Mr, Ranking on the American Tribes. 365 



languages, like those of America, are in perpetual fluctuation," 

 — Sir William Jones, vol. i. p. 59. This proves the difficulty 

 of tracing events and history by their means. The picture- 

 writing of the Mexicans, the Quipos and Wampum of the 

 Peruvians and Canadians (of Chinese origin), and the calendar 

 of the Toltecs, are what we are indebted to for the scanty 

 existing chronology. All the eastern American Indians agree 

 in their having come from the west. 



It might have been expected that more particulars of the 

 remembrance of the Old World would have been traced : but 

 the Indian registers were, as far as possible, destroyed by the 

 Spaniards ; and the Indians hid the rest. Without an alphabet, 

 little can be conveyed to posterity ; and the buccaneers, in 

 thirty years, had forgotten all traces of Christianity. (Yates, p. 

 53.) We must also recollect how little is generally known of 

 Siberia, the country which has had so great a share in peopling 

 America; and which had not been visited by the Russians till 

 Yermac, the Cossac, a fugitive with 6000 followers, crossed the 

 Ural mountains in 1577, eighty-five years after the discovery 

 of the New World. Kamtschatka was not known till 1697. 

 (Levesque, Histoire de Russie, iii. 119. viii. 35.) 



Another difficulty in tracing the Indians by their features 

 often arises by their intermarrying. In Asia, the Moguls and 

 Calmucs both intermarried with the Turkish tribes, and it no 

 doubt is the same in America. Thus the persons would be 

 mixed in their features, colours, and the shaping of the heads. 



The only signs of ancient architecture, of any importance, 

 yet discovered, are the ruins of Tiahuanaca, near lake Titiaca, 

 in Peru. There was a pyramid formed of terraces, a long wall 

 of huge stones, a hall, forty-five by twenty-two feet, grandes 

 portes of stone, ajid sculptures on stone of men and women, 

 well executed ; also two stone giants with garments that reached 

 the ground, and caps on their heads. The buildings bear the 

 appearance of never having been finished. {Vega, i. 236.) This 

 is evidently Chinese-Tartar, and is, probably, derived from a 

 Tartar invasion of Japan, in the year 799 ; the vessels of which 

 are said to have been lost in a tempest, not a single person 

 having returned to Asia *. The Toltecs arrived in Asia before 



* Thunberys lies, and Conq. of Peru, 73, 468. 

 APRIL— JULY, 1828. 2 B 



