248 Different Dialects, But Probable Common Language. 
noticed the disappearance of his hearers at all. and yet seven of them had 
made their exit through the window. 
737. After church we visited the pleasant and extensive fields 
surrounding the village. Each house had its own piece of arable land 
which the family worked for their exclusive benefit. A large area was 
cultivated by them collectively as common property, the profits of which 
went to defray the expenses of the Mission. The soil must be unusually 
fertile: I had never yet seen cassava in so flourishing a condition. The 
ground consisted of a rich layer of clay in which granite rocks made their 
appearance everywhere. 
738. On returning from our stroll a dog belonging to the chieftain 
Irai-i that had been bitten in the forest by a labaria (Trigonocephalus 
at vox) under the right eye occupied our whole attention. The poor 
creature must have suffered terribly judging from the piteous way it 
whined : shortly after, it could hardly be recognised, the pointed head of 
the greyhound having swollen into the downright massive one of a lion. 
Proximity to the fire seemed to alleviate its sufferings, the tormented 
creature regularly raking up the ashes with its snout. 
739. Next morning we took a corial to visit the Great Waraputa 
Fall which is of considerable interest not only on account of its grandeur 
but also lor the large number of hieroglyphics and sculptures hewn in its 
rocks, since one can recognise in them traces of a by-gone age which un- 
mistakeably indicate a higher degree of culture of the aborigines in 
previous times, a view that is held by the most competent authorities 
It is shewn historically that the Spaniards on their discovery of America 
found this new continent occupied by a race of men who both as regards 
physical features as well as intellectual faculties differed from all other 
nations of the world as it was then known, while on the other hand it 
shewed within itself such a general racial correspondence in bodily- 
frame, manners and customs, that it must have been consequently all 
the more surprising to see the great family split up again into innumer- 
able tribes with languages differing completely from one another. How 
then, one might at all events ask, amidst this general racial similarity, 
did the change of language, the medium of mutual understanding, come 
about? According to the erudite researches of a certain Wilhelm von 
Humboldt Sr. and others, at least 500 different languages are distinguish- 
able in America. Humboldt ascribes this alteration of language partly 
to the very variable surface-conformation of the country, partly to the 
dividing barriers of vegetation. Of course, so long as all the many 
peculiarities of expression are limited to verbal transmission, and are 
accordingly subject to corruption, nothing definite can be decided about 
their structure and as to how closely or distantly they may be related: 
nevertheless there is fairly good reason for believing that in spite of the 
verbal transmission there exists in all these languages a certain gram- 
matical analogy and resemblance of structure which gives all the more 
probability to the assumption, that notwithstanding all the extraordinary 
differences of dialect, they have all had a common origin. Whether now 
the occupants of America are really autochthonous and of the same age 
as the surface-conformation of their portion of the earth, or whether 
