opia to the Indies. Benjamin of
Tudela, who travelled in the eleventh century through Persia, mentions
that in some of the provinces, at the time of that decree, the Jews
occupied forty cities, two hundred boroughs, one hundred castles, which
contained 300,000 people. I incline to the opinion that 300,000 of the
tribes left Persia.

There is no doubt that, in the march from the Euphrates to the
north-east coast of Asia, many of the tribes hesitated in pursuing the
journey: some remained in Tartary, many went into China. Alverez states
in his History of China, that the Jews had been living in that kingdom
for more than six hundred years. He might with great probability have
said 1,600 years. He speaks of their being very numerous in some of the
provinces, and having synagogues in many of the great cities, especially
in that of Hinan and in its metropolis Kai-tong-fu, where he represents
them to have a magnificent place of worship, and a repository, the Holy
Volume, adorned with richly embroidered curtains, in which they preserve
an ancient Hebrew manuscript roll.

They know but little of the Mosaic law, and only repeat the names of
David, Abraham, Isaiah, and Jacob. In a Hebrew letter written by the
Jews of Cochin-China to their brethren at Amsterdam, they give as the
date of their retiring into India, the period when the Romans conquered
the Holy Land.

It is clearly evident, therefore, that the tribes, in their progress to
a new and undiscovered country, left many of their numbers in China and
Tartary, and finally reached the Straits of Behring, where no difficulty
prevented their crossing to the north-west coast of America, a distance
less than thirty miles, interspersed with the Copper Islands, probably
frozen over; and reaching our continent, spread themselves in the course
of two thousand years to Cape Horn, the more hardy keeping to the north,
to Labrador, Hudson's Bay, and Greenland; the more cultivated fixing
their residence in the beautiful climate and rich possessions of Central
America, Mexico, and Peru.

But it may here be asked, could the scattered remnants of Israel have
had the courage to penetrate through unknown regions, and encounter the
hardships and privations of that inhospitable country? Could they have
had the fortitude, the decision, the power, to venture on a dreary
pilgrimage of eighteen months, the time mentioned by Esdras as the
period of their journey? Could they not? What obsta