NUMBER THREE.

If, as has been stated in previous numbers, this continent is distinguished by the remains of great cities, magnificent structures, and innumerable other ingenious specimens of ancient art; and if, as has likewise been shown, these things existed at a period of time unknown to history or tradition, the inquiry, 'Who were the people that inhabited these cities, who constructed these edifices, and who executed these varied arts?' becomes of intense interest to all men of curiosity and of learning. The inquiry is also inseparably connected with the description of these arts; and, as a consequence, demands attention, as we proceed with the subject of American Antiquities.

For a long time, the majority of men were satisfied with the reputed discovery of this continent by Columbus, even though they were acquainted with the fact that he found the 'new world' thickly inhabited by different varieties of mankind, and though subsequent researches proved these inhabitants to have existed ages before, and from one end of the continent to the other. So little reflection is still manifested upon this subject by many, that they blindly assent to the opinion, that Columbus was, indeed, the first European discoverer of America; forgetting, seemingly—to say nothing of its repeated discovery by the 'North-men,' and probably by others, from the ninth to the twelve century—that, according to the same popular idea, the primitive inhabitants must themselves have been the discoverers, time immemoriably past, and, like Columbus, have sailed from the eastern continent, across a wide and trackless ocean, to our far-famed 'new world.' The truth is, men are too prone to consider that which is new to themselves, as actual discovery; and, during the novelty of the occasion, and in their love of praise, are very little inclined to reflect upon the evidences of antiquity, though they stare them full in the face. Should we concede the correctness of the common opinion, as to the origin of these inhabitants, the discovery of America by them must have been a much more eventful circumstance in the history of man than that by Columbus. How many and how exciting must have been the incidents attending that discovery! How bold the enterprise, how long and how perilous the voyages! How startling the hair-breadth 'scapes, and how imposing to them must have been a 'new world' indeed! What strange objects, animate and inanimate, must have been presented to them, on first reaching, and while traversing, the great continent of America! How little knowledge, in fine, did Columbus possess of this continent, compared with that acquired by the observations of the millions who had occupied it for time unknown! These were men, reasoning and feeling men, like ourselves; why, then, should we not reason upon the times and the events which marked their discovery of the 'new world?' We might imagine, perhaps, something like those events, or conceive of the records to which they might have given birth, when, without the compass that guided Columbus, or the means which safely protected him against the fury of the elements, they made successive discoveries of, and peopled, so vast a continent. It is not impossible that the African, the Malay, and the Tartar, found here by Columbus, 'monarchs of all they surveyed,' possessed such a knowledge of the arts and sciences as to have enabled them to navigate the boisterous ocean with equal security, as certainly they had done with equal success. History, in fact, informs us, that the remote knowledge of many of these people was of a superior order. It might have equalled that of the Caucassian, at the time of his discovery of America. The event proves that it even did, in many important particulars, notwithstanding our boasted prËeminence. Let the records of the ancient Chinese, Arabians, and East Indians, the monuments of Asia, and of the Peloponnesian Islands, and the arts of Palenque, speak for the early condition of the human intellect. But a long night of darkness has intervened; and, like men at all ages of the world, 'we reason but from what we know.'

It cannot be inferred from evidences derived from the relics hitherto discovered in the United States, that the primitive inhabitants of our country were not, for centuries, contemporaneous with the Tultecans. That they were, indeed, will appear extremely probable, in solving the question as to their ultimate destiny. It is a very common and a very important question, 'What became of the numerous people who once populated our western valleys?' Though we may not give a conclusive answer to the inquiry, yet it may be shown that, in the final overthrow of the Tultecan nation, and synchronous with the desertion, and perhaps destruction, of the city of Palenque, the barbarous northern nations of Aztiques and Chichimecas, before alluded to, were none others than the primitive inhabitants of the Mississippi valley; who, in the order observed in the rise and fall of nations, were expelled from their country by hordes of a still more northern and warlike nation of Tartars.

