his point. Even by carefully sifting at leisure hours the mass of crude
materials obtained from her and written down at each interview, day by
day, I did not make sufficient progress in the grammar of the language to
enable me to pursue the subject further, until her value as an authority
had so far declined that it was prudent to reject it altogether. Nearly
all the words originally procured from Mrs. Thomson were subsequently
verified either by herself or by our Kowrarega visitors.

The Gudang Vocabulary was formed at Cape York, and the chief contributor
to it was the black named Paida, mentioned above, to whom I latterly was
able to make myself tolerably well understood upon most subjects, through
the medium of the Kowrarega language, which he knew thoroughly. As
several dialects are spoken at this place,* I took care to reject all
such words as were not given me expressly as Gudang.

(*Footnote. Two examples will suffice to show the differences in the five
languages which I have heard spoken at Cape York.

Dog = ing-godinya (Gudang and Yagulle), ngyomo (Kachialaiga), Inyomo
(Induyamo), umai (Kowrarega).

Smoke = ekura (Gudang and Induyamo), rong-gura (Yagulle and Kachialaiga),
tuo (Kowrarega).)

The following rules have been adopted in the Vocabularies:

[The vowels are sounded as follows:

a as in hard.
a as in hat.
e as in there.
e as in bet.
e as in French meme.
i as in eel.
i as in bit.
o as in hole.
o as in not.
u as in cool.
u as in cut.
ai as in eye.
ei not represented in English.]

G is always hard, as in get; ch soft, as in church.

The letters in italics are sometimes omitted.

The numbers appended to some words point out similarities and
derivations.

...

1. NATURAL OBJECTS.*

(*Footnote. To form the plural of a noun or adjective, the rule appears
to be to add le as a postfix, sometimes previously supplying a terminal
vowel if required: Example: geta = hand becomes getale in the plural:
kuku = foot, kukule: kutai = yam, kutaile: ipi = wife, ipile: kerne = lad
undergoing a certain ceremony, kernele: makaow = mat, makaowle: bom =
fruit of pandanus, bomale. There are exceptions however; mari = shell
ornament, makes marurre in the plural: gul = canoe, gulai: tawpei =
short, tawpeingh: all nouns ending in ra have the plural in re, as kowra
= ear, kowrare and all ending in kai gain jille in the plural, as ipikai
= woman, ipikaijille.

Regarding the allusion to a terminal vowel, it