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peared less agreeable to my ear, than the Ca- 

 ribbee, the Salive, and other languages of the 

 Oroonoko. It has in particular fewer sonorous 

 terminations in accented vowels. We are struck 

 with the frequent repetition of the syllables 

 guaz, ez, puec, and pur, We shall soon see, 

 that these terminations are derived in part 

 from the inflexion of the verb to be ; and from 

 certain prepositions, which are added at the 

 end of words, and which, according to the 

 genius of the American idioms, are incorporat- 

 ed with them. It would be wrong to attribute 

 this rudeness of sounds to the abode of the Chay- 

 mas in the mountains. They are strangers to 

 that temperate climate. They have been led thi- 

 ther by the missionaries ; and it is well known, 

 that, like all the inhabitants of the warm regions, 

 they dreaded what they called the cold of Ca- 

 ripe. I employed myself, during our abode at 

 the hospital of the Capuchins, in forming a 

 small catalogue of Chayma words. I am aware, 

 that languages are much more strongly charac- 

 terized by their structure and grammatical 

 forms, than by the analogy of their sounds and 

 of their roots ; and that this analogy of sounds 

 is sometimes so disfigured in the different dia- 

 lects of the same tongue, as not to be distin- 

 guishable; for the tribes into which a nation 

 is divided, often designate the same objects by 

 words altogether heterogeneous. Hence it fol- 



