( 4i ) 



what he had juft been faying of the infinite num- 

 bers of thofe barbarians, whofe vaft countries could 

 no longer contain them ; as he had already for- 

 gotten what he faid at firft, that the firft fettlements 

 in America were compofed of Scythians, he in- 

 forms us, that the reafon why the northern regions 

 of America are fo thinly inhabited, is, becaufe it 

 was very late before the country of the Huns was 

 peopled at all, and that even at this day, they arc 

 far from being populous. 



But did they all take the fame road ? No ; for 

 while the greateft number turned off to the right 

 towards the Eaft, thofe whom he calls Finnes, and 

 the Samoeides and Carolians, whom Tacitus places 

 in Finland, went off to the Eaft by the weft ward, 

 traverfed Nova Zembla, Lapland and Greenland ; 

 whence he reckons that the Norwegians, who had 

 before this time landed in Greenland, and whereof 

 not one was to be found in the year 1348, pene- 

 trated into the northern parts of America in queft 

 of more habitable countries. Nothing can reafon- 

 ably hinder us from believing, that the Efhimaux, 

 and fome other nations in the neighbourhood of 

 Hudfon'^s Bay, draw their original from the Nor- 

 wegians of Greenland, fuppofing fuch ever to have 

 exifted. What is certain, is, that the Efhimaux 

 have nothing in common either in their language, 

 manners, or way of living, complexion, or in the 

 colour of their hair with the people of Canada pro- 

 per, who are their neareft neighbours. 



As to certain animals, fuch as lions and tigers, 

 which, according to all appearance, have paffed from 

 Tartary . and Hircania into the New World, their 

 paffage might very well ferve for a proof, that the 

 fwo hemifpheres join to the northward of Afia and 



this 



