Note 29 — ON STEPPES AND DESERTS.

p. 12.—“The history of the peopling of Japan.”

I believe I have succeeded in showing, in my work on the monuments of the American primitive races,^[GH] by an examination of the Mexican and Thibetian-Japanese calendars, by a correct determination of the position of the Scansile Pyramids, and by the ancient myths which record four revolutions of the world and the dispersion of mankind after a great deluge, that the western nations of the New Continent maintained relations of intercourse with those of Eastern Asia, long before the arrival of the Spaniards. These observations have derived additional weight, since the appearance of my work, from the facts recently published in England, France, and the United States, regarding the remarkable pieces of sculpture carved in the Indian style, which have been discovered in the ruins of Guatimala and Yucatan.^[GI] The ancient architectural remains found in the peninsula of Yucatan testify more than those of Palenque, to an astonishing degree of civilization. They are situated between Valladolid, Merida, and Campeche, chiefly in the western portion of the country. But the monuments on the island of Cozumel, (properly Cuzamil,) east of Yucatan, were the first which were seen by the Spaniards in the expedition of Juan de Grijalva in 1518, and in that of Cortes in 1519. Their discovery tended to diffuse throughout Europe an exalted idea of the advanced condition of ancient 132Mexican civilization. The most important ruins of the peninsula of Yucatan (unfortunately not yet thoroughly measured and drawn by architects) are those of the “Casa del Gobernador” of Uxmal, the Teocallis and vaulted constructions at Kabah, the ruins of Labnan with its domed pillars, those of Zayi which exhibit columns of an order of architecture nearly approaching the Doric, and those of Chiche with large ornamented pilasters. An old manuscript written in the Maya language by a Christian Indian, which is still in the hands of the “Gefe politico” of Peto, Don Juan Rio Perez, gives the different epochs (Katunes of 52 years) at which the Toltecs settled in different parts of the peninsula. Perez would infer from these data that the architectural remains of Chiche go back as far as the fourth century of our era, whilst those of Uxmal belong to the middle of the tenth century; but the accuracy of these historical deductions is open to great doubt.^[GJ]

I regard the existence of a former intercourse between the people of Western America and these of Eastern Asia as more than probable, although it is impossible at the present time to say by what route and with which of the tribes of Asia this intercourse was established. A small number of individuals of the cultivated hierarchical castes may perhaps have sufficed to effect great changes in the social condition of Western America. The fabulous accounts formerly current regarding Chinese expeditions to the New Continent refer merely to expeditions to Fusang or Japan. It is, however, possible that Japanese and Sian-Pi may have been driven by storms from the Corea to the American coasts. We know as matters of history that Bonzes and other adventurers navigated the Eastern Chinese seas in search of a remedial agent capable of making man immortal. Thus under Tschin-chi-huang-ti three hundred young couples were dispatched to Japan in the year 209 before our era, who, instead of returning to China, settled on the Island of Nipon.^[GK] May not accident have led to similar expeditions to 133the Fox Islands, to Alaschka, or New California? As the western coasts of the American continent incline from north-west to south-east, and the eastern coasts of Asia from north-east to south-west, the distance between the two continents in the milder zone, which is most conducive to mental development (45° lat.), would appear too considerable to admit of an accidental settlement having been made in this latitude. We must therefore assume that the first landing took place in the ungenial climate of 55° and 65°, and that cultivation, like the general advance of population in America, progressed by gradual stations from north to south.^[GL] It was even believed in the beginning of the sixteenth century that the fragments of ships from Catayo, i.e. from Japan or China, had been found on the coasts of the Northern Dorado, called also Quivira and Cibora.^[GM]

We know as yet too little of the languages of America entirely to renounce the hope that, amid their many varieties, some idiom may be discovered, that has been spoken with certain modifications in the interior of South America and Central Asia, or that might at least indicate an ancient affinity. Such a discovery would undoubtedly be one of the most brilliant to which the history of the human race can hope to attain! But analogies of language are only deserving of confidence where mere resemblances of sound in the roots are not alone the object of research, but attention is also directed to the organic structure, the grammatical forms, and those elements of language which manifest themselves as the product of the intellectual power of man.