192 Mr Crawfurd on the 



the wind, and making for the first land that chance might 

 direct her to ; and that first land would be Madagascar. 

 "With a fair wind and a stiff breeze, which she would be sure 

 of, she might reach that island without difficulty in a month. 

 Two or three such adventures are known to have taken 

 place since our own occupation of the Mauritius, and, conse- 

 quently, more frequent intercourse Avith Madagascar. Earl 

 Grey, at my request, has most obligingly written to the 

 Mauritius for the particulars of these strange adventures ; 

 and I am only sorry that the replies have not arrived in time 

 to lay the information before the Association. 



The accident of praus being tempest-driven from the 

 shores of the Malay Islands, is probably one of not unfre- 

 quent occurrence, although few of them may reach Mada- 

 gascar. Shortly after the restoration of Java, in 1816, the 

 late Captain Robinson, of the Indian Navy, picked up a small 

 fishing-boat, having on board two Malay men and a woman, 

 800 miles from the neai'est Malay shore ; and being a gentle- 

 man well acquainted with the Malays and their language, he 

 could have made no mistake about nationality. 



The occasional arrival in Madagascar of a shipwrecked 

 prau, might not, indeed, be sufficient to account for even the 

 small portion of Malayan found in the Malagasi ; but it is 

 offering no violence to the manners or history of the Malay 

 people, to imagine the probability of a piratical fleet, or a 

 fleet carrying one of those migrations, of which there are ex- 

 amples] on record, being tempest-driven, like a single prau. 

 Such a fleet, well-equipped, well-stocked, and well-manned, 

 would not only be fitter for the long and perilous voyage, 

 but reach Madagascar in a better condition than a fishing or 

 trading boat. It may seem, then, not an improbable suppo- 

 sition, that it was through one or more fortuitous adventures 

 of this description, that the language of Madagascar received 

 its influx of Malayan. 



Respecting the probable era of such adventures, we have 

 just one faint ray of light. With the Malayan, there came 

 in a few words of Sanscrit, such as are popular in the Malay 

 and Javanese. From this it may be fair to infer, that tb.e 

 chance migi'ations I have supposed, whetlier they had before 



