Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/201

Rh we have never seen them, we beg leave to throw our opinion into the scale. The most commonly received opinion is, we believe, that the first inhabitants came across from the Northern part of Asia, at Berring's Straits, where the distance between the shores of the two Continents is but short. This opinion, though it is very plausible, and, in fact, probable, as regards America, can not account for the peopling of many of the Islands in the Pacific Ocean far removed from the shores of either Continent. It is our opinion that the Western shores, if not the Continent of America and all the inhabited Islands of the Pacific, have been peopled from China and Japan. It is now known, with as much certainty, as are any existences or transactions, of which we have been informed by ancient history that the Chinese Empire has been in existence, that its people have been in many respects enlightened, and that records have been made and kept by them for several thousand years past. They had vessels in which they went to sea, but not having an extensive knowledge of navigation, they never ventured far from land; it, however, sometimes happened that they were blown off to a great distance, at sea, became lost and bewildered, and were left to the mercy of the wind and waves; in this condition we believe that these lost vessels have been driven and cast upon the shores of our Continent, and upon the inhabited Islands of the Pacific, where the people who thus saved themselves have increased and made the aborigines of this Continent, and those Islands, and that being discouraged by the improbability of their ever regaining their native country, and destitute of all their accustomed means of improvement they have descended, in the course of ages, into their present state of barbarism. None can object to this theory, on account of the diversity of features, complexion, and languages, who hold that the human race have descended