( 17 ) 



of names. But we muft acknowledge, that nothing 

 can be farther fetched than thefe pretended refem- 

 blances, of which he feems, notwithftanding, fully 

 perfuaded, though very few will be convinced 

 befideS himfelf. What obliges him to place Yu- 

 catan apart by itfelf, is the cuftom of circum- 

 cifion, of which he has taken it into his head 

 to believe, he has found fome traces in this pro- 

 vince, and a pretended ancient tradition amongft 

 the inhabitants, which faid, that their anceftors had 

 efcaped being fwallowed up by the waves of the 

 fea and this according to him is what gave rife to 

 the opinion of fome that they were defcended from 

 the Hebrews. Notwithftanding he refutes this opi- 

 nion, with much the fame arguments which Brere- 

 wood made ufe of, and believes with Don Peter 

 Martyr d'Anglerie, that the fir ft who peopled Yu- 

 catan were fome Ethiopians cafl away on this coaft 

 by a tern pert, or by fome other accident. He is 

 even of opinion, that thefe Ethiopians were Chrifti- 

 an?, a conjecture which he infers from a kind of 

 baptifm in ufe in the country. He could not help 

 alio v/ing that the language of the northern Ameri- 

 cans is quite different from either the Ethiopian or 

 Norwegian, but this difficulty does not flop his ca- 

 reer \ he fearches in the belt manner he can for a 

 folution to it, in the mixture of different nations, 

 who, in procefs of time, eflablifhed themfelves in this 

 part of the New World, and in their wandering 

 way of life, and which according to him reduced 

 them to the neceffity of inventing new jargons. 



Hence he paffes to the nations in the neighbour- 

 hood of the -treights of Magellan, and imagining 

 he has found a ftrong refemblance between thole 

 fettled on this fide of it in the Continent of South- 

 America, and thofe who have their abode beyond 



C it, 



