This book, first published in 1875 and reissued in 1973, analyses the limited evidence from the works of early Chinese historians that explorers from China had discovered a country they called Fusang – possibly western America, and in all probability Mexico. The original document on which Chinese historians based their accounts of Fusang was the report of a Buddhist monk called Hoei-shin, who, in the year 499 AD, returned from a long journey to the east.