140 



THE SEA. 



boy brought down to be educated, were constantly taken for Japanese or Chinamen in 

 San Francisco, where there are 40,000 of the former people. Junks have on two occasions 

 been driven across the Pacific Ocean, and have landed their crews.* These facts 

 occurred in 1832-3 ; the first on the coast near Cape Flattery, North-west America, and 

 the second in the harbour of Oahu, Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands. In the former case 

 nil the crew but two men and a boy were killed by the natives. In the latter case, 



WHA.LERS AT WORK. 



however, the Sandwich Islanders treated the nine Japanese, forming the crew of the junk, 

 with kindness, and, when they saw the strangers so much resembling them in many 

 respects, said, " It is plain, now, we come from Asia." How easily, then, could we account 

 for the peopling of any island or coast in the Pacific. Whether, therefore, stress of weather 

 obliged some unfortunate Chinamen or Japanese to people America, or whether they, or, 

 at all events, some Northern Asiatics, took the " short sea route," rid Bering Straits, 



* Vide Washington Irving's "Astoria;" also, Sir Edward Belcher's "Voyage of the Sulphur" 



