146 ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



current from east to west between 2° and 12° north latitude, and the Gulf Stream 

 from west to east between tbe latitudes 45° and 50°, north. Of two bottles, cast 

 out together, in south latitude, on the coast of Africa, one was found on the Island 

 of Trinidad ; the other on Guernsey in the English channel. Another bottle, 

 thrown over off Cape Horn by an American master, in 1837, was picked up within 

 a few years on the coast of Ireland. 



In A. D. 1500, Pedro Cabral, while on his way from Portugal to the East Indies, 

 was driven to the coast of Brazil, which he thus accidentally discovered. In 

 1731, a batteau from Teneriffe came ashore near the mouth of the Orinoco. In 

 1797, the slaves in a ship from Africa rose upon the crew, who leaped into a boat 

 and cut it adrift. At the end of thirty-eight days the survivors were cast upon 

 Barbadoes. In 1799, six men in a boat from St. Helena lost their course, and after 

 being a month at sea, and resorting to cannibalism, as was the case in the previous 

 instance, four of them reached the South American coast alive. 



To account for the population of the islands of the Pacific, Sir Charles Lyell has 

 collected examples of the drifting of parties of savages to very great distances in 

 their frail canoes. In one case, eight months are reported to have been passed on 

 the broad ocean, with no other sustenance than the fishes they caught, and the 

 rain water they found means to secure. It is remarked, in the same connection, 

 that " the space traversed, in some instances was so great, that similar accidents 

 might suffice to transport canoes from various parts of Africa to South America, or 

 from Spain to the Azores, and from thence to North America." 1 



It seems necessary to concede that casual passages from the eastern to the western 

 continents have been possible in very rude ages ; and at whatever periods human 

 enterprise has ventured to leave the immediate proximity of the land, before the 

 arts of navigation were assisted by the compass, the probability of their occurrence 

 must have been great. 



There is within the American continent no deficiency of evidence tending to 

 confirm the presumptions that rest on maritime facts and principles. The 

 natives of Hispaniola are said to have intimated to Columbus that a black peoph 

 lived south and southeast of them. 2 According to Peter Martyr, Balboa, in 1511, 

 found " blackamoors" on the isthmus of Darien. 3 Torquemada says the Californians 

 signified to Yiscaino, in 1602, that there was a village of negroes not far from their 

 neighborhood. 4 A race of very white Indians was said to exist in Brazil.' 5 Huin- 



1 Principles of Geology, II. pp. 57-58. Mr. Gallatin was accustomed to assert that the Pacific 

 Islands were populated at a far more recent period than the American continent, as evinced by their 

 languages, and hence could not have contributed to the primitive occupation of this country. In one 

 place, he says, " Their colonization is of a date so comparatively recent that the Malay origin of the 

 inhabitants of Otahiti and the Sandwich Islands was immediately recognized when their vocabularies 

 were first brought to Europe. It seems probable that some of these people may have reached the main 

 land of America ; but they found the country inhabited, and either were killed or became mixed with 

 the ancient inhabitants. No trace of the Malay language is found on the western shores of America." 

 — Trans, of Am. Ethnol. Soc, I. p. 17 G. 



2 Herrera, I. 374. 3 Third Decade, p. 97. 



« Ycnega's Hist, of California, p. 239. 6 Southey's Hist, of Brazil, I. 339. 



