PEECAttlOIlS SUBSISTENCE. 
169 
man were asleep^ they passed m silence through the 
captain's cabin, juraped out of the stern windows into 
the sea^ and swam to an island half a mile distant^ where 
it was ill vain to pursue them, had there been any such 
intention ; but the object was to retain them by kindness, 
not by compulsion, an attempt that has failed on every 
trial. Hunger may (and these instances are rare) induce 
them to put themselves into the power of strangers ; but 
the moment their want is satisfied, nothing short of 
coercion can pi'event them from returning to a way of life 
more congenial to their savage nature."* 
The great straits to which they are sometimes put for 
want of food is farther illufitrated by the following anec- 
dote : A coasting party one day discovered a man and 
a boy stretched on the beach apparently in the last stage 
of famine; they were conveyed to the settlement; un- 
fortunately, every effort of humanity failed to save the 
man, hut the boy recovered, and is now in the service of 
General Xyd at Calcutta, where he is much noticed for 
the striking singularity of his appearance/'f 
This also affords farther proof that the natives can 
scarcely be addicted to the practice of cannibalism » a 
charge which seems to have originated in the account 
given by two early Mohammedan travellerSj which was 
translated by Eusebins Ilenandot. An anecdote given by 
Colonel Symes of a boat's crew that was driven to sea and 
picked up many days afterwards with diminished numbers, 
shows that even Europeans would have been less scra- 
pulouB under similar circumstances. 
* Symcs, " Embassy to Ava," p, 803, 
I Idem, p. 312. 
X 
