216, WHENCE CAME THE LONG-HAIRED DOGS? 
fabrics before (as far as I know) they had inter- 
course with any civilised races. The art of 
dyeing the hair, and materials used with it, of 
different colours was also known to them, thus 
producing a regularly designed coloured pattern. 
Since the Hudson’s Bay Company introduced 
blankets, the native manufacture has entirely 
ceased, and the dog from which the hair was 
procured is extinct or very nearly. Whence came 
this singular white long-haired dog, possessed by 
only a few tribes inhabiting the coast, scrupu- 
lously kept on islands to prevent their extending 
or escaping, and differing in every specific detail 
from all the other breeds of dogs belonging to 
either coast or inland Indians? There are two 
ways, it would appear, in which it is possible for it 
to have been imported. The more probable sup- 
position is that it came from Japan; and I am 
informed by a friend who has been there, that the 
Japanese have a small long-haired dog, usually 
white, and from description very analogous to the 
dog that was shorn by the Indians of the coast 
and of Vancouver Island. 
There can be little doubt that the Japanese 
visited the coast of North Western America long 
prior to any other people; whether accidentally 
wrecked, or designedly landing to trade with the 
