EFFORTS TO ACQUIRE THE LANGUAGE. 17 
to inquiries, and anxious to make themselves 
intelligible. Although among themselves accus¬ 
tomed to hear critically, and to ridicule, with great 
effect, any of their own countrymen who should 
use a wrong word, mispronounce or place the 
accent erroneously on the one they used, yet they 
seldom laughed at the mistakes of the newly 
arrived residents. On the contrary, they endea¬ 
voured to correct them in the most friendly 
manner, and were evidently desirous that the 
foreigners should be able to understand their lan¬ 
guage, and convey their own ideas to them with 
distinctness and perspicuity. 
When the Missionaries heard the natives make 
use of a word or sentence with which they were 
not already acquainted, they wrote it down, and 
repeated distinctly several times what they had 
written. If the natives affirmed that the word or 
sentence was correctly pronounced by the Mis¬ 
sionary, it was left for more careful and deliberate 
investigation. 
Sometimes they endeavoured to find out words, 
by presenting to the natives different combinations 
of the letters of their alphabet: thus they w T ould 
pronounce the letters a a, and say, “ What is 
that V 9 The natives would answer by pointing to 
the fibrous roots of a tree, or the matted fibres 
round the cocoa-nut stalk, which are called aa. 
They would then pronounce others, as a i, and ask 
what it meant; the natives, putting their hand to 
the back of the neck, and repeating ai , told them 
that that part of the body was thus called. By 
this means they sometimes discovered the meaning 
of a variety of words, which they did not before 
know were even parts of the language. In speak¬ 
ing of their progress, shortly after they had com- 
II. c 
