194 ^Ir Crawfurd oh the 



eastwai'd than to the westward.* The testimony of Cap- 

 tain Fitzroy is to the same effect, t 



But it is further ascertained, that tlie monsoon " (the west- 

 ern) is occasionally experienced through all the islands of 

 Eastern Polynesia/'^ Captain Beechy, in his instructive 

 narrative, informs us that he picked up at sea a tempest- 

 driven canoe, belonging to Chain Island, three hundred miles 

 east of Tahiti, and subject to it. She had been on a voyage 

 to the latter, and by two successive gales from the westward, 

 Avas driven 600 miles out of her course, to BaiTow Island, 

 in about the 20th degree of south latitude. When rescued, 

 she had on board twenty-eight men, fifteen women, and ten 

 children ; in fact, the nucleus of a little colony. 



Captain Wilson found, when wrecked on the Pelew Is- 

 lands, in the 8^ of north latitude, and the ISS'^ of east longi- 

 tude, three Malay mariners ; and, having among his own crew 

 a Malay interpreter, he was able to communicate with the 

 natives through these Malays, who had acquired the Pelew 

 language. The account which they gave of themselves was, 

 that in a voyage from Batavia to Ternate, one of the Mo- 

 luccas, touching at Menado in Celebes, they were driven by 

 a storm on the Pelew Islands. One of them, however, who 

 accompanied Captain Wilson to England, acknowledged tliat 

 he and his companions were part of the crew of one of three 

 piratical praus. 



Casual wi'ecks like this might easily have carried the Ma- 

 layan language to the most westerly of the islands of the 

 Pacific, within the tropics ; while adventurers, like that of the 

 Chain Island canoe, would, in the lapse of ages, convey it, 

 step by step, to Easter Island and the Sandwich group. 



This explanation would sufficiently account for the disse- 

 mination of the Malayan language over the tropical islands 

 of the Pacific ; but, it must be admitted that there are greater 

 difficulties in respect to the large islands of New Zealand, 



* La Porouse, vol. ii. 



t Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of the Adventure aud Beagle, by Cap- 

 tain Pitzroy, R.N. 



:!; Voyage to the Pacific in 182.5, &c. &c., by Captain Beechy, R.N. London, 

 1831. 



