218 On the peopling of America. 



tiou, when pasture failed for cattle, they had recourse to agri- 

 culture. Thus it was that the shepherd state commonly suc- 

 ceeded the chase, and that again was succeeded bv agriculture. 

 This succession did not, for it could not, take piace in America. 

 The first planters brought with thcin the usual stock of knowledge, 

 but they brought no cattle. They brought the maize*, as I 

 presume, that we call Indian corn, for it is said to grow in Asia. 

 If .they wished to raise cattle, tliey could not obtain the species 

 to which they had been accustomed, but tlicy could raise corn, 

 for they had the seed : hence it was, that in ail cases some de- 

 gree of agriculture immediately followed the habit of living by 

 the chase. 



The annals of the American savage, like those of every other 

 nation, have been corroded bv the rust of time. When we speak 

 of the epoch in which tliey arrived, we find ourselves traveUing 

 in the regions of conjecture, having few marks, and those very 

 obscure, to direct our course. We discover nothing that may 

 be deemed certain, except that they came, the greater part of 

 them, from Asia, and that the time of their arrival is very 

 distant. 



VViiile it was presumed that America was separated from the 

 other continent by an ocean of considerable extent, various opi- 

 nions were formed respecting the manner in which tliis continent 

 had been peopled ; for the ancestor of an Aineri<:an savage, in 

 his canoe, could not be supposed to have adventured far upon 

 the ocean ; but tlie discoveries of late navigators have removed 

 all difficulties on that head. We learn from Captain Cook and 



* Although maize and tobacco are both commonly supposrd to have ori- 

 ginated in America, there is niucii reason to believe that botii tliose plants 

 were carried from Asia l)y the original eniigrants. I suspect that the Es- 

 quimaux Indians, when first discovered, had not the use of maize ; for their 

 ancestors came from a part of the other continent in wiiich that strain is 

 not cultivated, but it is cultivated in Asia. " Tiie inhabitanls," says La- 

 billardicre, "sold us ears of maize, still green, which had been boiltd.'' 

 Tills was in one of the M(>h)c:ca islands. Tobacco, as we are told, is cul- 

 tivated by the natives in the vicinity of Nootka Sound. But tobacco is a 

 tropica! phint. The seed must liave been imported from Asia. The Chi- 

 nese, wlio seldom change their habits, have long been smokers of tobacco. 

 Certain nati'onS in India, lieyond the Gauges, are slaves to the vise of this 

 nauseous plant. The inhabitants of the island Sagalecn, about the iOtli 

 degree of latitude, are also perpetual smokers of toliacco. We arc told 

 by La Perouse, that "they iiave good large-leafed tobacco, and the pipe 

 is never out of their months." 'i hey ai'e supposed to purchase their to- 

 bacco from the Tartars. It lias also been observed, that the Tartars on 

 the continent, nearly opposite to that island, are enslaved by the use of 

 tobacco. " Kvcry male of them, young and old, wears a leathern girdle, 

 to which are bung a little pouch for tobacco, and a pipe." It is not to be 

 supposed that all tlidse nations, so distant and lately discovered, imported 

 their tobacco, or its seed, within tlielast three liuudrcd years, from America. 



others, 



