The visits which most foreigners have paid to the Sandwich and other islands of the Pacific have been too transient to allow them, however well qualified they may have been, to obtain any thing beyond an exceedingly superficial acquaintance with the words in most common use among the natives, and certainly insufficient to enable them to discern the nice distinctions of vowel sounds and peculiar structure of the aboriginal languages of the islands; and those individuals whom purposes of commerce have induced to remain a longer period among them, whatever facility they may have acquired in speaking it, have not attended to its orthographical construction, but have adopted those methods of spelling names of persons and places which happen to have been used by those of their predecessors with whose printed accounts they were most familiar. The want of a standard orthography cannot be better illustrated than by noticing the mistakes, often of a singularly ludicrous, and occasionally of an important kind, which occur even in the present day, or by glancing at the great variety of methods adopted by dif ferent voyagers to represent the same word. We have seen the name of Tamehameha, the late king, spelled in various publications twelve or fourteen different ways; and the same variety has also prevailed in other popular names, though perhaps not to an equal extent. above word is a reduplication of the word meha (lonely, or solitary), with the definite article Ta prefixed, which is a part of the name; though rejected in Cook's Voyages, where he is called Maihamaiha. Captain Vancouver calls him Tamaahmaah, which is somewhat nearer. The This disagreement in different writers arises, in the first place, from the deficiency in the vowel characters, as used in the English language, for expressing the native vowel sounds. The English language has but one sign, or letter, for the vowel sound in the first syllable of father and fable, or the words tart and tale; but in Hawaiian the sense of these sounds, which frequently occur unconnected with any other, is so different that a distinct character is essential. The first sound is often a distinct word, and frequently marks the past tense of the verb, while the second sound distinguishes the future, and is also a distinct word. These two sounds often occur together, forming two distinct syllables, aș HAWAHAN LANGUAGE. 45 in the interrogation e-a? what? and the word he-a, to call. In the English language two letters, called double vowels, are used to lengthen the same sound, as ee in thee, or to express one totally different, as oo in pool: but in Hawaiian there is often a repetition of the vowel sound, without any intervening consonant or other vowel sound, as in a-a, a bag or pocket, e-e, to embark, i-i, a name of a bird, o-o, an agricultural instrument; which must be sounded as two distinct syllables. Hence, when the ee is employed to express a lengthened sound of e, as in Owhyhee, and oo to signify the sound of u in rule, as in Karakakooa, which is generally done by European visiters, it is not possible to express by any signs those native words in which the double vowels occur, which are invariably two distinct syllables. Another cause of the incorrectness of the orthography of early voyagers to these islands has been a want of better acquaintance with the structure of the language, which would have prevented their substituting a compound for a single word. This is the case in the words Otaheite, Otaha, and Owhyhee, which ought to be Tahiti, Tahaa, and Hawaii. The O is no part of these words, but is the preposition of, or belonging to; or it is the sign of the case, denoting it to be the nominative, answering to the question who or what, which would be O wai? The sign of the case being prefixed to the interrogation, the answer uniformly corresponds, as, Nom. O wai ia aina ?-What that land? Pos. Obj. Ans. O Hawaii-Hawaii. No hea oe? Of whence you? Ans. No Hawaii-Of or belonging to Hawaii. Mai hea mai oe ?-From whence you? Any one of these, or other similar combinations, in which the word Ha-wai-i occurs, might have been given as the name of the island with as much correctness as that which commences with the O, which appears sometimes to be a contraction of the pronoun, and is never used, excepting when the word begins a sentence, and consequently is, even as a combination, not of frequent Occurrence. The natives are certainly most likely to know the name of their own island: the designation they give it we have adopted, and believe that in so doing we have the approbation of all unprejudiced men, more than we should have had in perpetuating an error which their discoverer, had he possessed the means of so doing, would very cheerfully have corrected. In pronouncing the word Ha-wai-i, the Ha is sounded short, as in Hah, the wai as wye, and the final i as e in me. Atooi in Cook's Voyages, Atowai in Vancouver's, and Atoui in one of his contemporaries, is also a compound of two words, a Tauai, literally and Tauai. The meaning of the word tauai is, to light upon, or to dry in the sun; and the name, according to the account of the late king, was derived from the long droughts which sometimes prevailed, or the large pieces of timber which have been occasionally washed upon its shores. Being the most leeward island of importance, it was probably the last inquired of, or the last name repeated by the people to the first visiters. For, should the natives be pointed to the group, and asked the names of the different islands, beginning with that farthest to windward, and proceeding west, they would say, O Hawaii, Maui, Ranai, Morotai, Oahu, a (and) Tauai: the copulative conjunction preceding the last member of the sentence would be placed immediately before Tauai; and hence, in all probability, it has been attached to the name of that island, which has usually been written, after Cook's orthography, Atooi, or Atowai, after Van couver. The more intelligent among the natives, particularly the chiefs, frequently smile at the manner of spelling the names of places and persons in published accounts of the islands, which they occasionally see. The orthography employed in the native names which occur in the succeeding narrative is in accordance with the power or sound of the letters composing the Hawaiian alphabet, and the words are represented as nearly as possible to the manner in which they are pronounced by the natives. A is always as a in father, or shorter, as a in the first syllable of aha, e as a in hate, i as i in machine, or ee in thee, o as o in note, u as oo in food, or short, as in bull, and the diphthong ai as i in wine or mine. The consonants are sounded as in English. The native words may be correctly pronounced by attending to the above sounds of the vowels. The following list of the principal names will likewise assist in the proper pronunciation of Hawaiian words. The h is inserted after the a only to secure that vowel's being sounded as in the exclamation ah! CHAPTER III. Voyage of part of the missionaries to Kairua-Welcome from the governor of Hawaii-A breakfast scene-Description of an extensive cavern-Curious natural phenomenon occasioned by the sea-Situation and appearance of Kairua-Excursion to the plantations-Christian zeal of a chief-Ruins of a heiau-Notice of Captain Cook-Account of Mouna Huararai-Volcanic phenomena. TAUMUARII, the friendly king of Tauai, having generously offered the missionaries chosen to make the tour of Hawaii a passage in one of his vessels bound from Oahu to Kairua, Messrs. Thurston, Bishop, and Goodrich repaired on board in the afternoon of June 24, 1823. They were accompanied by Mr. Harwood, an ingenious mechanic, whom curiosity and a desire to assist them had induced to join their party. The indisposition of Mrs. Ellis prevented my proceeding in the same vessel, but I hoped to follow in a few days. At 4 P. M. the brig was under way, standing to the S. E. Having cleared the bar and the reefs at the entrance of the harbour, the trade-wind blowing fresh from the N. E., they were soon out of sight of Honoruru. They passed the islands of Morokai, Ranai, and the principal part of Maui during the night, and at daybreak on the 25th were off Tahaurawe, a small island on the south side of Maui. The Haaheo Hawaii (Pride of Hawaii), another native vessel, formerly the Cleopatra's barge, soon after hove in sight; she did not, however, come up with them, but tacked and stood for Lahaina. In the evening the wind, usually fresh in the channel between Maui and Hawaii, blew so strong that they were obliged to lay-to for about three hours; when it abated, and allowed them to proceed. On the 26th, at 4 P. M. the vessel came to anchor in Kairua bay. The missionaries soon after went on shore, grateful for the speedy and comfortable passage with which they had been favoured, having been only forty-nine hours from Oahu, which is about 150 miles to the leeward of Kairua. They were heartily welcomed by the governor, Kuakini, usually called by the foreigners John Adams, from his having adopted the name of a |