ten in the forenoon with
you, and when it is noon with us, it is four o'clock in the afternoon
with you.

The inhabitants of this country are of two kinds: first,
Christians--at least so called; second, Indians. Of the Christians I
shall say nothing; my design is to speak of the Indians only. These
among us are again of two kinds: first, the Mahakinbas, or, as they
call themselves, Kajingahaga; second, the Mahakans, otherwise called
Agotzagena. These two nations have different languages, which have no
affinity with each other, like Dutch and Latin. These people formerly
carried on a great war against each other, but since the Mahakanders
were subdued by the Mahakobaas, peace has subsisted between them, and
the conquered are obliged to bring a yearly contribution to the others.
We live among both these kinds of Indians; and when they come to us
from their country, or we go to them, they do us every act of
friendship. The principal nation of all the savages and Indians
hereabouts with which we have the most intercourse, is the Mahakuaas,
who have laid all the other Indians near us under contribution. This
nation has a very difficult language, and it costs me great pains to
learn it, so as to be able to speak and preach in it fluently. There is
no Christian here who understands the language thoroughly; those who
have lived here long can use a kind of jargon just sufficient to carry
on trade with it, but they do not understand the fundamentals of the
language. I am making a vocabulary of the Mahakuaas' language, and
when I am among them I ask them how things are called; but as they are
very stupid, I sometimes cannot make them understand what I want.
Moreover when they tell me, one tells me the word in the infinitive
mood, another in the indicative; one in the first, another in the
second person; one in the present, another in the preterit. So I stand
oftentimes and look, but do not know how to put it down. And as they
have declensions and conjugations also, and have their augments like
the Greeks, I am like one distracted, and frequently cannot tell what
to do, and there is no one to set me right. I shall have to speculate
in this alone, in order to become in time an Indian grammarian. When I
first observed that they pronounced their words so differently, I asked
the commissary of the company what it meant. He answered me that he
did not know, but imagined they changed their language every two or
three years;