Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/224

166 It must be remembered, however, that the author of this voyage, during the course of it, touched at Java and several other East Indian Isles, as well as at Madagascar; so that if by any disarrangement of his papers he has given the numerals of some of those islands for those of Madagascar, our wonder will be much diminished; for after having traced them from Otahite to New Guinea it would not seem very wonderful to carry them a little farther to the East Indian Isles, which from their situation seem not unlikely to be the place from whence our islanders originally came. But I shall waive saying any more on this subject till I have had an opportunity of myself seeing the customs, etc. of the Javans, which this voyage will in all probability give me an opportunity of doing.

The language of all the islands I was upon was the same, so far as I could understand it; the people of Ulhietea only changed the t of the Otahiteans to k, calling tata, which signifies a man or woman, kaka, a peculiarity which made the language much less soft. The people of Oheteroa, so far as I could understand their words, which were only shouted out to us, seemed to do the same thing, and add many more consonants, which made their language much less musical. I shall give a few of the words, from whence an idea may be got of their language.