Chap. III. 
IIJ^-DIAN LANGUAGES. 
199 
appearance, widely different language, learn Tupi on 
their arrival at Ega, where it is the common idiom. 
This perhaps may be attributed chiefly to the gram- 
matical forms of all the Indian tongues being the same, 
although the words are different. As far as I could 
learn, the feature is common to all, of placing the 
preposition after the noun, making it, in fact, a post- 
position, thus : he is come the village from ; " go 
him with, the plantation to,'' and so forth. The ideas to 
be expressed in their limited sphere of life and thought 
are few ; consequently the stock of words is extremely 
small ; besides, all Indians have the same way of think- 
ing, and the same objects to talk about ; these circum- 
stances also contribute to the ease with which they 
learn each other's language. Hordes of the same tribe 
living on the same branch rivers, speak mutually unin- 
telligible languages ; this happens with the Miranhas 
on the J apura, and with the CoUinas on the J urua ; 
wdiilst Tupi is spoken with little corruption along the 
banks of the main Amazons for a distance of 2500 
miles. The purity of Tupi is kept up bj^ frequent 
communication amongst the natives, from one end to 
the other of the main river ; how complete and long- 
continued must be the isolation in which the small 
groups of savages have lived in other parts, to have 
caused so complete a segregation of dialects ! It is 
probable that the strange inflexibility of the Indian 
organisation, both bodily and mental, is owing to the 
isolation in which each small tribe has lived, and to 
the narrow round of life and thought, and close inter- 
marriages for countless generations, which are the neces- 
