"The people are well built and strong, as a rule. They are a loyal, contented race, not grasping, and rather too easy in disposition. They are intelligent and learn with great ease. Possessed of many characteristics in common with their neighbors, the Chinese and Japanese, they yet seem to have a personality indicative of a different parentage, which continually calls forth inquiry as to their origin. In some slight degree they resemble the aborigines of America, and it is believed that their ancestors came from the north:—the question opens up a fertile field for study. Their written records are said to date back three thousand years."