THE TWO RACES WHICH PEOPLED POLYNESIA. 
37 
forming as it were a family altar, which always burnt in 
honour of their great ancestor, around whom his descend- 
ants assembled and rested under his protection. The chief 
could not eat, or drink, or smoke in his house, because it 
was sacred, and to mark its being so it was painted red ; 
when he took his meals he sat outside in the verandah, and 
his children, wives, and followers went into the open marae. 
The house too was generally called after the great ancestor 
of the chief, as Te tihi o Manono , the top-knot of Manono. 
These are a few of the connecting links between the Maori 
and the Chinese. 
It is evident that the Chinese have early visited the shores 
of Am erica, and doubtless, imparted much of the civilization 
which its inhabitants had attained when found by the Euro- 
pean. How greatly will our knowledge of the southern 
hemisphere be increased when our acquaintance with Chinese 
literature becomes increased. It is now pretty clear that some 
Chinese junk drifted to the coast of Mexico, and that Ame- 
rica was known to that singular people many centuries 
before its discovery by Columbus. In the year 499 a 
Bonze wrote an account of a country in the far east, which 
he called Fou-Sang, and the description closely agrees 
with what we know of Mexico in its most flourishing and 
civilized period. The only thing contrary to our know- 
ledge is, that the Bonze speaks of horses, and it has always 
been assumed there were no horses in any part of the Ame- 
rican continent until they were carried there by the Spaniards. 
The Bonze mentions a sort of deer which the natives of the 
country employed as beasts of burthen ; this was clearly the 
alpaca.* The mention of the alpaca seems rather to refer to 
Peru, and the period the Bonze wrote would nearly agree with 
that of Manco Capac : but however that may be, it appears, 
independent of other reasons, highly probable that America 
received its civilization from China, if not its original in- 
habitants ; at any rate, there is a singular proof not only 
that the Chinese or eastern Asiatics have been in America, 
* Recherclies sur le Navigations des Chinois de Cote de V Amerique, par M. 
de Guignes. 
