4. The pretensions of the _Welsh_ have been put forth with not a little zeal, and have been considered by some as having more plausibility. They assert, that, about the year 1170, on the death of Owen Gwyneth, a strife for the succession arose among his sons; that one of them, disgusted with the quarrel, embarked in ten ships with a number of people, and sailed westward till he discovered an unknown land; that, leaving part of his people as a colony, he returned to Wales, and after a time again sailed with new recruits, and was never heard of afterwards. Southey has built on this tradition his beautiful poem of “Madoc,” the name of the fancied chieftain who was at the head of the enterprise. The writer, by whom the story was first published, is said, however, to have lived at least 400 years after the events, and discredit is thus thrown over the whole. Mr. Catlin, in the appendix to his second volume, forgetful, apparently, that he had already attributed certain rites and ceremonies of the same people to Jewish origin, seems to suppose that the Mandans are undoubted descendants of Madoc and his Welshmen, who, he thinks, entered the Gulf of Mexico, and sailed up the Mississippi even to the Ohio River, whence they afterwards emigrated to the Far West. He furnishes some words of the Mandan language, which he compares with the Welsh, and which must be allowed to have considerable resemblance to each other, for the same ideas. Still, the theory must be regarded as wholly fanciful. 5. A supposition more plausible than any other is, that America was peopled from the _northeastern part of Asia_. This seems to correspond with the general view of the Indians themselves, who represent their ancestors as having been formerly residents in Northwestern America. It corresponds also with history in another respect. By successive emigrations, Asia furnished Europe and Africa with their population, and why not America? If it could supply other quarters of the globe with millions, and these of various physical and moral characteristics, why not also supply America with its first inhabitants? The identity of the aborigines with the nations of Northeastern Asia cannot, indeed, be fully established; but, while many causes may have contributed to destroy this resemblance, enough is shown, with other facts, to make this theory preponderate over all others. If this supposition be true, it is not to be imagined that the emigration to this continent all took place at once. There were doubtless successive arrivals of persons from various parts of Asia; and thus the Indian traditions, which refer to the Northwest as the country of their ancestors, and to periods and intervals separating them, in which people of various character made their appearance, one after another, and left some traces of their residence, may be accounted for. [Illustration] [Illustration: _North American Indians in Council._] CLASSIFICATION OF THE INDIANS.