Te taata_--the man.
Poss.--_No te taata_--of the man.
Object.--_He taata_--to the man--and the man.

PLURAL.

Nom.--_Te mau taata_--the men.
Poss.--_No te mau taata_--of the men.
Object.--_He mau taata_--the men--and to the men.

The Tahaitians have a great number of definite and indefinite articles,
and prefixes, which they apply in a peculiar manner. The article te
often stands before proper names; also before God, _Te Atua_; sometimes
_o_, which then appears to be an article; as, _O Pomare_, _O Huaheine_,
_O Tahaiti_. Sometimes this o is placed before the personal pronouns in
the nominative case.

_O vau_, I; _o oe_, thou; _o oia_, she, he, it. In these pronouns the
Tahaitian, and those languages to which it bears affinity, are
particularly rich. They have not only the dual of the Orientals, but
two first persons in the singular as well as plural: for example--

_O Taua_--thou and I.
_O Maua_--he and I.
_O Tatou_--you and I.
_O Motou_--we three, or several.

By this the conjugation of the verbs is made more complicated than in
other languages, but it again becomes easier from neither the person nor
the tense changing the word itself, but all the variations being
expressed by particular particles: for instance--_motau_, to fear; _te
matau nei au_, I fear; _te matau ra oau_, I feared; _i motau na oau_, I
have feared; _e matau au_, I shall fear.

Since my readers will hardly wish to study the Tahaitian language very
thoroughly, I here close my extracts from its grammar.--Whoever really
desires to learn it must go to Tahaiti. I must, however, warn him to arm
himself with patience; for though the Tahaitians are very ready with
their assistance, they have quite as bad a habit as ourselves of
laughing at any one who speaks their language ill,--I say this from
experience.

Some months before us, the French Captain Duperre had visited Tahaiti
upon a voyage of discovery, in the corvette Coquille. He returned home
in safety, and is about to publish his travels, of which he has already
had the goodness to send me some portions. An important acquisition to
science may be expected from this work.

THE PITCAIRN ISLAND.

THE PITCAIRN ISLAND.

I did not myself touch on this island, but I met in Chili an American
Captain just returned from it, and in Tahaiti one of the earliest
mothers of its population, who spoke English well enough to carry on a
conversation. The information jointl