"I am very glad to tell, How do you do, Sir?
I been England, long time none very well. Long
time none very well. Very bad weather. I know
very well, very bad cough. I very sorry, very
bad weather, dreadful. Country very difference.
Another day cold. Another day wet, I miserable.
"Another summer come. Very glad. Great
many trees. Many wood. Summer beautiful,
country Canterbury."
Should any reader be disposed to look with the smile of a critic on this humble but genuine effort, let him bear in mind the difficulties which poor English adults have to encounter in learning to read and write; and then let him judge of the obstacles in the way of one whose existence had been spent with his native tribe, on fields of ice, and in dark snow-huts.
In all attacks of illness he was attended with assiduous kindness by Mr. Hallowes, of Canterbury, the skilful surgeon employed by the College, who showed much hospitality to Kalli. One of Mr. Hallowes' family circle on Christmas-day was always the good-humoured broad-faced Esquimaux. At their juvenile parties, the youth joined cheerfully in the sports of the children, and he sometimes sung them some of the wild and plaintive airs peculiar to his tribe.
It is believed that Kalli never omitted his morning and evening prayers by his bed-side, and his utterance was full of devout earnestness. Mr. Bailey remembers once travelling with him to Deal, and while in the railway carriage, the youth quietly took out of his pocket a little book, which was afterwards found to be a collection of texts for each day in the year. For some time he was reading thoughtfully the text for the day. No notice was taken of this to him; and as for himself, never perhaps was any one more free from the least approach to ostentation.
Greenland-Esquimaux Vocabulary
In the year 1853, Kalli rendered essential Service in the preparation of a Greenland Esquimaux Vocabulary, for the use of the Arctic [Pg 32] Expedition of that year. The work was printed by direction of the Lords of the Admiralty, with a short Preface acknowledging the advantage of his assistance. Captain Washington, R.N., Hydrographer of the Admiralty, says in the Preface, "Every word has now been revised from the lips of a native. In the Midsummer vacation in 1852 Kallihirua passed some days with me, and we went partly over the Vocabulary. I found him intelligent, speaking English very fairly, docile and imitative, his great pleasure appearing to be a pencil and paper, with which he drew animals and ships. At the Christmas holidays, we revised more of the Vocabulary, &c."
A member of the Expedition afterwards visited St. Augustine's College and stated that the Vocabulary had been found to be of much service.