of the American Indians. 347 



From all that I have heard and read of the Canadians, says 

 Bell of Antermony, there is no nation in the world which they 

 resemble so much as the Tungousians : their ivampum is ex- 

 actly the quipos of the Peruvians*. Up to the date of 1283, 

 the year of the Japan invasion, there is not any evidence of 

 any of the Mongol people having embraced Mahometanism. 

 Hulacou, Kublai's brother, destroyed the race of the Abbasside 

 Galiffs in 1258 : his son Ahmed, who came to the throne of 

 Persia in 1281, is said to have become a Mahometanf . Choja 

 Rashid, of Casbin, asserts, that Cazan Khan (great-grandson 

 of Hulacou), who died in 1303, was the first Mogul who 

 adopted that belief J. 



Quails are very frequently mentioned in the religious cere- 

 monies of the Peruvians and Mexicans, and they tvere not 

 allowed by the Moguls in Asia, to be killed§. '* In the 

 country of the Moguls," says Du Halde, ii. 249, " the number 

 of quails is incredible; they fly about without fear even between 

 our horses' legs." 



Scalping and exhibiting the skulls of prisoners have been 

 practised by the Scythians from the earliest times||. The 

 wandering Americans in general scalp, but the Inca Peruvians 



honourable to exert, without mercy, on their country's enemies ; and for this only it 

 is that they can deserve the name of barbarians." — Dedication. This is an exact 

 picture of Mongols. " Fanquished, they ask no favour, vanquishing they show no 

 compassion." — Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 21. The speech of Sarpedon to Glaucus would 

 apply to the Indians : 



Could the declining of this fate, O friend ! 

 Our life to immortality extend : — 

 But since, alas ! ignoble age must come, 

 Disease and death's inexorable doom : 

 The life which others pay, let us bestow, 

 And give to fame what we to nature owe ; 

 Brave, though we fall, and honour'd if we live, 

 Or let us glory gain, or glory give. 

 Nor is it impossible that the Trojans were Turks ; Oj^uz Khan conquered Armenia, 

 Tangut. &c., and was, probably, not the first Turkish hero. — See AOul Ghazi, ii, 

 ch. 2. The Macrocephali were in Asia Minor, (Pliny); and some authors think that the 

 Turks are derived from the Trojans, {Purchas, vol. v. 279,) which is not probable. 

 Centaurs Are now in Oguz's country. " The Tungouscs, without holding the bridle, 

 ride their horses at the utmost speed, shooting their arrows before and behind them 

 with truly surprising skill.'* — (^Pallas, iv. 340.) 

 ♦ Journey to Pekin, p. 170. 

 t Petit de la Croix, Life of Genghis, p. 403. 

 X Abul Ghazi, i. 29. 

 fj M. Polo, p. 340. 



II Herodotus, Melpomene, Ixiv.j and see the plates in Strahlenberf, which prov* 

 scalping in Tartary. 



