Encouraged by the attention you paid to the subject when I had the honor of conversing with you on it, I take the liberty of presenting you with two comparative specimens of the languages spoken in Sumatra and other parts of the east. The one exhibits simply a list of fifty words; of universal use from the nature of the ideas they express; as spoken in twelve different countries or districts. The other exhibits a view of those words in the Sumatran and neighbouring languages; which are observed to correspond in sound and signification, with words in the languages of places situated at a distance from thence.