The human race has every where experienced terrible revolutions. Pestilence, wars and the convulsions of the globe, have annihilated the proudest works, and rendered vain the noblest efforts of man.

"Ask not the sage, when and by whom were erected those lingering ruins of the west, the imperishable memorials of ages, long since swallowed up in the ocean of time; ask not the wild Arab where may be found the owner of the superb palace, within whose broken walls he casts his tent; ask not the poor fisherman, as he spreads his nets, or the ploughman, who whistles over the fields, where is Carthage? where is Troy? of whose splendor historians and poets have so much boasted! Alas! they have vanished from the things that be and have left but the melancholy lesson of the instability of the most stupendous labors of our race."

RESEMBLANCE OF THE WESTERN INDIANS TO THE
ANCIENT GREEKS.

THE reader may recollect we have shown on page 44, that the Greek fleet once moored on the coast of Brazil, South America, said to be the fleet of Alexander the Great, and also the supposed Greek carving, or sculpture, in the cave on the Ohio river. See page 140.

In addition, we give from Mr. Volney's View of America, his comparison of the ancient Greek tribes with the tribes of the western Indians. He says the limits of his work would not allow him to enter into all the minute of this interesting subject; and, therefore, should content himself with saying, that the more deeply we examine the history and way of savage life, the more ideas we acquire that illustrate the nature of man in general, the gradual formation of societies, and the character and manners of the nations of antiquity.

While this author was among the Indians of the west, he was particularly struck with the analogy between the savages of North America and the so much vaunted ancient nations of Greece and taly. In the Greeks of Homer, particularly in those of his Iliad,

he found the customs and manners of the Iroquois, Delawares, and Miamas, strikingly exemplified. The tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides, paint almost literally the sentiments of the red men respecting necessity, fatality, the miseries of human life, and the rigor of blind destiny. But the piece most remarkable for variety, combination of features and resemblance, is the beginning of the history of Thucydides, in which he briefly traces the habits and way of life of the Greeks, before and after the Trojan war, up to the age in which he wrote. This fragment of their history appears so well adapted, that we are persuaded the reader will be pleased at having it laid before him, so that he can make the comparison for himself.

"It is certain that the region now known by the name of Greece was not formerly possessed by any fixed inhabitants, but was subject to frequent migrations, as constantly every distinct people or tribe yielded up their seats to the violence of a larger supervening number. For, as to commerce, there was none, and mutual fear prevented intercourse, both by land sea; as then the only view of culture was barely to procure a penurious subsistence, as superfluous wealth was a thing unknown."

"Planting was not their employment, it being uncertain how soon an invader might come and dislodge them from their unfortified habitations; and as they thought they might every where find their daily support, they hesitated but little about shifting their habitations. And for this reason they never flourished in the greatness of their cities, or any other circumstance of power. But the richest tracts of country were ever more particularly liable to this frequent change of inhabitants, such as that now called Thessaly and Boeotia, and Peloponesus chiefly, except Arcadia, and in general the most fertile parts of Greece. For the natural wealth of their soil, in particular districts, increased the power of some amongst them; that power raised civil dissentions, which ended in their ruin, and at the same time exposed them the more to foreign attacks."

It was only the barrenness of the soil that preserved Attica through the longest space of time, quiet and undisturbed, in one uninterrupted series of possessors. One, and not the least convincing proof of this is, that other parts of Greece, because of the fluctuating condition of the inhabitants, could by no means, in their

growth keep pace with Attica. The most powerful of those who were driven from the other parts of Greece, by war or sedition, betook themselves to the Athenians for secure refuge, and as they obtained the privilege of citizens, have constantly, from remote time, continued to enlarge that city with fresh accessions of inhabitants; insomuch, that, at last, Attica, being insufficient to support its numbers, they sent over colonies to Ionia.

The custom of wearing weapons, once prevailed all over Greece, as their houses had no manner of defence, as travelling was full of hazard, and their whole lives were passed in armour, like barbarians. A proof of this, is the continuance still, in some parts of Greece, of those manners which were once, with uniformity, common to all. The Athenians were the first who discontinued the custom of wearing their swords, and who passed from the savage life into more polite and elegant manners. Sparta is not closely built; the temples and public edifices by no means sumptuous, and the houses detached from each other, after the old mode of Greece.

In their war manners they resembled the Indians of America, for after a certain engagement they had with an enemy, and being victorious, they erected a trophy upon Leucinna, a promontory of Corcyra, and put to death all the prisonners they had taken, except one, who was a Corinthian.

