Whence these people originally came is a question which is constantly discussed, but which is still an unsolved problem. Some words in their language seem to indicate a Japanese origin, and some seem clearly to be derived from the Aztec tongue belonging to that peculiar people of the south. Hon. James G. Swain of Port Townsend, who has given years of study to the subject of ethnology as connected with the tribes of the Northwest, states that he found among them a tradition of the Great Spirit similar to that of the Aztecs, and that when he exhibited to members of the Haida tribe sketches of Aztec carvings, they at once recognized and understood them. Copper images and relics found in their possession were identical with exhumed relics brought from Guatemala. These are certainly very significant facts, if not convincing ones. The Alaska natives have some Apache words in their language, which points to a common origin with our North American Indian tribes, but these suggestions are purely speculative. There are able students of ethnology who insist upon the origin of these Alaskans being Asiatic for various good and sufficient reasons, instancing not only their personal appearance, but the similarity of their traditions and customs to those of the people of Asia. To have come thence it is remembered that they had only to cross a narrow piece of water forty miles wide. This passage is frequently made in our times by open boats. At certain seasons of the year, though in so northern a latitude, the strait is by no means rough. Mr. Seward says: “I have mingled freely with the multifarious population, the Tongas, the Stickeens, the Kakes, the Haidas, the Sitkas, the Kontnoos, and the Chilcats. Climate and other circumstances have indeed produced some differences of manners and customs between the Aleuts, the Koloschians, and the interior continental tribes, but all of them are manifestly of Mongol origin. Although they have preserved no common traditions, all alike indulge in tastes, wear a physiognomy, and are imbued with sentiments peculiarly noticed in China and Japan.”