REMARKABLE COINCIDENCES. 12 1 
the land where the inhabitants enjoyed perpetual 
health and youthful beauty, where the wai ora 
(life-giving fountain) removed every internal mala¬ 
dy, and external deformity or decrepitude, from 
all those who were plunged beneath its salutary 
waters. A tabular view of a number of words in 
the Malayan, Asiatic, or the Madagasse, the Ame¬ 
rican, and the Polynesian languages, would pro¬ 
bably show, that at some remote period, either the 
inhabitants of these distant parts of the world 
maintained frequent intercourse with each other, 
or that colonies from some one of them, originally 
peopled, in part or altogether, the others. The 
striking analogy between the numerals and other 
parts of the language, and several of the customs, 
of the aborigines of Madagascar, and those of the 
Malays who inhabit the Asiatic islands, many thou¬ 
sands of miles distant in one direction, and of the 
Polynesians more remote in another, shows that 
they were originally one people, or that they had 
emigrated from the same source. Many words in 
the language, and several of the traditions, cus¬ 
toms, &c. of the Americans, so strongly resemble 
those of Asia, as to warrant the inference that they 
originally came from that part of the world. Whe¬ 
ther some of the tribes who originally passed from 
Asia, along the Kurile or Aleutian Islands, across 
Behring’s straits, to America, left part of their 
number, who were the progenitors of the present 
race inhabiting those islands; and that they, at 
some subsequent period, either attempting to fol¬ 
low the tide of emigration to the east, or steering 
to the south, were by the north-east trade-winds 
driven to the Sandwich Islands, whence they pro¬ 
ceeded to the southern groups ; or whether those 
who had traversed the north-west coast of Arne- 
