how then is it that we find such evident marks, in the mounds and tumuli of the west, of the presence of a Hindoo population, as well as of other nations.

Let the tradition of the nations of Taltec and Azteca extraction in Mexico answer it. These say, that a wonderful personage, whom they name Quetzalcoatl, appeared among them, who was a white and bearded man. This person assumed the dignity of acting as a priest and legislator, and became the chief of a religious sect, which like the Songasis and the Boudhists of Indostan, inflicted on themselves the most cruel penances. He introduced the custom of piercing the lips and ears, and lacerating the rest of the body, with the prickles of the agave and leaves, the throns of the cactus, and of putting reeds into the wounds, in order that the blood might be seen to trickle more copiously. In all this, says Humboldt, we seem to behold one of those Rishi, hermits of the Ganges, whose pious austerity is celebrated in the books of the Hindoos.

Jewitt, a native of Boston, who lately died at Hartford Conn., was, some few years since, captured with the crew of the vessel in which he had sailed, by the Nootka Indians, at Nootka Sound, on the Pacific. In his narrative of his captivity and sufferings, he states, that those Indians had a religious custom, very similar to those of the Hindoos, now in use, about the temple of Jugernaut, in India; which was, piercing their sides with long rods, and leaping about while the rods were in the wound.

Respecting this white and bearded man, much is said in their tradition, recorded in their books of skin, and among other things, that after a long stay with them, he suddenly left them, promising to return again, in a short time, to govern them and renew their happiness. This person, named Tecpaltzin, resembles, very strongly, in his promise to return again, the behavior of Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver, who, on his departure from Lacedemon, bound all the citizens under an oath, both for themselves and posterity, that they would neither violate nor abolish his laws till his return; and soon after, in the Isle of Crete, put himself to death, so that his return became impossible.

It was the posterity of this man, whom the unhappy Montazuma thought he recognized in the soldiers of Cortez, the Spanish conqueror of Mexico. "We know," said the unhappy monarch, in his first interview with the Spanish general, " by our books, that

myself and those who inhabit this country, are not natives but strangers, who came from a great distance. We know, also, that the chief who led our ancestors hither," that is to Aztalan, " returned, for a certain time, to his primitive country, and thence came back to seek those who were here established," who, after a while, returned again, alone. We always believed that his descendants would one day come to take possession of this country. Since you arrive from that region where the sun rises, I cannot doubt, but that the king who sends is our natural master.' you, This chief who led the Azteck tribes first to Aztalan, is called Tecpaltzin, and seems to be the person who, the monarch says, returned to his native land, where the sun rises; which is a strong allusion to the country of Babylon, or some part of the old world, about the Mediteranean, which is east from Mexico, where the sun rises, the very country where the chiefs of the fifteen tribes, speaking the same language with himself, first received that language from the bird, as before stated.

But Quetzalcoatl, an entire different character, appears among them many ages after their settlement at Mexico, as a religious teacher, who, Humboldt says, resembled the Boudhists or Bramhuns of Indostan, and the hermits of the Ganges, whose pious austerities are celebrated in their Pauranas, or books of theology, and that the Azteca tribes left their country, Aztalan, in the year of our Lord 544; and wandered to the south or southwest, coming at last to the vale of Mexico. It would appear, from this view, that as the nations of Aztalan, with their fellow nations, left vast works, and a vast extent of country, apparently in a state of cultivation, with cities and villages, more in number than three thousand, as Breckenridge supposed, that they must, therefore, have settled here long before the Christian era.

The peculiar doctrines of the Hindoos, we are informed, were commenced to be taught in the east, among, what is now called the Hindoo nations, by Zoroaster, about the the time of Abraham, 1449 years before the time of Confucius, who was born 551 years before Christ; so that there was time for those doctrines of Confucius and Zoroaster to take root in China, and to become popular, and also to reach America, by Hindoo missionaries, and overspread these regions even as early as the commencement of the Christian era.

Of Zoroaster, it is said, that he predicted the coming of the Mes

siah, in plain words; and that the "wise men" of the east, who saw his star, were of his disciples, or sect. This doctrine he must have learned of Shem, who, we have attempted to show, was Melchisedek, or of Abraham, as it had been handed down from Adam, the first of men. But the peculiar doctrine of Confucius, which was the worship of fire, as well as that of the sun, by Zoroaster, it is likely, was derived from the account he found among the archives of the Jews, respecting the burning bush of Moses, which had taken place more than a thousand years before the time of Confucius. From this originated, in all probability, as taught by Confucius, the burning of heroes, when dead, among many nations; and from this, that of immolating widows, as among the Hindoos, on the funeral pile, taught by the Bramhun missionaries, who, undoubtedly, visited America, as it joins on to Asia north, or as it was then possibly called, Amaquemecan, &c., and planted their belief among these nations; the tokens of which appear so abundantly in the mounds and tumuli of the west.

