314 



TOPOGRAPHY. 



Fuentes, ifi the same valley. The opinion, notwithstanding, 

 that the discovery was altogether miraculous, instead of 

 having been abandoned at the commencement, was confirmed 

 still more and more with the progress of time. The Jesuits 

 Antonio Ruiz and Pedro Lozano, in their respective histories 

 of the missions of Paraguay, &c. undertook to demonstrate 

 that the apostle St. Thomas had been in America. This thesis, 

 which was so novel, and so well calculated to draw the pub- 

 lic attention, required, more than any other, the aid of the 

 most powerful reasons, and of the most irrefragable docu- 

 ments, to be able to maintain itself, even in an hypothetical 

 sense ; but nothing of all this was brought forward. Certain 

 miserable conje6lures, prepossession, and personal interest, 

 supplied the place of truth and criticism. The form of a hu- 

 man foot, which they fancied they saw imprinted on the rock, 

 and the different fables of this description invented by igno- 

 rance at every step, were the sole foundations on which all 

 the relations on this subjedt were made to repose. The one 

 touching the peregrinations of St. Thomas from Brasil to 

 Quito, must be deemed apocryphal*, when it is considered 



that 



* In addition to what is said by the illustrious Feyjoo, in his discourse on sup- 

 posed miracles, the Peruvian writer Macanaz combats very successfully the histories 

 of Ruiz and Lozano," under the head of miraculous discoveries. But experience, 

 still niore than all these testimonies, teaches us to mistrust the relations of the Jesuits, 

 on the subjeifts of missions and antiquities. Tlie interest and credit of the society 

 occasionally required the sacrifice of the truth, which they did not hesitate to make. 

 The famous Chronicles of Flavius Dextrus, Marcus the Hermit, Luis Prando, See. 

 led the whole worM into an error: it was represented that they had been found in the 

 archives of the abbey of Fulda, at tlie same lime that they were extracts, surrepti- 

 tiously 



