I therefore in the evening commenced the work, intending to
dedicate to it, till completed, every hour of leisure which my other
labors and occupations might occasionally permit. As all the party
were now in good spirits, and our affairs seemed to proceed tnore
smoothly than they had for a long time, this was the proper season
for such an employment; and, having first put my interpreter in
good humour hy a present of a new handkerchief, I took him to
my waggon, to begin his task. To prevent his misapprehending the
meaning of my questions, I kept one of my Hottentots sitting by us,
to explain in his way any question which I might happen to put, as
a European is very liable to do, in terms above the capacity and
judgment of an uncivilized and untaught person.
The method which was then pursued, may still be the best by
which a traveller may reduce an oral language to a written form, and
acquire in the shortest possible time, a tolerably complete knowledge
of it ; or at least, may fix it on paper in a state in which it may
afterwards be more fully and critically examined. I had before me a
printed dictionary (in this case it was in Dutch, because in that language
all my questions were put), from which were selected, in their
order, all those words which admitted of interpretation in the dialect
of a people ignorant of science or nice moral or metaphysical distinctions
; or, in other terms, such words only were taken, the meaning
of which could be made intelligible to their simple minds. My
question was begun by endeavouring to obtain a native word exactly
equivalent to that which was in the book; but if it was perceived
that my interpreter found any difficulty in understanding it, a short
phrase was proposed, in which the meaning of that word was involved
; and his translation was then written down exactly as it was
pronounced; taking care at the same time, to divide the syllables by
placing points beneath the word, and to note the accent and short
vowels. * This, however, was not done without much trouble and
many explanations ; but he was desired to repeat it so often that one
could not easily be mistaken in the words or their sounds. By these
* See page 253. at the word * three.’
means, on several occasions, a variableness was discovered in his
pronunciation, which my imperfect knowledge of the idiom, has not
yet enabled me to account for.
Those, whose minds have been expanded by a European
education, cannot readily conceive the stupidity, as they would call
it, of savages, in every thing beyond the most simple ideas and the
most uncompounded notions, either in moral or in physical knowledge.
But the fact is ; their life embraces so few incidents, their
occupations, their thoughts, and their cares, are confined to so few
objects, that their ideas must necessarily be equally few, and equally
confined. I have sometimes been obliged to allow Muchunka to
leave off the task, when he had scarcely given me a dozen words ;
as it was evident that exertion of mind, or continued employment of
the faculty of thinking, soon wore out his powers of reflection, and
rendered him really incapable of paying any longer attention to the
subject. On such occasions, he would betray by his listlessness and the
vacancy of his countenance, that abstract questions of the plainest
kind, soon exhausted all mental strength, and reduced him to the
state of a child whose reason was yet dormant. He would then
complain that his head began to ache; and as it was useless to persist
invito, Minervd, he always received immediately his dismissal for that
day.
When at a subsequent period, another native was employed in
this business, I discovered in him nearly the same inability to sustain
mental exertion; and saw, therefore, the absurdity of seeking in
their language for that which was not to be found in their ideas, —
a mode of expressing those abstract qualities and virtues, and those
higher operations of the intellectual power, which, perhaps, belong
only to civilized society and to cultivated minds.
The Bachapins call this language the Sichuana; and as the inconvenience
which would attend an increase of the bulk of this
volume beyond its present size, compels me to omit the Dictionary
or Vocabulary, together with various remarks on the language, and
a fuller exposition of its structure, I have judged it not superfluous