t% On the BORDERERS, MOUNTAINEERS, 



Let us now return eaft ward to the farthefl: Afiatick dominions of Ruffla, 

 and, rounding them on the northeaft., pafs directly to the Hyperboreans % 

 who, from all that can be learned of their old religion and manners, appear, 

 like the Majfagetce, and fome other nations ufually confrdered as Tartars, to 

 have been really of the Gothick, that is of the Hindu, race; for I confidently 

 anume, that the Goths and the Hindus had originally the fame language, 

 gave the fame appellations to the ftars and planets, adored the fame falfe 

 deities, performed the fame bloody facrifkes, and profeffed the fame notions 

 of rewards and punifhments after death. I would not infill: with M. Ba i l- 

 ly, that the people of Finland were Goths, merely becaufe they have 

 the wordjhip in their language ; while the reft of it appears wholly diffinct 

 from any of the Gothick idioms s the publifhers of the Lord's Prayer in 

 many languages reprefent the Finnifi and Lapponian as nearly alike, and 

 the Hungarian as totally different from them ; but this mult be an errour, 

 if it be true, that a Ruffian author has lately traced the Hungarian from its 

 primitive feat between the Cafpian and the Euxine, as far as Lapland r itfelf ; 

 and, fince the Huns were confeffedly Tartars, we may conclude, that all the 

 northern languages, except the Gothick, had a Tartarian origin, like that 

 univerfally afcribed to the various branches of Sclavonian.. 



On the Armenian, which I never ftudied, becaufe I could not hear of" 

 any original compofitions in it, I can offer nothing, deci live ; but am con- 

 vinced, from the bed information procurable in Bengal, that its bails was- 

 ancient Perfian of the fame Indian flock with the Zend, and'that it has been- 

 gradually changed fince the time, when Armenia ceafed to be a province of 

 Irani the letters, in which it now appears, are allowed to be comparative- 

 ly modern j and, though the learned editor of the tract by Carpanius or* 

 the literature of Ava 3 compares them with the Pali characters, yet, if they 



