Page:A Descriptive Vocabulary of the Language in Common Use Amongst the Aborigines of Western Australia.djvu/17

Rh actual settler to communicate more freely with the natives, and thus to acquire and extend an influence amongst them, and frequently to gain important information regarding the localities and resources of the country. To the philologist, it affords an opportunity for the examination of a new form of speech, or a comparison with other dialects of tile same tongue. To the philosopher, it offers the interesting study of a new and, as yet, unsophisticated people—and, perhaps, the only people now existing on the earth, in a completely uncivilised and savage state; whilst to the missionary, who devotes himself to the task of enlightening and converting this simple and primitive race, it will afford great facility in his labours, and place him at once upon a vantage-ground which might otherwise lose much time in attaining. That it may be found conducive to each and all of these objects, is the ardent wish of