[67]. History of Japan, vol. i. p. 93.
[68]. That the Malayans have not only frequented Madagascar, but have also been the progenitors of some of the present race of inhabitants there, is confirmed to us by the testimony of Monsieur de Pages, who visited that island so late as 1774. “Ils m’ont paru provenir des diverses Races; leur couleur, leurs cheveux, et leur corps l’indiquent. Ceux que je n’ai pas cru originaires des anciens naturels du pays, sont petits et trapus; ils ont les cheveux presque unis, et sont olivâtres comme les Malayes, avec qui ils ont, en général, une espece de resemblance.”
Voyages des M. des Pages, T. ii. p. 90.
[69]. Archæolog. vol. vi. p. 155. See also his History of Sumatra, p. 166, from which the following passage is transcribed. “Besides the Malaye, there are a variety of languages spoken on Sumatra, which, however, have not only a manifest affinity among themselves, but also to that general language which is found to prevail in, and to be indigenous to, all the islands of the eastern seas; from Madagascar to the remotest of Captain Cook’s discoveries, comprehending a wider extent than the Roman or any other tongue has yet boasted. In different places, it has been more or less mixed and corrupted; but between the most dissimilar branches, an eminent sameness of many radical words is apparent; and in some very distant from each other, in point of situation: As, for instance, the Philippines and Madagascar, the deviation of the words is scarcely more than is observed in the dialects of neighbouring provinces of the same kingdom.”
[70]. We are indebted to Sir Joseph Banks, for a general outline of this, in Hawkesworth’s Collection, vol. iii. p. 777. The reader will find our enlarged Table at the end of the third volume, Appendix, No. 2.
[71]. See Crantz’s History of Greenland, vol. i. p. 262.; where we are told that the Moravian Brethren, who, with the consent and furtherance of Sir Hugh Palliser, then Governor of Newfoundland, visited the Esquimaux on the Labradore coast, found that their language, and that of the Greenlanders, do not differ so much as that of the High and Low Dutch.
[72]. See Appendix, No. 6. The Greenlanders, as Crantz tells us, call themselves Karalit; a word not very unlike Kanagyst, the name assumed by the inhabitants of Kodiack, one of the Schumagin islands, as Stæhlin informs us.
[73]. A contempt of revelation is generally the result of ignorance, conceited of its possessing superior knowledge. Observe how the Author of Recherches Philosophiques sur les Américains, expresses himself on this very point. “Cette distance que Mr. Antermony veut trouver si peu importante, est à-peu-près de huit cent lieues Gauloises au travers d’un ocean perilleux, et impossible à franchir avec des canots aussi chetifs et aussi fragiles que le sont, au rapport d’Ysbrand Ides, les chaloupes des Tunguses,” &c. &c. t. i. p. 156. Had this writer known that the two continents are not above thirteen leagues (instead of eight hundred) distant from each other, and that, even in that narrow space of sea, there are intervening islands, he would not have ventured to urge this argument in opposition to Mr. Bell’s notion of the quarter from which North America received its original inhabitants.
[74]. Soon after our departure from England, I was instructed by Captain Cook to complete a map of the world as a general chart, from the best materials he was in possession of for that purpose; and before his death this business was in a great measure accomplished: That is, the grand outline of the whole was arranged, leaving only those parts vacant or unfinished, which he expected to fall in with and explore. But on our return home, when the fruits of our voyage were ordered by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to be published, the care of the general chart being consigned to me, I was directed to prepare it from the latest and best authorities; and also to introduce Captain Cook’s three successive tracts, that all his discoveries, and the different routs he had taken might appear together; by this means to give a general idea of the whole. This task having been performed by me, it is necessary, for the information of the reader, to state the heads of the several authorities which I have followed in such parts of the chart as differ from what was drawn up immediately under the inspection of Captain Cook. And when the public are made acquainted, that many materials, necessary to complete and elucidate the work, were not at the time on board the Resolution, or in his possession, the reason will appear very obvious, why these alterations and additions were introduced contrary to the original drawing.
First, then, I have followed closely the very excellent and correct charts of the Northern Atlantic Ocean, published by Messrs. de Verdun de la Crenne, de Borda, et Pringre in 1775 and 1776; which comprise the coast of Norway from the Sud Hoek, in the latitude of 62 degrees north, to Trelleburg, Denmark, the coast of Holland, north coast of Great Britain, Orkneys, Shetland, Ferro Isles, Iceland, coasts of France, Spain, and Portugal, to Cape St. Maria on the coast of Africa; including the Azores, Canaries, Cape de Verd, Antilles, and West Indian islands from Barbadoes to the east end of Cuba; the north part of Newfoundland and the Labradore coast, as far as the latitude of 57° north.