The elision of medial consonants, so marked in these Marquesan
instances, is no less common both in Gaelic and the Lowland Scots.
Stranger still, that prevalent Polynesian sound, the so-called
catch, written with an apostrophe, and often or always the
gravestone of a perished consonant, is to be heard in Scotland to
this day. When a Scot pronounces water, better, or bottle--wa'er,
be'er, or bo'le--the sound is precisely that of the catch; and I
think we may go beyond, and say, that if such a population could be
isolated, and this mispronunciation should become the rule, it
might prove the first stage of transition from t to k, which is the
disease of Polynesian languages. The tendency of the Marquesans,
however, is to urge against consonants, or at least on the very
common letter l, a war of mere extermination. A hiatus is
agreeable to any Polynesian ear; the ear even of the stranger soon
grows used to these barbaric voids; but only in the Marquesan will
you find such names as Haaii and Paaaeua, when each individual
vowel must be separately uttered.

These points of similarity between a South Sea people and some of
my own folk at home ran much in my head in the islands; and not
only inclined me to view my fresh acquaintances with favour, but
continually modified my judgment. A polite Englishman comes to-day
to the Marquesans and is amazed to find the men tattooed; polite
Italians came not long ago to England and found our fathers stained
with woad; and when I paid the return visit as a little boy, I was
highly diverted with the backwardness of Italy: so insecure, so
much a matter of the day and hour, is the pre-eminence of race. It
was so that I hit upon a means of communication which I recommend