360 On some Quadrupeds supposed to be extinct. 



terrors and submission of Montezuma and the Mexicans, who 

 had ahvays dreaded such a visit. 



The Aztecs had sojourned in Culiacan and other places, from 

 the date of the arrival of the ships, till they proceeded to Ana- 

 huac. The foundation of Tenochtitlan (or Mexico) having been 

 in 1324, and the first king, Montezuma's ancestor, elected in 

 1377 ; therefore, the empire, Avhen Montezuma died, had lasted 

 only 144 years; and this calculation is from the most authentic 

 documents known, that is, the pictures in Purchas's collection. 

 In Harris's Voyages, vol. ii., p. 97, Montezuma is said to have 

 told Cortez, that it was only a century since they had been 

 settled where they were, meaning, probably, that it was not two 

 centuries. , 



Thus an elephant being found in a tomb in Mexico, and 

 others in tombs in Siberia, is an additional argument to the 

 strong ones already produced, for the Mexicans being the 

 Moguls blown from the shores of Japan, a. d. 1283, which 

 appears irresistible ; and also that mammoths and mastodontes 

 are not extinct, being found either living or fossil in all the 

 places in America, which agree with the traditions on that 

 subject, and with the histories of China and Japan*. 



The Tapir. 



The Tapir was supposed to be peculiar to the New World : 

 two fossil species, one of them gigantic, have been found in 



* A Roman coin is said to have been discovered recently among the 

 Indians in America, which has justly created surprise ; but others have 

 been found long ago. Bishop Hakewill's book is dated, a. d. 1635 : he 

 says, " Marianus Siculus, in his history of Spain, reports that certain 

 coined pieces of gold, engraved with the image and inscription of 

 Augustus Caesar, were found in the American mines ; thereby inferring 

 that those countries were then discovered." p. 310. Baton, the cousin 

 of Kublai, both grandsons of Genghis, had conquered Russia, ravaged 

 Europe to the Adriatic, and died on his march to Constantinople, in 

 1256. His successor also ravaged as far as Constantinople, (P. de la 

 Croix, p. 387.) Mango (so spelt by Du Halde, ii., 251, and Maunde- 

 ville, p. 275 ; Manku by Tooke, Russ. Emp., ii., 13) was brother to 

 Kublai, who is considered by the writer to be the father of the first 

 Inca, and there is nothing more probable than that he and other Moguls 

 on the Japanese expedition may have possessed Roman coins, the plun- 

 der of Hungary, Poland, Dalmatia, and the Greek empire, as far as the 

 capital. - 



