After the artificialities of Keane and Fewkes, it is a satisfaction to turn back to the writings of the old ethnologists who lived in the days before the so-called “psychological” and “evolutionary explanations” were invented, and were content to accept the obvious interpretation of the known facts. More than eighty years ago, Ellis (=15=, p. 117) with remarkable insight explained the relationships of the Polynesians and their wanderings, from Western Asia to America, with a lucidity and definiteness which must excite the enthusiastic admiration of those familiar with the fuller information now available. On p. 119 he cites an interesting series of racial factors, usages and beliefs in substantiation of the cultural link between the Pacific Islands and America. Quite apart from the mere evidence provided by the arts, customs and beliefs in favour of the transmission of certain of the essential elements of American civilization from the Old World, there is a considerable amount of evidence of another kind, consisting no doubt to a large extent of mere scraps. For instance, there are not only the stories of Chinese and Japanese junks arriving on the American shore and of American traditions of the coming of pale-faced bearded men from the east,[20] but there is also a certain amount of evidence from the physical characters of the population themselves. It has been raised as an objection by many people that if there had been any considerable emigration of Polynesians into America they would have left a much more definite trace of their coming in the physical characters of the people of America than is supposed the case. But this argument does not necessarily carry very much weight, for the number of such Polynesians who reached America would have been a mere drop in the ocean of the vast aboriginal population of the Americas. Moreover, there is a certain amount of evidence of the presence of people with Polynesian traits in certain parts of the Pacific littoral. Von Humboldt stated the people of Mexico and Peru had much larger beards and moustaches than the rest of the Indians. But there is a more striking instance in substantiation of the reality of this mixture of Pacific people in America which raises the possibility that a certain number of Melanesians, whose physical characters, being more obtrusive by contrast than those of the Polynesians, were more easily detected. In Allen’s memoir (=2=, p. 47) the following statements are found:— “Sir Arthur Helps tells us in his ‘History of Spanish Conquest in America’ that the Spaniards, when they first visited Darien under Vasco Nunez, found there a race of black men, whom they (gratuitously as it seems to me) supposed to be descended from a cargo of shipwrecked negroes; this race was living distinct from the other races and at enmity with them,” and on page 48,