We find, to begin with the human family in Central America, and the earliest arts which are at present revealed to us, that the Tultecan people, or a people analogous in their arts, customs, etc., inhabited, at the period of their glory, the provinces of Yucatan, Chiapa, and Guatemala. Which of the two first named portions of that delightful country was the scene of their primeval history, does not clearly appear. Should it be determined that this people actually traversed the great Atlantic, agreeably to the somewhat plausible and ingenious story of Votan, of which we shall hereafter speak, the province of Yucatan may be supposed to have been the spot where they first established themselves, and reared their stone edifices; and, indeed, if the fact goes for any thing in illustrating this position, the ruins of their architectural monuments are actually found strewed along the province, from near its eastern point, toward the famous city we have mentioned. But if the Tultecan metropolis, situated on an elevated paradisian plain, far removed from any other similar ruins, was de facto, the first residence of man in America, we shall be at a loss to assign any other than an indigenous origin for the Tultecan people. On a question thus undecided, there can be no cause of wonder, if there are those who are conscientiously Pre-Adamites. But, without designing to favor one opinion more than another, independent of the evidence actually offered, it may be confidently affirmed, that there does not appear any satisfactory proofs adduced by those who have attempted to trace the origin of that people, that they partook more of the character of one eastern people than another. There has been, in truth, no distinguished nation of people with whose ancient history we are acquainted, who had not manners and customs resembling those of the Palencians. It is not strange, therefore, that men, influenced by preconceived opinions, should have assigned various reasons to account for the commencement of human population in America, and that, in the height of their zeal to reconcile all things with those opinions, they should have propounded their own imaginings, and the sheerest inventions, as sober matters of fact. Such, melancholy as is the fact for moral truth, has too often been the case, whenever favorite theories have been in jeopardy, or have stood in need of opportune evidence to render them plausible or reconcilable with popular dogmas. The story of Votan, though ingenious, and though accredited by many, for the same reason, is indebted, we may believe, to the same ideal source for its origin. This story, however, claims notice, and a mention of the circumstances on which it is founded, in speaking of the beginning of our race on this continent. With history, as with science, there have been at all times those who have stepped forth, and gratuitously proposed theories, probable and improbable, in aid of opinions involving individual interests and sectarian views; but, in the case before us, we are left alone with facts and probability to establish our conclusions, which we are not at liberty to warp by prejudice, or the favor of others' opinions.

There are found among the ruins of Palenque, of Copan, and of several places of ancient grandeur in Central America, specimens of arts so closely resembling the Egyptian, the Carthaginian, the Romans, the Grecian, and the East Indian, that many have thought the people of each have, at different times, visited America, and instructed the Tultiques in useful and ornamental knowledge. Some suppose that the Romans remained just long enough to afford the Tultecans the knowledge of building their dykes, aqueducts, bridges, etc., and then to have returned to the eastern continent. The Hindoos must also, for the same reason, have instructed these American people in their religion and their arts; and so with those of some other nations. Thus it was, according to this hypothesis, but a trifling affair for the people of transatlantic fame to make visits to this continent for the purpose of giving its ancient inhabitants the requisite information for the construction of their edifices, etc. A singular difficulty would seem, however, to stand in the way of this supposition; and this is, that the ruins of these arts themselves indicate a greater antiquity than those of the eastern world, in the execution of which these sage school-masters are supposed to have acquired all their skill. May it not be equally probable, from this view of the subject, that the Americans instructed the people of Asia in a knowledge of the arts, sciences, and mysteries, of which their history so much boasts? The fact is conclusive, that the Tultiques, were highly proficient in both the arts and sciences, at an immeasurably distant period of time; even more so, as far as we are enabled to learn, than most nations of men on the other continent. The science of astronomy, by which this people was enabled to calculate time with a precision, which, as is thought, it is the pride of modern science alone to claim, need only be cited as evidence in point. Their knowledge of the useful and ornamental arts was not behind that of any other people of the earliest times, as we shall see by reference to the ruins which, for thousands of years, have survived them. Were we, in fact, to compare that knowledge, as indicated by those ruins, with that of the Chaldeans, and other remote people, as evinced by theirs, we could not hesitate to return a uniformly favorable decision for the great antiquity of the Tultiques. It is unhesitatingly admitted, that the Mexicans derived all their knowledge of art and of science from these people, whom they succeeded; and it is equally certain, that they were a barbarous and ignorant race of men, long after the extinction of the Tultique nation. Admitting the Mexican people, then, to have had their origin in the northern nations, existing, as we have reason to suppose, within the vast extent of country between the ancient Tultiques and the present south-western boundary lines of the United States, the lapse of a long period of time must be supposed necessary for their acquirement of that extraordinary proficiency of which they were found to be possessed by the tyrant invader, Cortes.

