THE LOST ATLANTIS. 113 
great national event. In one, a prince of the Cakchiquel nation, tells of the overthrow of 
the Quiché power by his people; and in the other a Quiché seignior, one of the “ Lords 
of Totonicapan,” describes it from his own point of view. Both were of the same Maya 
stock, in what is now the State of Guatemala. Each nation had a capital adorned with 
temples and palaces, the splendour of which excited the wonder of the Spaniards; and 
both preserved traditions of the migration of their ancestors from Tula, a mythical land 
from which they came across the water. 
Such traditions of migration meet us on many sides. Captain Cook found among the 
mythological traditions of Tahiti, a vague legend of a ship that came out of the ocean, 
and seemed to be the dim record of ancestral intercourse with the outer world. So also, 
the Aztecs had the tradition of the golden age of Anahuac ; and of Quetzalcoatl, their 
instructor in agriculture, metallurgy and the arts of government. He was of fair com- 
plexion, with long dark hair, and flowing beard—all, characteristics foreign to their race. 
When his mission was completed, he set sail for the mysterious shores of Tlapallan ; and 
on the appearance of the ships of Cortes, the Spaniards were believed to have returned, 
with the divine instructor of their forefathers, from the source of the rising sun. 
What tradition hints at, physiology confirms. The races of America differ less in 
physical character from those of Asia, than do the races either of Africa or Europe. The 
American Indian is a Mongol ; and though marked diversities are traceable throughout 
the American continent, the range of variation is much less than in the eastern hemisphere. 
The western continent appears to have been peopled by repeated migrations and diverse 
routes; but when we attempt to estimate any probable date for its primeval settlement, 
evidence wholly fails. Language proves elsewhere a safe guide. It has established 
beyond question some long-forgotten relationship between the Aryans of India and Persia 
and those of Europe; it connects the Finn and Lapp with their Asiatic forefathers ; it 
marks the independent origin of the Basques and their priority to the oldest Aryan 
intruders ; it links together widely diverse branches of the great Semitic family. Can 
language tell us of any such American affinities, or of traces of Old World congeners, in 
relation to either civilised Mayas and Peruvians, or to the forest and prairie races of the 
northern continent ? 
With the millions of America’s coloured population of African blood and yet speaking 
Aryan languages, the American comparative philologist can scarcely miss the significance 
of the warning that linguistic and ethnical classifications by no means necessarily imply 
the same thing. Nevertheless, without overlooking this distinction, the ethnical signifi- 
cance of the evidence which comparative philology supplies cannot be slighted in any 
question relative to prehistoric relations between the Old World and the New. What 
then can philology tell us? There is one answer, at the least, which the languages of 
America give, that fully accords with the legend, “ white with age,” that told of an island- 
continent in the Atlantic ocean with which the nations around the Mediterranean once 
held intercourse. None of them indicates any trace of immigration within the period 
of earliest authentic history. Those who attach significance to the references in the 
“Timzeus” to political relations common to Atlantis and parts of Libya and Europe; or 
who, on other grounds, look with favour on the idea of early intercourse between the 
Mediterranean and the western continent, have naturally turned to the Eskuara of the 
Basques. It is invariably recognised as the surviving representative of languages spoken 
Sec. II., 1876. 15. 
