 

 furnish sufficient evidence of the affinity of a lost tribe, renowned in 

 the history of past times, whilst these # same learned and eminent 

 men allow themselves to speak of vocabularies containing some 

 hundred of words, carefully selected and deliberately set down from 

 the mouths of those to whom they are mother-tongues, as if these 

 vocabularies could not furnish any legitimate basis for inference 

 respecting ethnological affinities. But the objection adverted to is 

 sufficiently answered by the valuable purposes which my series of 

 vocabularies, long before completion, and with little or no resort to 

 analysis, has been made actually to subserve ; and therefore, I trust 

 it is no presumption in me to expect to be able to educe yet more 

 ample and important results from their careful analysis* after com- 



* I subjoin a sample or two of my method of dealing with the vocables, to 

 demonstrate, 1st, identity of roots, 2nd, identity of adjuncts, 3rd, identity of con- 

 structive principles. 