The Tultecan people, it has been observed, were completely isolated on a mountainous plain, more than five thousand feet above the level of the sea, where they enjoyed a climate more temperate and genial, an air more salubrious, and natural productions more rich and abundant, than it has been the lot of any other people of the earth to enjoy. It is therefore from this paradisial location that we are to date our knowledge of this people, since we are provided with no facts which prove them, or any other people, to have had an anterior existence on this continent. The ruined arts of Yucatan and of Guatemala do not satisfy us that those provinces were inhabited previous to that of Chiapa, and the delightful vale upon the Cordillera mountains, where we now find the astonishing remains referred to. On the contrary, their present condition shows them to have been constructed long posterior. The people whose they were, should be considered as colonists from the great Palencian city, which must have overflowed with population. The arts and customs of these colonists are seen to have been precisely those of the parent city, as well also as their religion. So late, in fact, was the origin of Copan, that we are led to believe it to have been a city built subsequent to the destruction of the Palencian capital. Some of the edifices, and many of the monuments, still remain: the coloring matter used in the drawings upon the obelisks is also as fresh and as bright, apparently, as it was when first put on; notwithstanding the materials of which the buildings, etc., are composed are more exposed to moisture, and consequently, more liable to disintegration, than those of Palenque. In these obelisks, we have a novelty among the arts preserved for our admiration, as relics of the ancient American people. Nothing resembling them has yet been found at Palenque, though it is possible such may have existed, both in that city and in the province of Yucatan; but they long since crumbled in the general wreck of ruins. It may be in place here to introduce a notice of some of these ancient structures, now existing in a state of tolerable preservation in the city of Copan, in the Province of Honduras, and on a river of the same name.

From the bay of Honduras, the traveller proceeds up the river Matayua, two hundred and fifty miles, when he arrives at the mouth of the river Copan, a tributary to the Matayua. Entering this river, he ascends it for about sixty miles, when the ruins of an ancient city are presented to his view on its banks, and running along its course for several miles. Masses of stone fragments and crumbling edifices stretch along the river as far as it was explored. One of the principal objects of attraction, is a temple of great magnitude, but partially in ruins. This magnificent building stands immediately upon the bank, one hundred and twenty feet above the river. It is seven hundred and fifty feet in length, and six hundred feet broad! Stone steps conduct from the base of the rock on which it is situated to an elevation, from which others descend to a large square, in the interior of the building. From this large square you pass on and upward through a small gallery to still higher elevations which overhang the river. A splendid view of the extended ruins is here presented to the admiring observer, traversing the banks as far as they can be followed by the eye. Excavations were here made, in order to lay open passages which had been blocked up by the crumbling fragments of the building. At the opening of the gallery into the square, a passage was discovered which led into a sepulchre, the floor of which was twelve feet below the square. This vault is ten feet long, six high, and five and a half broad, and runs north and south. It contains great numbers of earthen dishes and pots, in good preservation. Fifty of these were filled with human bones, closely packed in lime. Several sharp and pointed knives, made of a hard and brittle stone, called itzli, were also found; likewise a head representing Death, the back part of which was perforated with small holes; and the whole wrought with exquisite workmanship, out of a fine green stone. There were also found in this sepulchre two other heads, numerous shells from the sea-shore, and stalactites from a neighboring cave, all of which indicated the superstition of the people who placed them there. The floor was of stone, and strewed with mouldering fragments of bones.

