54 ON THE OEIGIN AND MIGRATIONS OP THE POLYNESIAN NATION. 



tlon of tliose that have heeii preferred for the Jews in general or 

 the Ten Lost Tribes in particular. There are four principal writers 

 on this subject, viz., Garcia, a Spaniard ; Lord Kingsborough,an 

 enthusiastic Englisliman ; and a Dr. Boudinot, an American divine, 

 of Huguenot descent ; but none of these writers give us any 

 rational idea as to how the Jews could ever have crossed the 

 Pacific, or any proof of the identity of the Indo-Americans with 

 the Jewish people, while the far-fetched and strained analogies 

 on which they base their theory are evidently the mere offspring 

 of a warm imagination. If my theory as to the origin of the 

 Polynesian nation is well founded (as I am confident it is) , that 

 nation must in all likelihood have taken its departure from the 

 Indian Archipelago as early as the age of Abraham himself, and 

 long before the Jews became a nation at all, and in this opinion 

 I am not singular. 



" Much," says Mr. Bancroft, " has been written to prove that 

 the north-western parts of America were discovered and peopled 

 by Scandinavians long before the time of Columbus. Although a 

 great part of the evidence upon which this belief rests is unsatisfac- 

 tory, and mixed up with much that is vague and undoubtedly fabu- 

 lous, yet it seems to be not entirely destitute of historical proof." 



Again, " AVe come now," says Mr. Bancroft, " to the theory 

 that the Americans, or at least part of them, are of Celtic 

 origin," and then he gives us the legend of Madoc, a prince of 

 Wales, having crossed over to America, as also the opinion of Lord 

 Monboddo that America was colonized and settled by Scotch High- 

 landers who had left their language in the country in proof of it. 



Mr. Bancroft then alludes to the story of Atlantis, " as old as 

 Plato," that is, of a submerged lost land that once lay " to the west 

 of Europe," by which it has been alleged emigrants from the old 

 world had originally crossed over by dry land to America. But 

 there are two things fatal to all these theories. 1st. That there 

 is no reliable evidence whatever of either a Scandinavian, or a 

 "Welsh, or of any other emigration westward from the old world 

 to America. The emigrants of all these countries died and left 

 no sign, no progeny. But even if there had been any consider- 

 able emigration from Europe to America, the three eminent 

 authorities I have quoted — Humboldt, Dr. Morton, and Dr. Yon 

 Martins — assure us that the Indo-Americans could never have 

 descended from any people of the old world, there being no other 

 nation upon earth with which they have the slightest affinity. 



" Hence it is," says Mr. Bancroft, " many not unreasonably 

 assume that the Americans are autochthones (or created on the 

 spot) until there is some good ground given for believing them 

 to be of exotic origin."* Now this is the very desideratum I 



* Ibid, 131. 



