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 symbols. Along the southern coast, both 
on the east and west sides, we frequently saw a number 
of straight lines, semicircles, or concentric rings, with 
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 portrayed. 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 number 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 where it was 
made. In some of the islands we have seen the outline of 
a fish portrayed in the same manner, to denote that one of 
that species or size had been taken near the spot: some¬ 
times the dimensions of an exceedingly large fruit, &c. are 
marked in the same way. 
