I should manage, or what he thought would be the best way of making
them understand. He said, 'Why don't you try granting?' whereupon I
began to grunt most vociferously. The effect was magical. Some of
them jumped back, holding their spears in readiness to throw; others
ran away, covering their eyes with their hands, and all exhibited the
utmost astonishment and alarm. In fact, it was so evident that they
expected me to turn into a pig, and their alarm was so irresistibly
comic, that Mr. Brown and I both burst out laughing, on which they
gradually became more reassured, and those that had run away came
back, and seeing us so heartily amused, and that I had not undergone
any metamorphosis, began to laugh too; but when I drew a pig on the
sand with a piece of stick, and made motions of eating, it suddenly
seemed to strike them what was the matter, for they all burst out
laughing, nodding their heads, and several of them ran off, evidently
in quest of the pig that was required."

POWERS OF SIGNS COMPARED WITH SPEECH.

Sign language, being the mother utterance of nature, poetically styled
by Lamartine the visible attitudes of the soul, is superior to all
others in that it permits every one to find in nature an image to
express his thoughts on the most needful matters intelligently to any
other person. The direct or substantial natural analogy peculiar to
it prevents a confusion of ideas. It is to some extent possible to
use words without understanding them which yet may be understood by
those addressed, but it is hardly possible to use signs without full
comprehension of them. Separate words may also be comprehended by
persons hearing them without the whole connected sense of the words
taken together being caught, but signs are more intimately connected.
Even those most appropriate will not be understood if the subject
is beyond the comprehension of their beholders. They would be as
unintelligible as the wild clicks of his instrument, in an electric
storm, would be to the telegrapher, or as the semaphore, driven by
wind, to the signalist. In oral speech even onomatopes are arbitrary,
the most strictly natural sounds striking the ear of different
individuals and nations in a manner wholly diverse. The instances
given by SAYCE are in point. Exactly the same sound was intended to
be reproduced in the "_bilbit_ amphora" of Naevius, the "_glut glut_
murmurat unda sonans" of the Latin Anthology, and the "_puls_" of
Varro. T