progressive ideas have exhibited him as a true type of the representative American." Lord Stanley then concluded by expressing the belief that the cordial principles which are fast influencing the nations of the world have changed foes to friends.

What heart is there that will not join in the cordial wish that the treaties made by the embassy with Great Britain, France, Prussia and other European powers may be the commencement of a new era in the diplomatic and national intercourse of China with those and all other lands of the West!

It has been questioned whether the government of China really means to fulfill the pledges made in its behalf by Mr. Burlingame and realize the hopes he has excited. This is certain, that the sense exists of the necessity of new relations with foreign governments, of a larger accordance with their spirit and principles, and of the introduction of many of those arts which make them superior in warfare and in influence over the happiness and condition of mankind. It is certain that the powerful party which supports him will be greatly affected by his personal influence and that of the members of the embassy and others who have of late years become acquainted with foreign lands and the improvements of modern science, among whom must be classed the scholars of Protestant missions, and even the returned Chinese visitors to California, Australia and other countries. But it is no less certain that the bad behavior of foreign smugglers of opium, acts of violence at the ports frequented by foreign shipping, the political intrigues of Romish priests and the failure of the powers which have contracted with China to fulfill their part, in the letter

or the spirit, may defeat or procrastinate the benefits which have been hoped for.

But whatsoever the course of other powers in the future toward China, we may trust that the posture of the government of the United States toward her will be unchanged; that the oldest and the newest empire of the world will mutually support, enrich and benefit each other, and that the younger will continue to act for the elder the friendly part of a mediator and interpreter with the other nations of the West.

CHAPTER XV.

ANCIENT CONNECTIONS WITH THIS CONTINENT.

UR ancestors four centuries ago found numerous

OUR

races of men, very different from any they had ever before seen, occupying this newly-discovered continent. And our further acquaintance with them shows that these races differ as much from each other as they differ from the people of Europe. In stature, in complexion, in the features of the face, in the shape of the skull, in pursuits, in domestic usages, in religious worship, in the measure of intellect and in energy, they widely vary. The widest contrasts have existed among those on the Pacific coast. The wretched Digger tribes are among the lowest of mankind. They lie on the ground in the sun, their low foreheads, bushy thickets of short hard hair filled with vermin, black skins, large mouths and small vacant eyes indicating a nature little above that of the brutes. And yet down that coast formerly ranged the Toltec and the Aztec, the remains of whose cities still exist, whose civilization compares with that of the nations of Southern Asia; and southward we find the remains of those of the former inhabitants of Central America and of Peru, which are fully as wonderful. One of the most interesting topics of the present volume will be the evidence that these civilized people were of Asiatic origin.

Whence originated the tribes of the Atlantic coast? -is a question which we will not here discuss. They have been claimed by learned men writing in behalf of the Jews, the Phoenicians, the Irish and the Welsh. Some men of learning do not doubt that the Scandinavian mariners traced our Atlantic coast from Greenland southward the whole length of our New England States, and deposited the seeds of communities which sprang up in wild forms there.1 And yet the narratives of those of them who returned to Europe show that they had found races of men already existing there. Whence came those races? The legends of some of them—translated by Schoolcraft and others-point to a long and dreary path, by many successive migrations, from the farthest north-west. And in this we find one cause of so great diversities in their character.

The way in which the first colonies were formed upon the Pacific shores must be borne in mind. They certainly neither originated from one spot, nor were commenced at one period. It seems reasonable to suppose that the earliest individuals found their way hither in the most remote ages of history, that as their number increased they slowly moved toward the south and west, forming naturally as they progressed new habits, new ideas, new sounds in speech, new peculiarities of constitution. Those longest here would impart most powerfully their acquired characteristics to the whole. And yet there would be manifest features impressed by the

'The most satisfactory accounts of these are contained in the Antiquitates Americana of RAFN (Danish Counselor of State) and the communications of himself, Repp and others in the Mémoires de la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord; Copenhague; 1836-39, pp. 369–385, and 1840-43, pp. 5-15, 80-131, 155-162.

elements added from time to time by successive additions from the Old World. Thus we may trace the sources of peculiarities which we find among the races of the New World.

The first class of evidence of the Asiatic origin of the former races of this continent we find in the great agencies of nature employed from age to age by the great Governor of the world, as it were appointed to bring them hither.

The ocean was by our fathers regarded as a great salt pond; its waters only moving in the disturbance of its surface by the winds, or as they rose and fell by the attraction of the moon. But later generations have discovered that it is animated by a mighty universal life, which circulates from pole to pole and around the globe. Cook and the earliest adventurers upon the mild Pacific observed the great currents which sweep, some with great rapidity, governed by the zone and by the conformation of the opposite continents, with majestic flow from shore to shore. They have now been laid down upon our charts and described by geographers. Much light has been thrown upon those of the North Pacific by the careful observations made in our naval and mercantile vessels. Great interest has attached to the successive developments of the fact that a vast current almost fills the immense surface of that portion of the Pacific within the temperate zone, resembling the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic ocean. Rising in the tropical zone, south of the Chinese coast, its genial warmth is expended at last upon the shores of California and Mexico, and even upon those of Peru. Its velocity, opposite the Japanese Islands, reaches seventy or eighty