And this Quetzalcotl, a celebrated minister of those opinions, appears to have been the first who announced the religion of the east among the people of the west. There was also one other minister, or Bramhun, who appeared among the Mozca tribes in South America, whom they name Bochica. This personage taught the worship of the Sun; and if we were to judge, should pronounce him a missionary of the Confucian system, a worshipper of fire, which was the religion of the ancient Persians, of whose country Confucius was a native. This also is evidence that the first inhabitants of America came here at a period near the flood, long before that worship was known, or they would have had a knowledge of this Persian worship, which was introduced by Bochica, among the American nations; which, it seems, they had not, till taught by this man.

Bochica, it appears, became a legislator among those nations, and changed the form of their government to a form, the construction of which, says Baron Humboldt, bears a strong analogy to the governments of Japan and Thibet, on account of the pontiffs holding in their hands both the secular and the spiritual reins. In Japan, an island on the east of Asia, or rather many islands, which compose the Japanese empire, is found a religious sect, stiled Sinto, who do not believe in the sanguinary rites of shedding either hu

man blood, or that of animals, to propitiate their gods. They even abstain from animal food, and detest bloodshed, and will not touch any dead body.-Morse's Geography, p. 522.

There is, in South America, a whole nation who eat nothing but vegetables, and who hold in abhorrence those who feed on flesh. -Humboldt, page 200. Such a coincidence in the religion of nations, can scarcely be supposed to exist, unless they are of one origin. "I am not ignorant, says Humboldt, p. 199, that the Tchoutsks annually crossed Bhering's Straits, to make war on the inhabitants of the northwest coast of America."

Therefore, from what we have related above, and a few pages back, it is clear, both from the tradition of the Aztecas, who lived in the western regions before they went to the south, and from the fact that nations on the Asiatic side of Bhering's Straits, having come annually over the Straits to fight with the ancient nations of the northwest; that we, in this way, have given conclusive and satisfactory reasons, why, in the western mounds and tumuli, are found evident tokens of the presence of a Hindoo population, or at least, of nations influenced by the superstitions of that people, through the means of missionaries of that cast; and that they did not bring those opinions and ceremonies with them when they first left Asia, after the confusion of the antediluvian language, as led on by their fifteen chiefs; till by some means, and at some period, they finally found this country; not by the way of Bhering's Straits, but some nearer course, as we have conjectured in other places in this work.

Perhaps a few words on the supposed native country of Quetzalcotl, may be allowed; who, as we have stated, is reported to have been a white and bearded man, by the Mexican Aztecas. There is a vast range of islands on the northeast of Asia, in the Pacific, situated not very far from Bhering's Straits, in latitude between 40 and 50 degrees north. The inhabitants of these islands, when first discovered, were found to be far in advance in the arts of civilzation, and a knowledge of governments, of their continental neighbors-the Chinese and Tartars. The Island of Jesso, in particular, which, of itself, is an empire, comparatively, being very populous; and are also highly polished in their manners.

The inhabitants may be denominated white; their women especially, whom Morse, in his Geography of the islands of Japan, Jesso

and others in that range, says expressly, are white, fair and ruddy. Humboldt says, they are a bearded race of men, like Europeans.

It appears, the ancient government of these islands, especially that of Japan, which is neighbor to that of Jesso, was in the hands of spiritual monarchs and pontiffs, till the 17th century. As this was the form of government introduced by Quetzalcotl, when he first appeared among the Azteca tribes; which we suppose was in the country of Aztalan, or western states, may it not be conjectured that he was a native of some of those islands, who, in his wanderings, had found his way to the place now called Bhering's Straits; for, indeed, anciently there may have been only an isthmus at that place, and thence to this country, on errands of benevolence; as it is said in the tradition respecting him, that he preached peace among men, and would not allow any other offering to the divinity than the first fruits of the harvest; which doctrine was in character with the mild and amiable manners of the inhabitans of those islands.

And that peculiar and striking record, found painted on the Mexican skin-books, which describes him to have been a white and bearded man, is our other reason for supposing him to have been a native of some of these islands, and most probably Jesso, rather than any other country.

The inhabitants of these islands originated from China, and with them undoubtedly carried the Persian doctrines of the worship of the Sun and Fire; consequently, we find it taught to the people of Aztalan and Mexico, by such as visited them from China, or the islands above named; as it is clear the sun was not the original object of adoration in Mexico, but rather the power which made the sun. So Noah worshipped.

A DESCRIPTION OF THE CEREMONIES OF FIRE WORSHIP, AS PRACTISED BY CERTAIN TRIBES ON THE ARKANSAS.

MR. ASH witnessed an exhibition of fire worship, or the worship of the sun, as performed by a whole tribe, at the village of Ozark, near the mouth of the Ozark, or Arkansas river, which empties into the Mississippi, from the west.