DIALECTS. 
223 
" A vei-y considerable portion of the coast natives have, 
from frequent intercourse with the Macassar trepang 
fishers, acquired considerable proficiency in their lan- 
guage, which is a dialect of the Polynesian, They never, 
indeed, speak it correctly j from their inability to pronounce 
the letter 5, which occurs rather frequently in the Macasaai' 
language. Thus herasa becomes ' hercja,' trusaan ' tnm- 
tan/ galat 'jala,' &c. Tht-y, however, contrive to make 
themselves well understood, not only by the Macassars, 
by the people of tribes with whose peculiar dialect tbey 
may not be familiar. On our first arrival, the natives^ 
from ha\Tng been long accustomed to address strangers 
in this language, used it when conversing with us, and 
the conaequenoc was, that some vocabularies were col- 
lected which consisted almost entirely of this patois, 
under the supposition that it was the language of the 
aborigines. 
" As the great inland tribe to which I have akeady 
alluded may be considered as one of the moat interesting 
communities on these northern coasts, I propose entering 
into some details with regard to the origin and progress 
of our intercourse with them, We had scarcely been 
established at Port Essiogton more than a few weeks, 
when it became evident that by far the greater portion of 
the axes, iron, clothes, &c., that the natives obtained 
from our people, were carried into the interior for the use 
of the inland tribes. We learned, also, that an indi- 
vidual belonging to one of these tribes was residing 
among the natives in our neighbourhood. He was a tall, 
handsome young man, and, from the circumstance of our 
