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APPENDIX. 
REMARKS ON THE HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE. 
In the course of our tour around Hawaii, we met with a few 
specimens of what may perhaps be termed the first efforts of an 
uncivilized people towards the construction of a language of sym-> 
bols. Along the southern coast, both on the east and west sides, 
we frequently saw a number of straight lines, semicircles, or con¬ 
centric rings, wifh some rude imitations of the human figure, cut 
or carved in the compact rocks of lava. They did not appear to 
have been cut with an iron instrument, but with a stone hatchet, 
or a stone less frangible than the rock on which they were por¬ 
trayed. On inquiry, we found that they had been made by former 
travellers, from a motive similar to that which induces a person 
to carve his initials on a stone or tree, or a traveller to record his 
name in an album, to inform his successors that he has been 
there. When there were a number of concentric circles with a 
dot or mark in the centre, the dot signified a man, and the num¬ 
ber of rings denoted the number in the party who had circum¬ 
ambulated the island. When there was a ring, and a number of 
marks, it denoted the same; the number of marks shewing of how 
many the party consisted; and the ring, that they had travelled 
completely round the island; but when there was only a semi¬ 
circle, it denoted that they had returned after reaching the place 
