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Our author's ufual confidence deferts him, when 

 he feems to have moft occafion for it, and he dares 

 not decide whether South -America has peopled the 

 Terra Auftralis, or whether that country may have 

 thence received its own inhabitants ; but he very 

 foon recovers it, and by means of it undertakes to 

 unravel the origin of the empires of Peru and 

 Mexico. He agrees with feveral hiftorians, that 

 thefe monarchies were not; very ancient when the 

 Spaniards deftroyed them, and that their founders 

 had to fight againft barbarous nations, that had been 

 long fettled in the country they had made choice of, 

 and chiefly Mexico, where the manners were much 

 more rugged in the time of Cortez, than they were 

 amongft the Peruvians. This difference probably 

 was owing to this, that the conquerors of Mexico 

 were not fo much civilized as thofe of Peru. 



Both the one and the other, if we may believe 

 Hornn, are, notwithflanding, originally from the 

 fame parts ; thefe are, fays he, the nations of Ca- 

 they ; the Japonefe, who are originally defcended 

 from thence, the Chinefe, whom he always fnppofes 

 to be defcended from the Scythians •, fome Egypti- 

 ans, and fbme Phenicians, from the time that thefe 

 two empires attained to perfection, in policy, reli- 

 gion, and arts. Here is certainly a very mifcella- 

 neous and capricious original. But in fine, the 

 learned Dutchman will have it, that all thefe nati- 

 ons have fent colonies into America, and to prove 

 this, it is fcarce conceivable, where he goes in queft 

 of Cathayan, Corean, Chinefe, and efpecially Japo- 

 nefe names, in all parts of the New World. Be- 

 tween thefe, there is often much the fame relation 

 as the Alfana^ and Equus of Menage ; but he like- 

 wife caufes them to take fo very long a journey, 



than 