Great numbers of other rooms were entered, all of which, as far as they could be traced, showed the most singular customs of the people, and the most grotesque specimens of sculpture. Many monstrous figures were likewise found among these and neighboring ruins. There was one representing the head of a huge alligator, having in its mouth a figure with a human face, and paws like an animal. Another was discovered of a gigantic toad, in an erect position, with claws like a tiger, on human arms! Numerous obelisks were seen in various directions, both standing and fallen. These were generally about ten feet high, and three feet thick. One of them, still standing, is covered with representations of human figures, sculptured in relief, all presenting a front view, with their hands on their breasts, sandals on their feet, caps on their heads, and otherwise richly adorned with garments. Opposite to this, and ten feet distant, were stone altars, which are likewise covered with sculptured designs. The sides of the obelisks contained numerous phonetic hieroglyphics. There was one of these curious obelisks in the temple before mentioned, the top of which was covered by forty-nine square tablets of hieroglyphics. The sides were occupied by sixteen human figures in relief, sitting cross-legged on cushions, carved in the stone, and holding fans in their hands. On a neighboring hill stands two other obelisks, which were also covered with hieroglyphics. These were painted red, with a paint made of a rich deep-colored stone, obtained from a neighboring quarry. Unlike any other pyramidal monuments of the kind among the antiquities of the eastern continent, these were both broader and thicker at the top than at the base; and the colors with which they were richly ornamented, were still of the brightest hues.

Among the mountainous piles of stone ruins which are to be seen in the country round about, no very great difference is observable in the style of workmanship or of architecture, so far as could be observed, from that noticed among the relics at Palenque. This similarity is a striking feature, and is calculated at once to induce the opinion, as we have before suggested, that the first inhabitants of this city were colonists of the Tultiques, or that they fled thence on the fall of their metropolis.

The name of Palenque, it would seem, had, long before the conquest, passed into oblivion, while a part of the city of Copan, then offering a shelter for the natives, was occupied by them at the time of Columbus' discovery of America, three hundred and forty-five years ago. The materials of the Copan edifices, were, however, evidently much less durable than those of Palenque. The former, being constructed of sand-stone, disintegrated by exposure to the action of the atmosphere, though not more readily, perhaps, than ordinary building stone, of the same geological character, yet obviously more so than the materials of which Palenque was built, which are remarkable for their indurated quality. Hence our astonishment is increased, on reflecting, that neither the Palenquans nor the Copanians, had any knowledge of the use of iron tools, but nevertheless quarried, shaped, and planted, those massive blocks and pillars of stones, which composed their magnificent TeÖculi, and all the great works which adorned and defended their cities. But one solitary hut, beside the fabrics mentioned, now stands on the ruins of Copan! The present natives deserted it only about seventy-five years ago. Many of them, hereabout, were engaged in the cultivation of tobacco, for which the soil was very good; and this ancient place was celebrated as a dÉpÔt for that article, under the Spanish conquerors. It is worthy of notice, that the water of this place is remarkable for its great purity, and the climate is equally distinguished for its healthfulness; circumstances which the primitive inhabitants of America would seem to have considered of primary importance in the location of their cities.

We have already said that the people of whom we are speaking enjoyed a felicity unequalled by any other. This is attributable to their peaceful character, their simple yet effective government, their industrious habits, conjoined with their choice location, uniting as it did almost every natural advantage of situation and production. But the present period exhibits their successors the most wretched of the human species. The Indian race, once the most happy and numerous of mankind, may be traced from the vigor of youth through the strength of its manhood to the present decline and decrepitude of old age. Total extinction, in the usual course of events, will soon follow. It is indeed fast approaching at the present moment urged on as it is by the mad ambition of the Caucassian, who, in his turn, is rapidly approximating the zenith of his power and numbers. Throughout the world this may now be seen at a glance. The native of India is rapidly falling before the gigantic power, the cunning, and the oppression of England, now herself at the acmÉ of her strength and numerical force. Ignorance, superstition, and imbecility, press the Indian forward to his last hopes. Availing itself of these inevitable results of old age, the power that is slowly but effectually crushing him, rises elastic and buoyant upon the dead body of the old native. The free Indian of United America, in like manner, is fast closing the scene of his glory and the fulness of his manhood. He too is declining into old age; and already are the marks of death observable upon his withered visage. He too was flushed with the hopes of youth, and spread out his vigorous energies like the green bay tree. He too realized the measure of his glory, and proudly exulted in his power and possessions. But, alas! he too is fast wasting in the last stages of decline and death. So it is with the Indian of Central America. From the fruition of his hopes and numbers, and the full consummation of his glory, he has sunk to the deepest degradation, to numerical insignificance, and to the most abject wretchedness. A stronger contrast in the relative condition of a people can nowhere be found. Turning from the period of which we have been speaking, that saw the Tultecans the happiest people of the earth, to the present, that reveals their miserable descendants tamely bowing their necks to the galling yoke of their Spanish masters, and how forcible are the marks of distinction! Take this people, amalgamated with the reputed barbarous Aztiques, or Chichimecas, and constituting the Mexican nation at the time of Cortes' mad invasion, and how deplorable is their present situation, contrasted with what it then was! Where are the promised blessings of the 'Christian,' the boasted charms of civilization, etc.? Away with the idle and superstitious fantasies, and the base schemes of the selfish and ambitious, under the garb of reason and of philanthropy! Let truth and justice speak for themselves. How much better, we would ask, is the poor Indian of Central America, how much more rational and how much more numerous is he now, than when the proud Caucassian, 'the most honored of the free,' first essayed his renovating influences? Let the past and the present answer! Suffice it to say, that like his native compeer of our own states, he is rapidly disappearing under the operation of these causes, and oblivion, meanwhile, closes over his history. Like the ill-fated Indian, it will be in turn for the oppressor to yield to the force of recurring circumstances. Yes! time, too, will bring along his destiny, and it will be that of the oppressed, the cheated, the extinct Indian!

