It must be observed, however, that our vocabularies of this sort must necessarily be liable to great mistakes. The ideas of those from whom we were to learn the words were so different from ours, that it was difficult to fix them to the object of inquiry. Or, if this could be obtained, to learn an unknown tongue from an instructor who did not know a single word of any language that his scholar was conversant with, could not promise to produce much. But even, when these difficulties were surmounted, there still remained a fruitful source of mistake. I mean, inaccuracy in catching exactly the true sound of a word to which our ears had never been accustomed, from persons whose mode of pronunciation was, in general, so indistinct, that it seldom happened that any two of us, in writing down the same word from the same mouth, made use of the same vowels in representing it. Nay, we even very commonly differed about consonants, the sounds of which are least liable to ambiguity. Besides all this, we found, by experience, that we had been led into strange corruptions of some of the most common words, either from the natives endeavouring to imitate us, or from our having misunderstood them. Thus, _cheeto_ was universally used by us to express a thief, though totally different from the real word in the language of Tongataboo. The mistake arose from a prior one into which we had ran when at New Zealand; for though the word that signifies thief there, be absolutely the same that belongs to the dialect of the Friendly Islands (being _kaeehaa_ at both places), yet, by some blunder, we had used the word _teete_ first at New Zealand, and afterward at Tongataboo, on our arrival there. The natives, endeavouring to imitate us as nearly as they could, and so fabricating the word _cheeto_, this, by a complication of mistakes, was adopted by us as their own. All possible care has been taken to make the following table as correct as possible: English. _Friendly Islands._ _Otaheite._ _The sun_, Elaa, Eraa. _Fire_, Eafoi, Eahoi. _Thunder_, Fatoore, Pateere. _Rain_, Ooha, Eooa. _The wind_, Matangee, Mataee. _Warm_, Mafanna, Mahanna. _The clouds_, Ao, Eao. _Land_, Fonooa, Fenooa. _Water_, Avy, Evy. _Sleep_, Mohe, Moe. _A man_, Tangata, Taata. _A woman_, Vefaine, Waheine. _A young girl_, Taheine, Toonea. _A servant_, or _person of mean rank_, Tooa, Toutou, _or_ teou. _The dawn_, or _day-break_, Aho, Aou. _The hair_, Fooroo, Eroroo.