THE HUMAN SPECIES. 239 



The Northern Pacific was navigated by Japanese tribes 

 in ancient times, and is so even now, although, since 

 the appearance of European navigators, the trade has 

 been discontinued, if not absolutely forbidden ; yet, 

 within these few years, a British vessel boarded a Japa- 

 nese junk within two days sail of the Californian coast, 

 and found that it had drifted, without human care, for 

 many months, and that, of forty of the ship's company, 

 only seven persons survived. This vessel having lost 

 its course, was carried by the prevailing winds and cur- 

 rents of that portion of the Pacific to the eastward, and 

 was in all probability wrecked on the American coast, 

 after the living people had been taken out of her and 

 saved.* 



Here then we have likewise, on the east side, in- 

 stances, not of facilities, but of necessary consequences, 

 of vessels reaching the west coast, so soon as they are 

 placed within the influence of the winds and currents 

 which prevail, either constantly or at certain periods of 

 the year, in the latitudes above indicated ; nor is there 

 a want of proof, that canoes, with a proportion of Poly- 

 nesians, have survived the hardships of four months at 

 sea ; nor that they have been found at eight hundred 

 leagues distant from their homes ; -for both facts are 

 noticed by our navigators in the tropical Pacific, and 

 by the Aleuthians, a continuous chain of islands passing 

 from one quarter of the globe to the other, a route is 

 established, as if they were intended for an easy and 



* They were carried to the Sandwich Islands, and thence, 

 by the first opportunity, sent on to their native land. 



