APPENDIX.] WEST INDIES. rn 



APPENDIX TO BOOK I. 



Containing some additional observations concerning the ori~ 



gin of the Charaibes. 



HAVING ventured, in the second chapter of this book, 

 to adopt the opinion of Hornius* and other writers, 

 who assign to some of the natives of America an oriental ori- 

 gin, and suppose that they anciently crossed the Atlantic 

 ocean, I beg the reader's indulgence while I briefly state the 

 evidence whereon I attempt to rebuild a system, which it has 

 become fashionable, among some late philosophers, to reject 

 and deride. 



So many volumes have indeed already been written, and so 

 much useless learning exhausted, on the subject of the first 

 peopling America, that I doubt the reader will shrink with 

 disgust from an investigation which perhaps has given rise to 

 as great a number of idle books, as any question (some dis- 

 puted points in divinity excepted) that ever distracted the at- 

 tention of mankind. 



It may be necessary therefore to premise, that I mean to 

 apply my argument to the Charaibe nation only ; a people 

 whose manners and characteristic features denote, as 1 con- 



* De originibus Americanis, lib. ii. c. ri. 



