of the Amencq,n Indians, 355 



the Natches, Dr. Robertson observes, " The ancient Persians, 

 a people far superior in every respect, founded their religious 

 system on similar principles. This surprising coincidence be- 

 tween two nations, in such different states of improvement, is 

 one of the many singular and unaccountable circumstances in 

 the history of human affairs." The two most philosophical 

 and scientific writers on American history are Dr. Robertson and 

 Baron Humboldt, and both of them are frequently surprised 

 and puzzled with such close similitudes with Asia as the above. 

 The Spanish authors, and those of the United States, are fre- 

 quently out of humour with Dr. R. for underrating the civilisa- 

 tion of the ancient Americans, and whatever relates to the 

 New World*. There is the same comparative difference be- 

 tween Americans and such Asiatics as are best known in his- 

 tory, as existed in the Old World between the ancient Persians 

 and the Scythians ; and the arrivals of the Tartars in America 

 in considerable numbers from 544 to 1283, the earliest and the 

 latest dates recorded, are sufficient to account for everything 

 of any importance that is yet known with regard to America. 



Ghazt, and Strahlenberg. With respect to Peru, the following is new. " On the 

 road to Potosi, I saw numerous Indian stone sepulchres, oblong in form, and ten or 

 fifteen feet high : they appeared as far as the eye could reach, displaying their 

 white heads, and looked like the tops of houses in an inhabited town." Capt, 

 Andrews' Jburney from Buenos Ayres to Salta, &c., 1827. In Siberia and Tartary 

 the graves are of several shapes ; there are oblong^ triangular, of rough hewn 

 stones, square "freestones, and some of earth. Some are as high as houses, and 

 placed so near together, and in such numbers, that at a distance they appear like a 

 ridge of hills. The ambassadors of the Chinese Tartars, when they returned from their 

 expedition to the Calmuc, Ajucki Khan, asked Col. Kanifer at Jenesai, for permis- 

 sion to visit the graves of their ancestors, but were refused, as the tombs had been 

 rifled and demolished. — {SlraMenberg, p. 365.) At Ceesaria, in Asia Minor, which 

 was conquered by Octal, son and successor to Genghis Khan, there are 20,000 pyra- 

 midal tombs, supposed to be those of Tartars who fell in battle. — {Aoul GAazi, 

 Note, p. 558.) 



♦ There not being any iron tools in America, has induced many persons to with- 

 hold their belief of the perfection described of the buildings of the Peruvians and 

 Mexicans. But this is no objection whatever, as the Japanese had the art of harden- 

 ing copper to that degree, that they pre/erred copper tools to those made of iron, 

 which they also possessed : (Keemp/er, 109 ) and the Mexicans felled immense trees, 

 and shaped them with copper-axes cunningly tempered. — Peter Martyr, Hakluyt, 

 \w. 598, who says that some trees were a hundred feet long, and bigger than an ox, 

 which he dare not mention, but that he had it from great authority affirmed before 

 the senate. 



