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THE ANTE-NORSE DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA.
(CONCLUDED.)
THE CHINESE IN MEXICO IN THE FIFTH CENTURY.
The reader who would ascertain by the map whether it was likely that at an early period intercourse could have taken place between Eastern Asia and Western America, will have no difficulty in deciding on the geographical possibility of such transit. At Behring’s Straits only forty miles of water intervene between the two continents, while routes by the Aleutian Islands, or through the Sea of Ochotsk, present no great difficulties, even to a timid navigator. And the Chinese and Japanese of earlier ages were by no means timid in their voyages. It is only within two centuries that their governments, alarmed by the growing power of the Western world, and desirous of keeping their subjects at home, prohibited the construction of strictly sea-worthy and sea-faring vessels. Even within the memory of man, Japanese junks have been driven to the California coasts.
Impressed by the probability of such intercommunication, Johann Friedrich Neumann, a learned German Orientalist, while residing in China, during the years 1829-30, for the purpose of collecting Chinese works, after investigating the subject, published its results in a work, subsequently translated by me, under his supervision. Among the first results of his inquiries, was the fact that ’during the course of many centuries, the Chinese acquired a surprisingly accurate knowledge of the north-east coast of Asia, extending, as their records in astronomy and natural history prove, to the sixty-fifth degree of latitude, and even to the Arctic Ocean.’ From the Chinese Book