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it, he gives it as his decifion that the former derive 

 their original from the latter, and that thefe as well 

 as the inhabitants of New Guinea have come from 

 the Moluccoes and the ifland of Java. Yet for all 

 that the peculiar genius of the Peruvians, their laws, 

 their cuftoms, their police, the fuperb edifices they 

 had built, and the wrecks of Chinefe veffels, which, 

 he fays, the Spaniards found at the entry of the 

 Pacifick Ocean, after coming through the Straits of 

 Magellan, permit him not to doubt that this na- 

 tion is, originally, a Chinefe colony, which is con- 

 firmed, adds he, by the worfhip of the Sun, which 

 prevails equally in both empires, by the refemblance 

 of their characters and manner of writing, and by 

 the reputation of the ancient Chinefe of excelling in 

 the art of navigation. Laftly, he rejects the Tar- 

 tar or Scythian original of the Americans from the 

 little conformity that is found according to him be- 

 tween the manners and cufroms of both nations : 

 He infills chiefly on the circum (lance of the Ame- 

 ricans having no horfes, which we know, fays he, 

 the Scythians cannot be without. To deflroy this 

 fyflem, it will be fufficient to prove, that it leads 

 conftantly to falfe conclufions, a point, which the 

 Flemifh critick has rendered extremely evident. He 

 proves with equal clearnefs, that Grotius is every 

 whit as unhappy in attacking the opinions of others, 

 as he is in eftablifhing his own. In efTecl:, he proves 

 that all the Scythians have not the ufe of horfes, 

 ■feveral of them inhabiting countries utterly incapa- 

 ble of maintaining them ; to which he adds, that 

 according to the opinion of thofe, who pretend that 

 Scythia is not the country whence America has been 

 peopled, it is not necefiary to fay, that all thofe who 

 have penetrated that way into the New World were 

 Scythians or Tartars ; that the countries they mud 

 of neceffity traverfe, were no way proper for horfes ; 



that 



