(inhabiting a district bordering on the
north side of the strait of Magalhaens,) whose stature considerably
exceeds that of the bulk of mankind, will no longer be doubted or
disbelieved. And the ingenious objections of the sceptical author of
_Recherches sur les Americains_,[59] will weigh nothing in the balance
against the concurrent and accurate testimony of Byron, Wallis, and
Carteret.

[Footnote 59: Tom. i. p. 331.]

Perhaps there cannot be a more interesting enquiry than to trace the
migrations of the various families or tribes that have peopled the
globe; and in no respect have our late voyages been more fertile in
curious discoveries. It was known in general, (and I shall use the words
of Kaempfer,[60]) that the Asiatic nation called Malayans "in former
times, had by much the greatest trade in the Indies, and frequented with
their merchant ships, not only all the coasts of Asia, but ventured even
over to the coasts of Africa, particularly to the great island of
Madagascar.[61] The title which the king of the Malayans assumed to
himself, of _Lord of the Winds and Seas to the East and to the West_, is
an evident proof of this; but much more the Malayan language, which
spread most all over the East, much after the same manner as formerly
the Latin, and of late the French, did all over Europe." Thus far, I
say, was known. But that from Madagascar to the Marqueses and Easter
Island, that is, nearly from the east side of Africa, till we approach
toward the west side of America, a space including above half the
circumference of the globe, the same tribe or nation, the Phoenicians,
as we may call them, of the oriental world, should have made their
settlements, and founded colonies throughout almost every intermediate
stage of this immense tract, in islands at amazing distances from the
mother continent, and ignorant of each other's existence; this is an
historical fact, which could be but very imperfectly known before
Captain Cook's two first voyages discovered so many new-inhabited spots
of land lurking in the bosom of the South Pacific Ocean; and it is a
fact which does not rest solely on similarity of customs and
institutions, but has been established by the most satisfactory of all
proofs, that drawn from affinity of language. Mr Marsden, who seems to
have considered this curious subject with much attention, says, "that
the links of the latitudinal chain remain yet to be traced."[40] The
discovery of the Sandwich I