238 SANTA CRUZ. 
rest of Melanesia, the New Hebrides, Banks, Torres, Fiji, and in the 
whole of Polynesia there is no eating of areca nut, but kava-drinking 
is found instead. In the Solomons and in New Guinea the lime is 
conveyed to the mouth from the lime gourd or the bamboo by means 
of a spatula or a stick, but the Cruzian scorns such delicate ways 
and, wetting his first finger, plunges it into the lime and thence into 
his mouth. As a result of this excessive use of lime the lips of the 
elders are caked quite hard and distinct articulation becomes impos- 
sible, so that it is from the lips of the children that the languages 
must be learned. 
The Melanesian languages of the group have vowels which in cer- 
tain parts of speech are inconstant, being attracted to the sound of 
the neighboring vowels, ‘Thus a certain preposition may be ma, me, 
mo, according to the vowel in the word which it governs. All the vowels 
except 7 have a secondary or modified sound. The consonants also 
vary greatly; k and g constantly interchange, also k and ng, and d and ¢; 
p, b, and v are used indifferently in the same word; / and 7 also inter- 
change. The personal pronouns differ materially from those in ordi- 
nary use in Melanesia, there being only one set (instead of two or three) 
which is sufiixed to nouns as possessive, to verbs as objects, to a stem 
mi as subjects. With the verbs the same use prevails as in the Solo- 
mons, the personal pronouns being suffixed as objects, the sense con- 
veyed being, however, rather participial or gerundival. The tran- 
sitive termination of verbs so common elsewhere in Melanesia does not 
seem to appear in Santa Cruz. 
But very little of the Bible has ever been fintladeals into any of the 
Santa Cruz tongues. Parts of the Prayer Book were rendered by Mr. 
Forrest into the language of Ndeni, but the translation is reported to 
be very faulty and has practically been set aside. There is a great 
and honorable work awaiting someone who shall set himself to learn 
one of these tongues, to use it for the dissemination of Christian 
truths, to ascertain its rules and methods of speech, to produce its 
grammar and dictionary. Dr. Codrington has laid the foundations 
for such study in his specimen grammars of Ndeni and Nifilole. The 
main requisites for learning a native language are a good ear to catch 
the sounds and a good memory to be able to repeat the words and 
phrases, and a sympathetic mind that can put itself en rapport with 
the minds of the natives. 
In view of the special difficulty of the languages spoken in the Santa 
Cruz islands, the Melanesian Mission would be well advised to set 
one of its scholars to work on some one particular language in order 
to impart the information thus gained to others not so well qualified 
to work on a new language. The Rev. H. N. Drummond was of the 
opinion that one of the Polynesian tongues, say that of Pileni or 
Matema, should be made the standard tongue for the Reef Islands, 
