ogists listen to their speech, and admit that in
one tribe or another they possess all the powers
of articulate utterance known to that rape. Wé-
know, by this kind of evidence, . physical ■ and,
moral, that they, are a branch of the original
Adaiqic stqek, without reference to the pages of
revelation, where we learn the same truth, and
are told m m a n y wordsj that “ God out of one
flesh, formed-all men.” And'we. must per-J'mee
infer, that the Indian,race is of forèign origin, and
must havé crossed an ocean to reach the^ continent.
Ask not the red sage to tell you. how, or
when, or where. He knows it not, and if he should
pretend to the knowledge, it would be the surest
possible evidence, philosophically considered,
that his responses were fabulous. ..Three hundred
and fifty-three years only has America, been
known to Europe, and yet should we strike our
history out of existence, what should wë know
of the leading facts of the discovery andrthe discoverer
from Indian tradition"?-.Still the inquisitive
spirit of research leads us to^ask, where
were this race eighteen hundred and f<My-five
|vgars;'-ago? or at the- invasion of Britain by
, Julius Caesar ? or. at the out pouring of. the
Gothic hordes under Alaric or Brennus-? Scandinavian
research tells us they were here in the
10th. century. The Mexican picture writings inform
us that Some of them reached the valley of
Mexico in the 11th century, Welsh history
claims to have sent one of her princes among
them in the 12th century. The mounds of the
Mississippi valley do not appear to have had an
Origin much earlier. The whole range of even
historical conjecture is absolutely limited within
eight or nine hundred; years. Nothing older, of
their presence certainly in the northern hemisphere
j-is known, than about; the time-pftJhe
croWning of Charlemagne, A. D, S0É|/.unieks we
take the Grecian tradition of Atalantis.
In Mexico we can ascend to higher dates.
But it Is altogether doubtful, where the great
Indian monarchy of Mexico, can be traced
higher than ninety years before the conquest in
. -lèêli. At that epoch, the princes of Mexico.and
Tezeuco, united and prevailed against the other
petty monarchies of the Mexican valley. Clavi-
gero traces the Aztec rule to 1051. Bastamenti
to 1L16. Sahagan to 1200. The Toltec empire,
which preceded it, is generally supposed to
have been dismembered in 95$; The next year
they fled into distant provinces, carrying with
them their peculiar religion in the. worship of
the sun. This empire is vaguely traced to A. D.
67.7. There is a single tradition which reached
to A. H. 299; and another by which Quetzalcoatl,
thè great personage of their mythology, religion
and govèmmentris made to correspond, by the
Indian chronologisfè, to the advent of Christ.
That we haYe nothing in the way of tradition
older than the dates referred to,, is no positive
proof that the tribes were not upon the continent
long prior. , There are some considerations,
in. the very nature of the case, which argue a re