126 Auguft 1749. 



gether, they found them perfectly alike 1 * 

 Notwithftanding the queftions which the 



French 



in Marco Paolo, that Kullai-Kban^ one of the fuccefibrs of 

 Gexgaizkban, after the ccnqueft of the fouthern part of 

 China, fent ihips out, to conquer the kingdom of "Japan, 

 or, as they call it, Nipan-gri, but in a terrible itorm the 

 whole fleet was caft away, and nothing was ever heard of 

 the men in that fleet. It fecrns that fome of thefe fhips 

 were caft to the mores, oppoiite the great American lakes, 

 between forty and fifty degrees north latitude, and there 

 probably erected thefe monument?, and vere the anceilors 

 of fome nations, who are called Mozemlecks, and have fome 

 degree of civilization. Another part of this fleet, it feem?, 

 reached the country oppofite Mexico, and there founded the 

 Mexican empire, which, according to their own records, as 

 preferred by the Spaniards, and in their painted annals, in 

 Purchases Pilgrimage, are very recent; fo that they can 

 fcarcely remember any more than feven princes before 

 Mctezuma II. who was reigning when the Spaniards arrived 

 there, 1519, under Fernando Cortex,; confequemly the firllof 

 thefe princes, fuppofing each had a reign of thirty-three years 

 and four months, and adding to it the iixteen years of Mo- 

 tezumst, began to reign in the year 1270, when Kublal- 

 Khan, the conqueror of all China and of Japan, was on the 

 throne, and in whofe time happened, I believe, the firil 

 abortive expedition to Japan, which I mentioned above", 

 and probably furnifhed North- America, with civilized in- 

 habitants. There is, if I am not miftaken, a great fmiila- 

 rity between the figures of the Mexican idols, and thofe 

 which are ufual among the Tartars, who embrace the doc- 

 trines and religion of the Dalai-Lama, whofe religion Ku- 

 hlai-Khan firft introduced among the Monguls, or Moguls. 

 The favage Indians of North-America, it feems, have an- 

 other origin, and are probably defcended from the Yxkag- 

 hiri and Tchucktchi, inhabitants of the moft eafterly and 

 northerly part of AJla, where, according to the accounts of 

 the Ruffians, there is but a fmall trajeft to America. The 

 ferocity of thefe nations, fimilar to that of the Americans, 

 their way of painting, their fondncfs of inebriating liquors, 



(which 



