210 Jonrney across this Continent 
they visited. The fcavetive atile, wh the bold Syriac ex- 
pressionsin the language of the Natches, fs likewise another 
proof of their being descended from thé Phenisians: 
- Asto those whom the Natches, long after their first estabe 
lishment, found inbabiting the western coasts of America, 
and whom we name Mexicans, the arts which they possessed 
and cultivated with success, oblige me to give thein’a different 
origins Their'temples, their sacrifices, ‘their buildings, their 
form of government, and their manner of making war, all 
denote a people who have transmigratéed in a body, and 
brought with them the arts, the sciences,.and the customs of 
their country. Those people had the art of writing and also 
of painting. Their archives consisted of cloths ‘of cotton, 
whereon they had painted or drawn all those transactions, 
which they thought worthy of being transmitted to posterity. 
It were greatly to be wished that the first conquerors of ‘this 
new world had preserved to us the figures of those drawings ; 
for by comparing them with the characters used by other na~ 
tions, we might perhaps have discovered the origin of the in- 
habitants. The knowledge which we have of the Chinese 
characters, which are rather irregular drawings than charac-: 
ters, would probably have facilitated such a discovery ;'and 
perhaps those of Japan would have been found greatly to have’ 
resembledthe Mexican ; for I amstrongly of opinion that the 
Mexicans are descended from one of those two nations. Ina 
fact, where is the impossibility, that some prince in one of 
those countries, upon failing in an attempt to raise himself to- 
the sovereign power, should leave his native country with all 
his partizans and look forsome new land, where, after he had 
established himself, he might drop all foreign correspondence? 
The easy navigation of the South Sea renders the thing pro- 
bable ; and the new map of the [astern bounds of Asia, and 
the Western of North America, lately published by M. De. 
Lisle makes it still more likely. This map makes it plainly 
appear, that between the island of Japan, or Northern Coasts 
of 
