SBIPWEECKED MALAYS. 
197 
napped wten vciy young, or found while askay in tlie 
woods 
A boy answering this description had been seen by 
Captain King during his interview with the same tribe 
about four years before, when he was carried on the 
shoulders of one of the natives. The Nakodahs of the 
Macassar prabu;^, eTnjihn'ed in the fishery on these coasts, 
are often accompanied by a favourite child, and this youth 
may have been similarly circumstanced on board a prahu 
which had been wrecked upon the coast, when his youth 
and innocence may have preserved him from the general 
massacre of the crew^ which is stated by the Macassars 
to be the inevitable result of shipwreck on the coast of 
Melville Island. Many natives of the neighbouring 
islands must have been driven upon the north coast of 
Auatraha by the north-west gales which prevail in the 
early part of the year, as nearly every village on the 
south side of the Serwatty Mands has records of pi-ahus 
with their crews having been blown off to the south- 
east, which have never returned, except on a few occa- 
sions, in which they were so fortunate as to meet with 
the trepang fishers who are upon the coast during that 
season. 
As an illustration of the fact given by Captain King, 
which is not without a certain ethnograpliical imjjortance, 
I may mention that in the early part of 1843 a small 
Dutch sloop was driven into Port Essington before one 
of these north-west galea. She had been trading at the 
Kapalla Tannah of Timor, and was riding out the gale 
• YoL n, p. 240. 
