HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 27 



fer by this means may be reasonably thought of as a possibility 



but hesitate to allow that it is a probability. 



. "There is a great sea [the INIediterranean], and to the west of 



this sea there are comitless countries, but Mu-lan-p'i 

 Kefml'Til'ix^i'oVo^ [^lediterranean Spain] is the one country which is 



visited by the big ships . . . Putting to sea from 

 T^o-pan-ti [Suez of to-day] . . . after sailing due west for full an 

 hundred days, one reaches this country. A single one of these (big) 

 ships of theirs carries several thousand men, and on board they have 



stores of wine and provisions as well as weaving 



Giant Ships of the i tj? ^ i' ^ • ^ • ,i 



Meditenaneau ioouLs. it ouc speaks o± big ships, there are none so 



big as those of Mu-lan-p'i." . . , 



•* If one travels by land (from Mu-lan-p'i) 200 days' journey, the 

 days are only six hours long.'' ^ 



In the seventh century trade was carried on between Canton, 

 China, and the Persian Gulf, a sailing distance of G,000 miles, and 

 the voyage was even continued to Japan, which would extend it to 

 8,000 or more miles, and so extensive was the intercourse between 

 eastern and western Asia that b}' the "middle of the eighth century 

 the Mohammedans at Canton . . . had become so numerous that in 

 758 they were able, for some reason which has not come down to us, to 

 sack and burn the city and make olf to sea with their loot."- In the 

 eighth century the ships engaged in the Chinese trade with the 

 southern Asiatics (Hindus, Arabs, and Malays) '* were very large, so 

 high out of the water that ladders several tens of feet in length had 

 to be used to get aboard.^ The Government of China took steps to 

 encourage the trade by sea, which became extensive, and the Em- 

 peror sent a mission abroad with credentials under the imperial 

 seal and provisions of gold and piece goods to induce " the foreign 

 traders of the South Sea and those who went to foreign lands beyond 

 the sea to trade " to come to China.* 



It may be objected to the suggestion here made regarding the 

 possible transfer of cultural elements by means of extended ocean 

 voyages by the orientals, that the date is subsecjuent to the period of 

 greatest Amei'ican development, but who shall say that the mastery 

 of the sea known to have been attained in the Orient 500 A. D. had 

 not been achieved long prior to that date ? 



On the Pacific side of the ximerican Continent numerous culture 

 coincidences are noted which seem to indicate that the broad Pacific 

 has not proved a complete bar to the intercourse of peoples of the 

 opposing continents. It is indeed quite impossible to say with 

 respect to the Middle American analogies whether the advanced 

 maritime peoples of southeastern Asia one or two thousand years 

 ago would be more likely to have reached America by way of New 



iIIirthandRoclihill.ChauJu-kua, pp. 142-143. Mhid., p. 15. 2 i^ifj.^ p. 9. Mbid., p. 19. 



