366 GeographimlXollections. 



M. de Siebold was sent into these parts by the Baron Van der Capellan, when 

 governor of Batavia, and, besides rich remittances of seeds to the Garden of 

 Plants of Paris, he had, previous to the misfortunes of which we have already given 

 an account in this Journal, sent to the Asiatic Society of France a learned me- 

 moir on the language and history of the Japanese, in which he discusses their 

 origin, and which it would be desirable to see translated either into the French 

 or English language ; for the history of man is a great problem, which, in the 

 present day, is discussed in every part of the world, and new discoveries come 

 every month to give confirmation to the Mosaic records. 



M. Siebold remarked that, excepting the first, the names of the Japanese days 

 terminated all in ka, as is also the case in seven out of ten of the Muysca num- 

 bers. In the Caucasus the languages of the Awares and Lesghi have also the 

 names of their numbers terminating in ko, or ico. He further remarked that 

 fito, which signifies one in Japanese, approximates closely to atar, number one in 

 Muyscayan ; ada also, among the Abazes of Caucasus, signifies frog, which is 

 the hieroglyphic of the number one, as we previously remarked in Muysca and 

 Japan, and adi in Nepaul and in Asia, and the primitive atha in Sanscrit, sig- 

 nify the first, like the term atha in Muyscayan. M. Siebold also remarked, 

 that/oMfeca or boutsca, signifying two in Japanese, is evidently hosca or bousca, 

 equal to two among the Muscayans ; that, in each, mica signifies three ; 

 and that itsca and hisca, for five, were evidently the same words ; whilst aca, 

 nine in Muyscayan, is the simple abbreviation of conoca ; that is to say, nine days 

 in Japanese. And he concluded from these and similar afiinities that the two 

 people had the same origin. 



M. Klaproth, in analyzing, in the name of a commission, the memoir of M. 

 Siebold, has wished to contest this opinion ; and to compensate for the strength 

 of proof furnished by this simple analogy of numbers, Mr. Klaproth presented a 

 list of twenty-three Muyscayan words that were very^ different from the Japanese 

 words that were compared with them. But Mr. Klaproth, who often, from the 

 similarity of a few words alone, has identified people who had no other relation, 

 has certainly been unfortunate in the choice of his Japanese words ; for M. de Par- 

 avey found in that language more than twenty words quoted by Mr. Klaproth, 

 and among others very complicated words of four syllables ; for example, tomagatu 

 is the name of a bad genius, or a comet or burning star, which in Muyscayan 

 signifies melted or burning mass, whilst in Japanese Fi macouts expresses the 

 same idea. 



We might mention all the Muyscayan words found in the Japanese itself by 

 JI. de Paravey, but we would rather refer to the curious discoveries lately made in 

 Guatemala, and in the rich and ancient town of Palenque, for so long a time un- 

 known, and which might be called the Thebes of America. 



It will suflSce to add here, that even the name of the language of the Muyscas, 

 which is called Chibcha, or the language of the Chib men, or sibcha in Muysca- 

 yan, signifying man, (which is the sa of the Japanese, also signifying man,) is the 

 same as that of the Japanese language, which in the present day at Japan 

 is actually called sewa or siwa, from whence might easily have been derived 

 the name chib of the Chibcha language, which has further come to us, and is 

 preserved here, in the French pronunciation. M. de Humboldt, when visiting 

 the upland of Bogota, not far from the fine cascade of Tequendama, which has 

 been the subject of his descriptions, found, beside a hill at this day called 

 Chiper, an ancient Indian village also called Sube, a name that closely approxi- 

 mates to Sewa, Saba ; and he saw in the vicinity of this village the remains of an 

 ancient and flourishing agriculture. 



This name, then, alone would lead us to Japan, the country of the language of 

 Sevja ; and might we not even find some traces of the Sabeans ? since the Muys- 

 cayans, as well as the Japanese and the ancient Sabeans or Phenicians, adored 

 the sun and the moon, and, with others of the old American nations, approximated 

 themselves to those of the east by the sacrifice of human victims. 



