This man, by the way, was furnished with two wives, mother and daughter, and, as he was above the ordinary size, Captain Mouatt expresses some curiosity as to the appearance of the progeny. He made his escape from the island before the birth of a child that one of his wives was expecting, and, as the Mincopie mothers are remarkable for their affection toward their children, it is likely that the little half-caste was allowed to live, and that a new element may thus be introduced into the race. They have more than once made use of their swimming powers in escaping from captivity. Several instances have been known where Andamaners have been kept prisoners on board ship, and have seemed tolerably reconciled to their lot. As soon, however, as the ship neared land, they contrived to escape for a moment from the eye of the sentry, slipped overboard, and swam to land. They always dived as soon as they struck the water, swam as far as they could without rising to the surface, and then, after taking a single respiration, dived again, and so swam the greater part of the distance under water. This mode of swimming was doubtless practised by them when trying to escape from the arrows of an unfriendly party. In Captain Syme’s “Embassy to Ava” there is a curious account of two young Mincopie girls who had been decoyed on board the ship. They were treated very kindly, and soon learned that no harm would be done to them. “They suffered clothes to be put on, but took them off again as soon as opportunity offered, and threw them away as useless encumbrances. When their fears were over, they became cheerful, chattered with freedom, and were inexpressibly diverted at the sight of their own persons in a mirror. “They were fond of singing, sometimes in a melancholy recitative, at others in a lively key; and often danced about the deck with great agility, slapping the lower part of their bodies with the back of their heels. Wine and spirituous liquors were disagreeable to them; no food seemed so palatable as fish, rice, and sugar. In a few weeks, having recovered strength and become fat, from the more than half-famished state in which they were brought on board, they began to think confinement irksome, and longed to regain their native freedom. “In the middle of the night, when all but the watchman were asleep, they passed in silence into the Captain’s cabin, jumped out of the stern windows into the sea, and swam to an island half a mile distant, where it was in vain to pursue them, had there been any such intention; but the object was to retain them by kindness, and 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 that their want is satisfied nothing short of coercion can prevent them from returning to a way of life more congenial to their savage nature.”