It
has often happened that Japanese junks have been blown
clear across the Pacific. In 1833 a ship of this sort
was driven in a great storm from Japan to the shores of
the Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of British
Columbia. In the same way a fishing smack from Formosa,
which lies off the east coast of China, was once carried
in safety across the ocean to the Sandwich Islands.
Similar long voyages have been made by the natives of
the South Seas against their will, under the influence
of strong and continuous winds, and in craft no better
than their open canoes. Captain Beechey of the Royal Navy
relates that in one of his voyages in the Pacific he
picked up a canoe filled with natives from Tahiti who
had been driven by a gale of westerly wind six hundred
miles from their own island. It has happened, too, from
time to time, since the discovery of America, that ships
have been forcibly carried all the way across the Atlantic.
A glance at the map of the world shows us that the eastern
coast of Brazil juts out into the South Atlantic so far
that it is only fifteen hundred miles distant from the
similar projection of Africa towards the west.
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