INDIAN CORN. 35 



In closing the historical part of this memoir, it may 

 not be uninteresting to allude to another countrymen 

 of ours, Elihu Burritt, commonly called " The Learned 

 Blacksmith," who is at present engaged in making a 

 pedestrian tour in various parts of Europe, and giving 

 the result of his observations in the " Christian 

 Citizen," from which we make the following extract : 



I have just got out " An Olive Leaf, from, the House- 

 wives of America, to the Housewives of Great Britain 

 and Ireland, or Recipes for making Various Articles of 

 Food, of Indian Corn Meal," containing all the recipes 

 I received before leaving home from our kind female 

 friends in different parts of the Union heaven bless 

 them ! I have had 2,000 of these Olive Leaves struck 

 off, and intended, in the first place, to send a copy to 

 every newspaper in the realm. I shall have a thou- 

 sand, all of which I shall put into the hands of those 

 I meet on the road. I have resolved to make it a con- 

 dition upon which only I consent to be any man's 

 guest, that his wife shajl serve up a johnny-cake for 

 breakfast, or an Indian pudding for dinner. I was in- 

 vited yesterday to a tea party which conies off to-night, 

 where about thirty persons are to be present. I ac- 

 cepted the invitation with the johnny-cake clause, 

 which was readily agreed to by all parties. So to-night 

 the virtues of corn meal will be tested by some of the 

 best livers in Birmingham. 



Mythology. The Indians of Peru and the adjacent 

 country, who existed before the empire of the Incas 

 began, were at best but tamed animals, and often they 

 were more brutish than the beasts of the field. They 

 possessed no right of property, no fixed laws, no religion, 

 nor government ; neither did they plough, sow, or till 

 the earth, nor did they understand the art of weaving 

 cotton or wool ; but dwelt together in small hordes as 

 they happened to meet in caves or holes in the rocks 

 and mountains, subsisting on grass, herbs and roots, 

 wild fruits, and the flesh of man, with no other cloth- 

 ing than the leaves and bark of trees, and the skins of 

 beasts. In short, they were altogether savage. 