Civilization, as some one has observed, is and ever has been travelling westward. We believe it. The relics of America go far to prove it; and those of the Pacific Islands, if possible, still farther. Giving then to America an indefinite antiquity, its earliest monuments should have mingled with the soil on which they were erected. They should have crumbled before the all-crushing power of time. And such is the fact. Its people should have passed onward to Asia; and they should have left other monuments by the way. Such appears also to have been the fact. Remains of magnificent structures are still to be seen on the islands which intervene, even those of great and splendid cities. These, too, defy the scrutinizing inquiries of mankind, at this so distant date. The arts are those of ancient America. To one conversant with the specimens now to be found in some of those islands, the inference will appear conclusive. It belongs to the geologist to prove, that the intervening land has undergone extraordinary revolutions. We are prepared to say, that he is enabled to prove that many of those islands are of recent geological epocha, and that most of them are of volcanic origin.

By the way of these islands, then, it was both easy and natural to have peopled India, China, and those nations claiming with them the most distant antiquity. The arts of those times are nearly the same in execution and design. The Chinese Tartars, those wandering hordes that stretched along the Pacific, in time again found their way to this continent, by means of the continuous chain of the Fox Islands and Alaska, and across Behring's Straits. Farther notice of this fact will accompany some remarks on the present race of North American Indians, for they are the Tartars referred to. If we are to do credit to a recent philological work, published in London, displaying great research and learning, we shall be struck with the general proposition, that man had a common ancestry, far east of the hitherto reputed source of his origin. The evidence adduced from the analogy of the Arabic, the Chinese, the Tartar, and generally the Asiatic languages, with the Greek, etc., throws much light upon the subject of our inquiry. Late researches, also, among the Pacific Islands, and those more particularly bordering on the Asiatic coasts, are replete with interest touching the antiquity and former character of their inhabitants. Ruined walls, monuments, and sepulchres, of antique and massive masonry, of which tradition has preserved no memorial among the descendants of the people, clearly prove the existence of a different state and character of people at some very remote period. But recently there have been discovered the buried walls of an extensive city, and also a strange race of people in New Holland. A colony hitherto unknown, speaking the English language, with European countenances, manners, etc., has quite lately been discovered in the interior of that yet unexplored continent. These facts are exciting no little inquiry and astonishment among the curious of Europe. Still farther, and it is hoped and presumed still more important, discoveries will, ere long, reveal new truths upon this subject, and tend, in a striking manner, to enlighten mankind in relation to their early history. To effect this, means more effective could not be devised than 'exploring expeditions.' That now contemplated by this government, if conducted in part with reference to this subject, cannot fail to be highly fruitful of discovery.

The ancient Aztec cities, on the vast and beautiful plains, and upon the southern banks of the Rio Gila, in New California, with numerous other remains of arts, and evidences of former civilization, now to be seen among what have been denominated the 'Independent Indians,' on the north-west coast of America, from the thirty-third to the fifty-fourth parallels of latitude, will be seen to throw much light on the original people, both of Mexico and of our own country. For the present, attention is still farther called to the origin of the Tultiques, the first and the most remarkable people, ancient or modern, that have inhabited the American continent.

