The small vocabulary thus formed, the first ever obtained in the Louisiade Archipelago, leads to some interesting results, and fills up one of the gaps in the chain of philological affinities which may afterwards be brought to bear upon the perplexing question--Whence has Australia been peopled?
Taking the numerals as affording in the present instance the most convenient materials for hasty comparison, I find words in common--not only with those of other divisions of the Pelagian Negroes,* as the inhabitants of the north coast of New Guinea on the one hand, and New Ireland on the other, but also with the Malay and the various Polynesian languages or dialects spoken from New Zealand to Tahiti.** This latter affinity between the woolly and straight-haired sections of oceanic blacks appears to me to render it more curious and unexpected that the language of the Louisiade should completely differ from that of the northern part of Torres Strait,*** the inhabitants of both being connected by strong general similarity and occasionally identity in manners and customs, and having many physical characteristics common to both.

Yet while the natives of the Louisiade use the decimal system of the Malays and Polynesians, the Torres Strait islanders have simple words to express the numerals one and two only, while three is represented by a compound.**** (*Footnote.

Natural History of Man by J.C.Prichard, M.D.2nd edition page 326.) (**Footnote.

D'Urville's Voyage de l'Astrolabe Philologie tome 2.) (***Footnote.

Jukes' Voyage of the Fly volume 2 page 274.) (****Footnote.