As to literal exactitude in such communications, my inquiries have already convinced me that there must be other and higher standards than a hap-hazard _I-au-ne-kun-o-tau-gade_, or trade interpreter, before the thing can be attempted.

Fortunately, I have, in my kind and polite friend Mr.
Johnston, who has given me temporary quarters at his house, and the several intelligent members of his family, the means of looking deeper into the powers and structure of the language, and am pressing these advantages, amidst the pauses of business, with all my ardor and assiduity.
The study of the language, and the formation of a vocabulary and grammar have almost imperceptibly become an absorbing object, although I have been but a short time at the place, and the plan interests me so much, that I actually regret the time that is lost from it, in the ordinary visits of comity and ceremony, which are, however, necessary.

My method is to interrogate all persons visiting the office, white and red, who promise to be useful subjects of information during the day, and to test my inquiries in the evening by reference to the Johnstons, who, being educated, and speaking at once both the English and Odjibwa correctly, offer a higher and more reliable standard than usual.
Mr.Johnston's family consists of ten persons, though all are not constantly present.

He is himself a native of the county of Antrim, in the north of Ireland, his father having possessed an estate at Craige, near the Giant's Causeway.

He came to America in the last presidential term of General Washington, having a brother at that time settled at Albany, and after visiting Montreal and Quebec, he fell into company with the sort of half-baronial class of north-west fur traders, who struck his fancy.