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 Islands in this last voyage, has added some links to the chain. But Captain Cook had not an opportunity of carrying his researches into the more westerly parts of the North Pacific. The reader, therefore, of the following work will not, perhaps, think that the editor was idly employed when he subjoined some notes, which contain abundant proof that the inhabitants of the Ladrones, or Marianne islands, and those of the Carolines, are to be traced to the same common source, with those of the islands visited by our ships. With the like view of exhibiting a striking picture of the amazing extent of this oriental language, which marks, if not a common original, at least an intimate intercourse between the inhabitants of places so very remote from each other, he has inserted a comparative table of their numerals, upon a more enlarged plan than any that has hitherto been executed. [Footnote 60: History of Japan, vol. i. p. 93.]