Aboriginal Race of America. 153 
or to build houses, in order that nothing may conflict with 
those roving and predatory habits which have continued un- 
altered through a period of three thousand years. 
Other examples perhaps not less forcible, might be adduced 
in the families of the Mongolian race ; but without extending 
the comparison, or attempting to investigate this singular in- 
tellectual disparity, we shall, for the present at least, con- 
tent ourselves with the facts as we find them. It is import- 
ant, however, to remark, that these civilized states do not 
stand isolated from their barbarous neighbours ; on the con- 
trary, they merge gradually into each other, so that some 
nations are with difficulty classed with either division, and 
rather form an intermediate link between the two. Such are 
the Araucanians, whose language and customs, and even 
whose arts, prove their direct affiliation with the Peruvians, 
although they far surpass the latter in sagacity and courage, 
at the same time that their social institutions present many 
features of intractable barbarism. So also the Aztec rulers 
of Mexico at the period of the Spanish invasion, exhibit, with 
their bloody sacrifices and multiform idolatry, a strong con- 
trast to the gentler spirit of the Toltecas who preceded them, 
and whose arts and ingenuity they had usurped. Still later 
in this intermediate series were the Natchez tribes of the 
Mississippi, who retained some traces of the refinement of 
their Mexican progenitors, mingled with many of the rudest 
traits of savage life. It is thus that we can yet trace all the 
gradations, link by link, which connect these extremes to- 
gether ; shewing that although the civilization of these nations 
is fast becoming obsolete, although their arts and sciences 
have passed away with a former generation, still the people 
remain in all other respects unchanged, although a variety of 
causes has long been urging them onward to deep degrada- 
tion and rapid extinction. Strange as these intellectual re- 
volutions may seem, we venture to assert, that, all circum- 
stances considered, they are not greater than those which 
have taken place between the ancient and modern Greeks. 
If we had not incontestible evidence to prove the fact, who 
would believe that the ancestors of the Greeks of the present 
day were the very people who gave glory to the age of Pericles! 
