“However, we must have a far more intimate acquaintance with the languages spoken here and in the more northern parts of New Holland, before we can be warranted to pronounce that they are totally different. Nay, we have good grounds for the opposite opinion; for we found that the animal called _kangooroo_ at Endeavour River, was known under the same name here; and I need not observe that it is scarcely possible to suppose that this was not transmitted from one another, but accidentally adopted by two nations, differing in language and extraction. Besides, as it seems very improbable that the Van Diemen’s Land inhabitants should have ever lost the use of canoes or sailing vessels, if they had been originally conveyed thither by sea, we must necessarily admit that they, as well as the _kangooroo_ itself, have been stragglers by land from the more northern parts of the country. And if there be any force in this observation, while it traces the origin of the people, it will, at the same time, serve to fix another point, if Captain Cook and Captain Furneaux have not already decided it, that New Holland is no where totally divided by the sea into islands, as some have imagined.[155] “As the New Hollanders seem all to be of the same extraction, so neither do I think there is any thing peculiar in them. On the contrary, they much resemble many of the inhabitants whom I have seen at the islands Tanna and Manicola. Nay, there is even some foundation for hazarding a supposition, that they may have originally come from the same place with all the inhabitants of the South Sea. For, of only about ten words which we could get from them, that which expresses _cold_, differs little from that of New Zealand and Otaheite; the first being _Mallareede_, the second _Makka’reede_, and the third _Ma’reede_. The rest of our very scanty Van Diemen’s Land Vocabulary is as follows: Quadne, _A woman._ Eve’rai, _The eye._ Muidje, _The nose._ Ka’my, _The teeth, mouth, or tongue._ Lae’renne, _A small bird, a native of the woods here._ Koy’gee, _The ear._ No’onga, _Elevated scars on the body._ Teegera, _To eat._ Toga’rago, _I must be gone_, or _I will go_. “Their pronunciation is not disagreeable, but rather quick; though not more so than is that of other nations of the South Sea; and, if we may depend upon the affinity of languages as a clue to guide us in discovering the origin of nations, I have no doubt but we shall find, on a diligent inquiry, and when opportunities offer to collect accurately a sufficient number of these words, and to compare them, that all the people from New Holland, eastward to Easter Island, have been derived from the same common root.”[156] CHAP. VII.