ALPHABETIC OR SYLLABIC CHARACTERS IN CAVES. 839 
It is plain that sixty-two Japanese were cast ashore on the west 
coast, somewhere near the place in which the inscription is found ; 
that their junk or junks were so totally destroyed as to render the 
castaways hopeless of return; and that they must have found 
suflicient means of subsistence to enable them to live some time— 
long enough at least to complete this task. Their landfall can 
hardly have been later than the beginning of the 12th century, 
because there is every reason to believe that at that time the old 
characters were superseded by the present modified Chinese. 
I have no representation at hand of Japanese idols, or of 
ancient conventional representation of the clothed human form, 
but perhaps you can find such, and compare with the figure of 
the inscription. 
What became of the sixty-two castaways? Is there in Western 
Australia any tradition of an ancient tribe of foreigners and of 
their massacre, or is there any trace of their amalgamation. They 
must have brought with them copper tools and other implements 
and ornaments. Is there any trace of them beyond this carving ? 
T need not say that ethnologically there is no near relationship of 
the Japanese and the Melanesian, so that the native origin of the 
document is out of the question. 
Inscriptions in the same character and language are found in 
this continent, as you will see by the accompanying paper by me. 
The ancestors of those who wrote them were driven to the 
American coast by the elements, having been, in all likelihood, 
banished from home to the mercy of the ocean. The sixty-two of 
your inscription may also have been banished political offenders, 
rather than trepang fishers or traders ; but who can tell? 
No. 21—SOME INDIAN WORDS OF RELATIONSHIP 
USED BY THE AUSTRALIAN TRIBES. 
By Joun Fraser, B.A., LL.D, 
(Read Wednesday, January 12, 1898.) 
