Making a gesture to the officer who had introduced him, he spoke a few low words to the native, who immediately turned toward me, and uttered, slowly and distinctly, the following sentence: "Ix-itl hua-atl zi-petl poppicobatl." I shook my head despairingly. Several other attempts to communicate with me were made, both by the Princess and the interpreter, but all to no purpose. I could neither understand the melodies nor the jargon. But I noticed throughout all these proceedings that there seemed to be two entirely distinct modes of expression; the first by whistling, and the second by utterance. The idea at once flashed across my mind, that there were two languages used in the country--one sacred to the blood royal and the nobility, and the other used by the common people. Impressed with this thought, I immediately set about verifying it by experiment. It is unnecessary to detail the ingenious methods I devised to ascertain this fact. It is sufficient for the present purposes of this narrative to state, that, during the day, I was abundantly satisfied with the truth of my surmise; and that, before night, I learned another fact, equally important, that the hieroglyphics were written in the royal tongue, and could be read only by those connected by ties of blood with the reigning family. There was at first something ludicrous in the idea of communicating thought by sound emitted in the way indicated above. In my wildest dreams, the notion of such a thing being possible had never occurred to my imagination. And when the naked fact was now demonstrated to me every moment, I could scarcely credit my senses. Still, when I reflected that night upon it, after I retired to rest, the system did not appear unnatural, nor even improbable. Birds, I knew, made use of the same musical tongue; and when but a boy, on the shores of the distant Albemarle, I had often listened, till long after midnight, to the wonderful loquacity of the common mocking-bird, as she poured forth her summer strains. Who has not heard the turtle dove wooing her mate in tones that were only not human, because they were more sadly beautiful? Many a belated traveler has placed his hand upon his sword-hilt, and looked suspiciously behind him, as the deep bass note of the owl has startled the dewy air. The cock's crow has become a synonym for a pæan of triumph. Remembering all those varieties in sound that the air is capable of, when _cut_, as it were, by whistling, I no longer doubted that a language could easily be constructed by analyzing the several tones and giving value to their different modulations.