A NUMBER of facts, taken from the occurrences of later times,
may be alleged to support the theory of a former intercourse of
China and Japan with the islands which lie between those
countries and America, and also with the western coast of the
latter. Even if the Chinese and Japanese (to whom, with their
knowledge of the compass, such an enterprise would have
presented no difficulties) have never at any time intentionally
undertaken a voyage to America, it has nevertheless happened
that ships from Eastern Asia, China, and Japan, as well as those
of Russians from Ochotsk and Kamtschatka, have been cast away on
the islands and coasts of the New World. 1 The earliest Spanish
travellers and discoverers heard of foreign merchants who had
landed on the north-west coast of America, and even assert that
they saw fragments of a Chinese vessel. 2 This much we know,
that the crew of a Japanese junk accidentally discovered a great
continent in the East, remained there over winter, and safely
returned home. The Japanese