I have heard both idioms spoken
by the natives, and therefore have more confidence in speaking of their
nearness and affinity, than I could have had from mere book comparison.
I am told that Mackenzie got his vocabulary from some of the priests in
Lower Canada, who are versed in the Algonquin. It does not seem to me at
all probable that an Englishman or a Scotchman should throw aside his
natural sounds of the vowels and consonants, and adopt sounds which are,
and must have been, from infancy, foreign.
As I intend to put down things in the order of their occurrence, I will
add that I had a visitor to-day, a simple mechanic, who came to talk to
me about _nothing_; I could do no less than be civil to him, in
consequence of which he pestered me with hems and haws about one hour. I
think Job took no interest in philology.
_17th_. Devoted the day to the language. A friend had loaned me a file
of Scottish papers called the _Montrose Review_, which I took occasion
to run over. This paper is more neatly and correctly printed than is
common with our papers of this class from the country.
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