It is curious to reflect that in two widely separated parts of the world the first historical event connected with an overseas paradise took place not many years apart. Prince Wei's expedition left the coast of China early in the fourth century b.c.; Himilco's fleet passed through the Pillars of Hercules "in the flourishing days of Carthage."[1] The Carthaginians sailed up the coast of Spain and on across the Atlantic. While returning, they encountered islands[2] of which their glowing accounts probably provided material for belief in the Insulae Fortunatae.[3] The notion thus fostered lived on, and was from time to time revitalized by other sailors' tales, though as knowledge grew the Islands moved further westward. Then in the middle ages the imagination of the world was profoundly stirred by the ancient Irish myth of St. Brandan's Voyage, and many a mariner was tempted to seek the isles of immortality in the Western main. If Taoist aspirations led to the Chinese discovery of Japan, so belief in the Fortunate Islands contributed to the finding of the New World.
It remains to say a word about early Chinese colonisation of Japan. History and legend certainly indicate, I think, that Taoist adventurers frequently visited its shores, and the probability is that some of them settled there. Until A.D. 540 Japanese accounts of Chinese immigration are unfortunately vague. In that year "the men of Ch‘in numbered in all 7053 houses."[4] A European writer has calculated this to mean between 120,000 and 130,000 persons.[5] If this estimate is correct, it may be imagined that active colonisation had being going on for several centuries.
The texts I have quoted leave in doubt whether the large expedition of b.c. 219 settled permanently in a foreign land
