26 Thomas Henry Huxley 



the Bampton shoal, to which place one of her late crew under- 

 took to guide them ; their ultimate intention was to go on to 

 Port Essington. The man who acted as pilot was unable to 

 fiud the wreck, and after much quarreling on board in conse- 

 quence, and the loss of two men by drowning and of another 

 who was left on a small uninhabited island, they made their 

 way up to the Torres Straits, where, during a gale of wind their 

 vessel struck upon a reef on the eastern Prince of Wales Island. 

 The two remaining men were lost in attempting to swim on 

 shore through the surf, but the woman was afterwards rescued 

 by a party of natives on a turtling excursion, who, when the 

 gale subsided, swam on board and supported her on shore 

 between two of their number. One of these blacks, Boroto by 

 name, took possession of the woman as his share of the plun- 

 der ; she was compelled to live with him, but was well treated 

 by all the men, although many of the women, jealous of the 

 attention shewn her, for a long time evinced anything but 

 kindness. A curious circumstance secured for her the protec- 

 tion of one of the principal men of the tribe. This person, act- 

 ing upon the belief, universal throughout Australia and the 

 islands of the Torres Strait, so far as hitherto known, that white 

 people are the ghosts of the aborigines, fancied that in the 

 stranger he recognised a long-lost daughter, and at once ad- 

 mitted her into the relationship which he thought had formerly 

 subsisted between them. She was immediately acknowledged 

 by the whole tribe as one of themselves, thus securing an exten- 

 sive connection in relatives of all denominations. The head- 

 quarters of the tribe being on an island which all vessels passing 

 through the Torres Strait from the eastward must approach 

 within two or three miles, she had the mortification of seeing 

 from twenty to thirty or more ships go through every summer 

 without anchoring in the neighbourhood, so as to afford the 

 slightest opportunity of making her escape. Last year she 

 heard of our two vessels being at Cape York, only twenty miles 

 distant from some of the tribe who had communicated with us 

 and had been well treated, but they would not take her over 

 and watched her even more narrowly than before. On our 

 second and present visit, however, which the Cape York people 

 immediately announced by smoke signals to their friends, she 

 was successful in persuading some of her more immediate 



