10 INTRODUCTION. 



This, if not satisfactory, is at least ingenious. Modern ethnologists, however, turn to 

 language as the best evidence of origin. Dr. Pickering, of the United States exploring expe- 

 dition, seems disposed, from an observation of some Japanese whom he encountered at the 

 Hawaiian islands, to assign to them a Malay origin. Others, judging from language, consider 

 them of the Mongol stock. Very close affinities cannot probably be found between the Japanese 

 and any other Asiatic language ; but in its grammatical structure the Yomi of Japan is by 

 some thought to be most analogous to the languages of the Tartar family. Siebold found, as 

 he supposed, analogies between it and the idioms of the Coreans, and the Kurilians, who occupy 

 the islands of Jesso and Tarakai or Karafto. He has described the coast of Tartary opposite to 

 this last island, (called improperly by Europeans Sakhalian,) and thinks he finds a resemblance 

 in citstoms ; but Klaproth has shown that the language of the Tartary coast (Sandan) is a 

 Tungusian dialect;, and says that the language of Japan bears no decided marks of affinity either 

 with it or with any other of the idionas named by Siebold. It is clearly not Tungusian. Kla- 

 proth's vocabularies of some of the idioms of Asia, particularly of the Mongolian, the Finnish, 

 and some Indian dialects, show a very considerable number of simple and original words which 

 belong also to the Japanese. In the present state of our information, the more commonly 

 received opinion seems to be that the Japanese are of the Tartar family. But they certainly do 

 not all have the Tartar complexion or physiognomy. The common people, according to Thim- 

 berg, are of a yellowish color all over, sometimes bordering on brown and sometimes on white. 

 The laboring classes, who in summer expose the upper parts of their bodies, are always brown. 

 Their eyes are not round, but oblong, small and sunk deep in the head. In color they are 

 generally dark brown or rather black, and the eyelids form in the great angle of the eye a deep 

 furrow, which gives them the appearance of being sharp or keen sighted. Their heads are 

 large and their necks short, their hair black, thick, and from their use of oil, glossy. Their 

 noses, although not flat, are yet rather thick and short. 



The inhabitants of the coast of Kiu-siu, according to Siebold, differ in physical aspect, as 

 well as in other respects, from those in the interior of the island. Their hair is most freq^uently 

 black, in some cases crisped, the facial angle is strongly marked, the lips puffed, the nose 

 small, slightly aquiline and depressed at the root. In the interior the people, mostly agricul- 

 turists, are a larger race, with broad and flattened countenances, prominent cheek bones, large 

 space between the inner angles of the eyes, broad and very flat noses, with large mouths and a 

 reddish brown skin. 



But beside these, Thunberg also tells us that the descendants of the eldest and noblest 

 families, of the princes and lords of the Empire, are somewhat majestic in their shape and 

 countenance, being more like Europeans, and that ladies of distinction, who seldom go out into 

 the open air without being covered, are perfectly white. Siebold also, speaking of the inhab- 

 itants of Kiu-siu, informs us that "the women who protect themselves from the influences of 

 the atmosphere have generally a fine and white skin, and the cheeks of the young girls display 

 a blooming carnation." 



These facts, as Dr. Latham has said, do not necessarily involve the assumption of a double 

 source of population, while, at the same time, such a second source is not an ethnological 

 improbability. The darker race, he intimates, may have come from Formosa. 