In reflecting upon the period at which the Tultiques flourished, one cannot but smile at the determination of some to give comparatively modern dates to the Palencian city, and its ruined arts; as if it were impossible that it should have preceded a certain time to which previously supposed data had limited their faith or comprehension. Some give its origin but about two hundred years anterior to the conquest by the Spaniards. Others, again, extend, their views several hundred years beyond this; but such are careful, at the same time, to circumscribe their belief within a definite period, viz: the Christian era. The majority, perhaps, derive their dates from the dispersion at the tower of Babel. Again, there are those who place entire confidence in the theory given by Cabrera, derived from another source, and paraded with the utmost assurance as having been obtained from some 'precious documents,' found in a cave, where they had been hid by Votan himself! From the tenor of the facts in this case, but more particularly from the language used by the Bishop of Chiapa, Don Francisco Nunez de la Vega, whose book was printed at Rome in 1702, we are forced to think that many, very many, important memorials, and those which would have afforded us the means for discovering the history of this people, were destroyed by the bigots of his sect. In this superstitious crusade, he himself gave the most distinguished example, by destroying, according to his own confession, the 'precious documents' in question. It is important that the truth or falsity of this 'memorial for future ages,' as Cabrera calls it, should be inquired into; as it is either to be considered hereafter as settling the great question, 'Who were the Tultiques,' or it is to be thrown aside as an idle and credulous story, got up by the bishop himself, for the purpose of giving himself eclat, and of confirming those who otherwise might be sceptical upon so interesting a point in history, or, perhaps, in his own peculiar faith.

The evidences already presented of the antiquity of the Tultecan monuments cannot, we must suppose, but destroy all the statements, (for they are mere statements, without one clear and rational fact to support them,) which have been made, giving a comparatively modern date to the Tultique nation. It is true, that the monuments of Tultecan greatness bear a striking resemblance to those of the Egyptians and Romans, not to say several other eastern nations of people. But what does this prove? Just nothing at all. If the relics which so much astonish us at Palenque, give evidence of age cÖeval at least, if not greatly anterior, to those of Egypt, from which, it has been affirmed they were copied, the Cyclops cannot be supposed to have been their authors. A long period of time should have elapsed from that in which these 'wandering masons,' for such it is said the Indian traditions of Central America style the builders of their ancient edifices, were exterminated from Egypt, wandered to the Atlantic coast, prepared themselves for a long voyage—totally unacquainted, as they were, with marine navigation—and actually traversed the unknown sea for three thousand miles! How long, will it be supposed, they were engaged in thus acquiring a taste so unsuited to their habits, and in contriving suitable vessels, which, in Upper Egypt, they never could have seen, to embark on the trackless sea for America, without a compass to guide them, and without the possibility of their knowing whither they were going? Is it to be presumed, that vessels of theirs, at that time, if they built any at all, or were, in fact, in a situation to build them, if they had a mind, were furnished with the requisite materials, provisioned, etc., to navigate the Atlantic ocean? Should we admit all this as probable, for the sake of speculation, it would appear remarkable if they, first and fortunately, touched upon the coast of Yucatan, and located, at once, in the finest country on the globe, and that, too, in sufficient numbers to have built and peopled even one of its large cities. We shall not venture to name the time required at that stage of man's history to have accomplished all these things, or attempt to explain how the mouldering arts which this people have left from unrecorded time, could exhibit still greater antiquity than those of the Egyptians. This discrepancy between supposition and fact is better referred to those who, rather than doubt what they have previously believed, adopt as truth the most inconsistent theories.

