free, and did not even know it, before the landing of christians on their shores; but it is strange now to tell, how all their nations, and almost every individual of them, are infatuated with the love of strong drink. By its means they have been made to quarrel with and kill one another; and it has brought them to the practice of vices, which, in the eyes of their beloved men, are a disgrace and a degradation to them.

*

*

In the Monthly Magazine for April 1828, is the following paragraph.

“An opinion has long prevailed, that Columbus introduced into Europe from America the disease at present known under the appellation of syphilis. This question, which has been agitated during three Centuries, has been at length set at rest by the researches of Dr. Thienne, a Physician of Vicenza, who has satisfactorily proved the ravages of this disease long before the birth of Columbus. His investigations have led to some curious remarks; inasmuch as he has established a sort of analogy and identity between the elephantiasis, the leprosy, the venereal infection of Canada, the sibbens of Scotland, the radzyge of Norway, the saws of Africa, the pan of America, the malady of schertieno in the Tyrol, &c."

Now if there be a real correspondence between these virulent diseases, which are found on different spots and in varied climates, the Doctor may have erred in imagining he has discovered that species of the disease in

question in the annals of a period prior to Columbus. And the generally prevailing opinion may be true-that it was brought into Europe from America, corroborated by his own remarks of its similarity with other prevailing complaints. It is well known that the Israelitish nation were in old times much subject to the leprosy; which disorder may have assumed a new character upon a new soil, under the influence of a new and very different manner of living, and with habits so very unlike those which prevailed among them when inhabiting the well cultivated regions of Asia. If so awful a visitation had been experienced under similar circumstances in Greece and in Rome, it must be regarded as a most extraordinary fact, that it is not described, nor distinctly alluded to, by the numerous writers of those nations: and had it been known in Europe previous to the voyage of Columbus, it would surely have been clearly defined and the mode of cure pointed out by our own Surgeons.

The disease called Brenning or Burning, which prevailed in England in the fourteenth and fifteenth Centuries, appears to have had a great resemblance to the Syphilis; but as that was a period when the leprosy was common throughout Europe, this complaint was probably a peculiar, being a local, branch of it. For Leprosy see Lev. chap. 13 and 14.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE INDIANS.

L

THIS

HIS is the most difficult part of the subject before us; for, were we inclined to yield to the evidence already produced, to shew the many points of resemblance between the ancient Hebrews and the Indian tribes, we can scarcely expect to find enough of the old language remaining to furnish a fresh evidence of their kin. The Indian languages have never been reduced to any certainty by written characters: it has never even been thought to form a grammarby which it shall be taught to their childMasters and Professors they have none of any kind. Traditions only have been conveyed down from father to son; and these, during a long course of years, and in the mouths of hundreds and thousands of instructors, have so changed, that they assume different faces on different spots, by some are altogether lost, and by many are upheld in a rough and careless manner, without any knowledge of their origin and of their rational or spiritual design. Of art and science they are comparatively igno

ren.

rant: no monuments of antiquity are standing memorials with the present race: oppressed on every side, driven from home to home, as circumstances have varied, and homes been abandoned, language has undergone many changes; and not a little variety will have arisen as new families sprang up and new tribes were formed, from the simple circumstance of the construction of the organs of speech; which even among ourselves occasions the same words to be so differently pronounced, that a foreigner, understanding them when proceeding from one mouth, is often at a loss when they are uttered by another. Putting idioms out of the question, and new words coined to express new things, the very names of things in common use will be expressed by many inflexions of the voice, so as to become in the ears of a stranger different words. Take for example the sound of many of our vocables uttered in the streets of London, in the villages of Yorkshire and among the mines of Cornwall, and many of our familiar expressions. We do not ourselves often know what our own countrymen say, on a spot where every thing is done that can be done to preserve the purity of our language: of purity indeed we must be silent when we speak of the use of words in the mouths of the unlettered of our Island.

Of the Indian languages, which are numerous, and to an European ear very unlike, it has been observed, that they are copious and expressive, more so than might be expected with a people whose ideas must be few in comparison with those of civilized nations. They have neither cases nor declensions; few or no prepositions; but like some of the ancient languages abounding in affixes

and prefixes: the words are the same in both numbers.

It has been said that no language known in Europe, except the Hebrew, is destitute of prepositions, as separate and specific words. They have no comparative or superlative degree, but express them as the Hebrews do by terms dignified and honourable. Thus the Cedars of Lebanon, famed for their loftiness and grandeur, are in the Hebrew the Cedars of God, and a mighty wind is a wind of God. So with the Indians, the superlative is formed by one of the letters of the divine name being added to the word. Their public speeches are adorned with strong metaphors in correct language and often with allegory. An example or two may be acceptable to the reader.

About the year 1684 the Governor of New York sent an agent, on a dispute likely to arise with the French, who behaved in a haughty manner before the Indians. One of the chiefs answered him in a strain of simple eloquence, in which he said among other things, "I have two arms: I extend the one to Montreal, there to support the tree of peace, and the other towards Corlaer (the Governor of New York) who has long been my brother. Ononthis (of Canada) has been these ten years my father. But neither the one nor the other is my master. He who made the world gave me this land I possess. I am free, I respect them both, but no man has a right to command me, and none ought to take amiss my endeavouring all I can, that this land should not be troubled. I can no longer delay repairing to my father, who has taken the pains to come to my very gate, and has no terms to propose but what are honourable."