X.] THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 357 



Peruvians, and one or two other cultured peoples. But this very 

 beginning was clearly local, as shown by the fact that the Aztecs, 

 most advanced of all in so many respects, had not even got 

 beyond the raft, so that the sails hoisted by Cortez on their lagoons 

 terrified them as an unknown wonder. 



But in historic times America could be reached only by more 

 or less civilised peoples of specialised type, possessing, not merely 

 crazy junks, but real seaworthy vessels capable of long oceanic 

 voyages, and freighted with useful commodities to sustain life on 

 the journey and open trading relations on arrival. Moreover, one 

 or two casual trips would be useless in the present connection. 

 To produce any general effect such intercourse must have been 

 maintained for a considerable period of time, that is, the ocean 

 route to America must have become a beaten track in pre-Norse 

 and pre-Columbian days. Who is bold enough to associate his 

 name with such an assumption as that ? 



Again, these early navigators Phoenicians, Egyptians, Arabs, 

 Malays, Chinese, Japanese, Pelasgians, Mykenaeans wherever 

 they landed must have found the country either uninhabited, or 

 already occupied by the American aborigines ; or, is there any 

 other alternative? If uninhabited, then they took possession, 

 formed permanent settlements, and perpetuated their race and 

 culture. Or did they burn their ships behind them, like Caesar's 

 legionaries, and voluntarily relapse into savagery, beginning again 

 with the birch-bark canoe or coracle? But even so, the racial 

 type must have persisted, and one asks, where in America are 

 these early Phoenician, Egyptian, or other civilised and specialised 

 settlers ? 



If, on the other hand, the country was already held by. the 

 present natives did these learn nothing from their foreign friends 

 or foes ? And if anything what has become of it ? Where before 

 the discovery was the wheat or rice 1 , which could scarcely help 

 running wild in many places ? Where the dog, sheep, horse, ox, 

 pig, poultry, which once introduced must have thriven then as 



1 That is the true Asiatic cereal, not the "wild rice," or "Canada rice ; ' 

 (Zizania aquatica}, which is known to many North American tribes, and an 

 account of which is given by Mr Gardiner P. Stickney in the Amer. Anthropo- 

 logist for April, 1896. 