The pretended golden age of those nations was nothing better than to wander naked in the forests of Hellas and Thessaly, living on herbs and acorns; by which we perceive that the ancient Greeks were truly savages of the same kind as those in America, and placed in nearly similar circumstances of climate, since Greece covered with forests, was then much colder than at present. Hence we infer, that the name of Pelasgian, believed to belong to one and the same people, wandering and dispersed about from the Crimea to the Alps, was only the generic appellation of the savage hordes of the first inhabitants, roaming in the same manner as the Hurons and Algonquins, or as the old Germans and Celts.

And we should presume, with reason, that colonies of foreigners, farther advanced in civilization, coming from the coasts of Asia, Phoenicia, and even Egypt, and settling on those of Greece and. Latium, had nearly the same kind of intercourse with these aborigines; sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile; as the first English

settlers in Virginia and New-England had with the American savages.

By these comparisons we should explain both the intermixture and disappearance of some of those nations, the manners and customs of those inhospitable times, when every stranger was an enemy, and every robber a hero; when there was no law but force, no virtue but bravery in war; when every tribe was a nation, and every assemblage of huts a metropolis.

In this period of anarchy and disorder, of savage life, we should see the origin of that character of pride and boasting, perfidiousness and cruelty, dissimulation and injustice, sedition and tyranny, that the Greeks display throughout the whole course of their history; we should perceive the source of those false ideas of virtue and glory, sanctioned by the poets and orators of those ferocious days; who have made war and its melancholy trophies, the loftiest aim of man's ambition, the most shining road to renown, and the most dazzling object of ambition to the ignorant and cheated multitude: And since the polished and civilized people of Christendom have made a point of imitating these nations, and consider their politics and morals, like their poetry and arts, the types of all perfection; it follows that our homage, our patronage, and veneration, are addressed to the manners and spirit of barbarous and savage times.

The grounds of comparison are so true, that the analogy reaches even to their philosophical and religious opinions; for all the principles of the stoic school of the Greeks are found in the practice of the American savages; and if any should lay hold of this circumstance to impute to the savages the merit of being philosophers, we retort the supposition, and say, we ought, on the contrary, to conclude, that a state of society, in which precepts so repugnant to human nature were invented for the purpose of rendering life supportable, must have been an order of things, and of government, not less miserable than the savage state. This opinion is supported by the whole history of these Grecian times, even in their most brilliant periods, and by the uninterrupted series of their own wars, seditions, massacres, and tyrannical proscriptions, down to the time of their subjugation by those other savages of Italy, called the Romans; who, in their character, politics, and aggrandizement, have a striking resemblance to the Six Nations.

With regard to religious notions, these do not form a regular system among the savages, because every individual in his independent state, makes himself a creed after his own fancy. If we may judge from the accounts of the historians of the first settlers, and those of late travellers in the northwest, it appears that the Indians compose their mythology in the following manner :

First a Great Manitou, or superior being; who governs the earth and the aerial meteors, the visible whole of which constitutes the universe of a savage. This Great Manitou, residing on high, without his having any clear idea where, rules the world, without giving himself much trouble; sends rain, wind, or fair weather, according to his fancy; sometimes makes a noise, which is the thunder, to amuse himself; concerns himself as little about the affairs of men as about those of other living beings that people the earth; does good, without taking any thought about it; suffers ill to be perpetrated without its disturbing his repose, and in the mean time, leaves the world to a destiny, or fatality, the laws of which are anterior, and paramount, to all things.

Under his command are subordinate Manitous, or genii, innumerable, who people earth and air, preside over every thing that happens, and have each a separate employment. Of these genii, some are good; and these do all the good that takes place in nature; others are bad, and these occasion all the evil that happens to living beings.

It is to the latter chiefly, and almost exclusively, that the savages address their prayers, their propitiatory offerings, and what religious worship they have; the object of which is, to appease the malice of these Manitous, as men appease the ill humour of morose, bad This fear of genii is one of their most habitual thought, and that by which they are most tormented. Their most intrepid warriors are, in this respect, no better than their women; a dream, a phantom seen at night in the woods, or a sinister cry, equally alarms their credulous, superstitious minds.

men.

Their magicians, or, as we more properly call them, jugglers, pretend to very familiar intercourse with these genii; they are, however, greatly puzzled to explain their nature, form, and aspect. Not having our ideas of pure spirit, they suppose them to be composed of substances, yet light, volatile, and invisible, true shadows and manes, after the manner of the ancients. Sometimes they se