Lane thinks the Arabs applied the name of Wák Wák to all the islands with
which they were acquainted on the east and south-east of Borneo. Es
Serafee, beside the details given in a previous note, also says, "From one
of these islands of Wák Wák there issueth a great torrent like pitch,
which floweth into the sea, and the fish are burnt thereby, and float upon
the water." And Hasan, in the story quoted above, has, in order to reach
the last of the seven islands of Wák Wák, to pass over the third island,
the land of the Jinn, "where by reason of the vehemence of the cries of
the Jánn, and the rising of the flames about, of the sparks and the smoke
from their mouths, and the harsh sounds from their throats, and their
insolence, they will obstruct the way before us," &c. &c. I think that in
each of these latter instances, the volcanic islands of Java, and other of
the Sunda islands are indicated.
The information in our possession is as yet too meagre to permit of our
indulging in any profitable consideration of the sources from which
originated those nations which peopled America during the very early
pre-traditional ages, of which geological evidence is accumulating daily.
In fact, the theories on this point have advanced so little beyond the
limits of speculation that I feel it unnecessary to do more than quote one
of them, as summarized in the ensuing extract. "Professor Flowers, in
remarking upon recent palæontological investigations, which prove that an
immense number of forms of terrestrial animals that were formerly supposed
to be peculiar to the Old World are abundant in the New; and that many,
such as the horse, rhinoceros, and the camel, are more numerous in species
and varieties in the latter, infers that the means of land communication
must have been very different to what it is now, and that it is quite as
likely that Asiatic man may have been derived from America as the reverse,
or both may have had their source in a common centre, in some region of
the earth now covered with sea."[120]
The most commonly accepted theory with regard to the origin of those who
have peopled the American continent, within the limits of tradition, is
that they are of Asiatic descent, and that the migration has been effected
in comparatively recent times by way of Behring Straits, and supplemented
by chance passages from Southern Asia by way of the Polynesian islands, or
from the north of Africa, across the Atlantic. There are, however, some
who elaborate Professor Flowers' suggestion, and contend, in opposition to
the more generally received opinion, that the peopling of the present
countries of the Old World has in fact been effected from the New.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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