THE RELATIONSHIP OF THK AMEKICAN LANGUAGES. 73 



parent stock. To the Basque are intimately related the brown races 

 of Africa (the Berbers, Foulah, Houssa), the old Egyptians and the 

 pre-seiuitic Accadians. The migrations of these primitive Eur-Afri- 

 can races into America must have taken place at a very remote 

 period ; it may be however that several distinct migrations have in 

 course of time taken place. The routes by which they reached 

 America were by land from Western Europe to Labrador and across 

 the Atlantic (or over the isle of Atlantis) to Florida, the West 

 Indies and South America. The eai-liest to migrate were probably 

 the ancient Peruvians, (who may have reached South America while 

 land connection between it and North America by the isthmus of 

 Panama did not yet exist) the Maya-Quiches, and the ancestox-s of the 

 Eskimos. Certain South American tribes probably migrated from 

 Africa at a time much more recent. 



At a very early period migrations to Asia must have taken place, 

 the result being to develop the various Mongol tribes of Northern 

 Asia and the Finns, Lapps and Esthonians of Europe. It may seem 

 strange to attempt to derive the Japanese and Chinese from America. 

 The philological relations of the Basque and Japanese, and the rela- 

 tions which the Japanese seems to bear to the Dakota and Cherokee- 

 Muskhogee families can best be explained in this way. And a few 

 coincidences can be noted between the Eskimo and the languages 

 mentioned. A recent writer (Our Arctic Province Alaska, H. W. 

 Elliott) would see in the Aleuts a connecting link between the 

 Eskimo and the Japanese, and, though favoring an Asiatic orign for 

 the Eskimo, he refers the migration to a very remote period. An 

 American origin for the Japanese is just as reasonable. The Chinese 

 have ever been a puzzle to the ethnologist ; all we know of them is 

 that they seem to have appeared tirst in the north ; and to derive 

 them also from America is as satisfactory as the solutions of the 

 problem which have hitherto been proposed. It may be objected, 

 that to derive the American aborigines from Africa or Europe would 

 not give sufficient time for their eai-ly spread into Asia and the 

 development of their civilizations in America and Asia. But the 

 existence of an Iberian race in Europe in the Neolithic age is con- 

 ceded ; and the brown race [one of whose representatives, the Fou- 

 lahs, are described by Mollien (Voyage en Afrique 1818 vol. 1 p. 

 275) as " redskins and nomads " (hommes de couleur rouge et des 

 nomades)] have dwelt in Northei'n Africa from time immemorial. 



