4 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES 



any written documents whatever. The domestic 

 manners of the Egyptians have been clearly made out 

 by an examination of that picture-writing which has 

 been called hieroglyphic ; and in the same way the 

 careful observation and comparison of the figures 

 painted on vases or sarcophagi has thrown light 

 upon a similar subject of research, with regard not 

 only to the ancient Greeks, but even the Etruscans, 

 of whom at best we know very little, and abso- 

 lutely nothing by any direct historical documents. 

 The knowledge thus acquired indirectly is however 

 valuable, because it may generally be thoroughly 

 depended on; and if the facts so determined appear 

 at first sight few and unimportant, they are found 

 from time to time to possess an increasing value, and 

 they are the more credible as being for the most part 

 too unimportant in themselves to have been worth 

 while to falsify. 



Now, in a way not much unlike that which must 

 be pursued in investigating this kind of history, it is 

 possible to make out an account of the successive 

 events that have taken place in various parts of the 

 world, not only before the earth was inhabited by 

 civilized men, but even when man had not yet been 

 created. 



Since however, before attempting to give a history 

 of a people, it must be perfectly certain that the 

 people to be spoken of did once exist, so the reader 

 has a right to require that, before commencing, as I 

 propose to do, an account of the pre-adamite world, 

 it should be clearly shown that there exist for this 

 account the true materials of history ; and that there 

 is, in fact, that degree of order and system in the 



