MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS. 191 



logged, and witli only her foremast and bowsprit standing ; 

 having heen four months buffeting with the fearful winter 

 gales of those latitudes. , 



Eobertson, ia his History of America, states, that previous 

 to the discovery of that portion of the globe, trees, torn up , 

 by the roots, were not unfrequently driven upon the coast 

 of the Azores after a course of westerly wind, and that, " at 

 one time, the dead bodies of two men with siagular features, 

 resembling neither the inhabitants of Europe nor of Africa, 

 were cast ashore there." If we may venture to give credit 

 to this statement, it must be inferred, that these unfortunate 

 men were natives of North America, who had been drifted 

 to sea in their frail canoe of birch bark It must be con- 

 fessed there is difficulty in understanding how men placed 

 in such desperate circumstances, would have supported life 

 duiing the greater part of their perilous voyage, for they 

 must have perished at no great distance from the Azores, to 

 have been found in the state described by Eobertson. 



It is true that the prevailing westerly winds and the cur- 

 rent of the gulf stream in that latitude, both greatly assist 

 in drifting trees and other floating substances towards the 

 shores of the A^iores, but it is doubtful whether man, under 

 the most favorable circumstances, could survive that slow 

 process in' an Indian canoe. By suCh means however, the 

 distant islands of the Pacific appear to have been peopled, 

 and were it not for the tempestuous character of the Atlan- 

 tic, the islands of Bermuda would probably have been found 

 popidated by a race of Indians from the coast of North 

 America. * 



* The Island of MaxJeira, which is in the same latitude as the Bermudas, 

 was also uninhabited by the human race when discovered by Bartholomew 

 Perestrello. 