The Carthaginians, although more adventurous, and more accustomed in their belligerent prows to the dangers of the sea than any other ancient maritime nation of people, are as little entitled to the credit of having first peopled America, as the native Egyptians, so far as positive evidence is concerned. The latter will not be supposed to have inspired their successors with the requisite information and skill, nor will it be presumed that they were so far the masters of navigation themselves, as to have accomplished voyages to this continent. The reasons which apply to these people, are equally applicable to all others during the early conditions of society. Neither the Greeks nor the Romans, ambitious as they were of fortune and of fame, can be conceived capable of having executed voyages of three thousand miles on an unexplored ocean. Nor will the colonies of the Carthaginians and Romans, said to have been established by them upon the sea-coast and on neighboring Islands, be imagined to have afforded the parent nations the necessary impetus to embark in quest of discovery on an ocean, ever considered by them of boundless extent, or have prompted them to plant colonies at the distance of four thousand miles, admitting them to have conceived the existence of another continent. Were we so credulous as to believe this, we should be driven to the admission, that they not only made one, but numerous voyages across the Atlantic; and eventually reared a great nation under their auspices. And if so, why, we might very naturally inquire, is all history silent upon the subject, and without even a hint of its truth, or the possibility of the performances?

The wreck on our shores of some solitary vessel, a circumstance dwelt upon by all who have attempted to get over the difficulties in accounting for the origin of the American people, is equally unsatisfactory; for it is but a bare supposition at best. We might as reasonably suppose any other means of peopling this continent. It is even less probable that a female was upon such a wreck, and survived the catastrophe, to constitute an American Eve. Yet supposing even this to have been the case, how long a time would have been required, from the earliest history of Carthaginian or Roman prow navigation, for the luckless navigators of their craft, with each a surviving partner, a circumstance still less probable, to have explored Central America, built numerous cities—one containing at least two millions of people—reared the most stupendous and durable edifices, and other monuments, and then to have become extinct, or identified with other species of men, and all their monuments of 'eternal rock' to have crumbled into one general wreck of matter? Could all this have happened, we ask, even supposing, for the love of conjecture, that all the rest actually did happen? We leave reasonable men to answer for themselves. But there is another reason why the Tultiques are derived from no such reputed stock, and one which every scientific man will deem conclusive, if his prejudices preclude all other sources of evidence. There are physical peculiarities, we all know, by which species of men, as well as all lower animals, are contradistinguished. These in the Tultique have so little resemblance in common with other species of mankind, ancient or modern, that no effort of the physiologist can give him, according to distinctive criteria, a homologous arrangement. He is completely alone in this respect, and consequently could not have been indebted to the people in question, from whom he most of all differed, for his origin.

The fact also, if it needs be, that the Carthaginians visited parts of the United States, either from choice or necessity, as is believed by many archÆologists, would go far to prove that they were not the people of Tulteca. If this be still supposed, where, we would inquire, are their descendants? They would have been as likely to have peopled this country as any other. The reasons why they did not flourish here, would answer alike for their not peopling Central America. The same remains of great cities would appear here as in Chiapa, Guatemala, etc., had they or their descendants been the authors of those in the latter places. Faint evidences do exist, of the presence of a peculiar people in this country, at some distant period of time, other than those who raised the tumuli of the western states, the Tartars, the Scandinavians, or Welch. The most remarkable of these—perhaps these are the only evidences worthy of note—are inscriptions on rocks in various parts of the United States. The characters are believed to be Carthaginian. In not less than twelve places are they to be seen at the present day. But whatever others may think, in relation to the authors of these blind, though curious inscriptions, we are ourselves little inclined to believe them Carthaginian. It is quite as probable, in fact, that they were the work of the original inhabitants of the western valleys, as of any other people, for they are there to be seen, as well as upon the Atlantic coast. Similar characters have been discovered on specimens of arts left by that people. Confidence may have been obtained for the supposition that they were Carthaginian, from the fact that the remains of a vessel, clearly Carthaginian in form and style, are said to have been discovered imbedded in the soil not far distant from where inscriptions are now to be seen on rocks, near our Atlantic coast. But at that time, these were supposed to be the only inscriptions to be found in our country; many others, however, are now known to exist, as far distant even as Georgia, and in the interior.

The walls of cities lately discovered at the west, in Wisconsin, Arkansas, etc., prove nothing in respect to the ruined cities of which we have been speaking in Central America, except that they are entirely unlike in every particular, and were built by people as different in their character and knowledge, as our present Indians and ourselves. They prove much, however, in relation to the remains of cities on the north-west coast, heretofore noticed, and also to the temples, cities, etc., of the valley of Mexico. These with others equally remarkable, will be fully discussed in subsequent numbers.