A VOYAGE TO 
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July. 
were fo different from ours, that it was difficult to fix them 
to the object of inquiry. Or, if this could he obtained, to 
learn an unknown tongue, from an inftrudtor who did not 
know a fingle word of any language that his fcholar was 
converfant with, could not promife to produce much. But 
even, when thefe difficulties were furmounted, there hill 
remained a fruitful fource of mi hake. I mean, inaccuracy 
in catching, exadtly, the true found of a word, to which 
our ears had never been accuftomed, from perfons whofe 
mode of pronunciation was, in general, fo indiffmdt, that it 
feldom happened that any two of us, in writing down the 
fame word, from the fame mouth, made ufe of the fame 
vowels, in reprefenting it. Nay, we even, very commonly, 
differed about confonants, the founds of which are leaft lia¬ 
ble to ambiguity. Belides all this, we found, by experience, 
that we had been led into ftrange corruptions of fome of the 
moil common words, either from the natives endeavouring 
to imitate us, or from our having mifunderftood them. 
Thus, cheeto was univerfally ufed by us, to exprefs a thief, 
though totally different from the real word, in the language 
of Tongataboo. The miftake arofe from a prior one, into 
which we had run, when at New Zealand. For though the 
word that lignifies thief there, be abfolutely the fame that 
belongs to the dialed! of the Friendly Iflands (being kaeehaa 
at both places), yet, by fome blunder, we had ufed the word 
teete, fir ft at New Zealand, and, afterward, at Tongataboo, 
on our arrival there. The natives, endeavouring to imitate 
us, as nearly as they could, and fo fabricating the word 
cheeto , this, by a complication of miftakes, was adopted by 
us as their own. Great care has been taken to make the 
following table as correct as poffible : 
Englilh. 
