324 



physiognomy which Mexican civilization presents, in so 

 many other respects, seem to indicate the antique exist- 

 ence of an empire in the north of America, between the 36° 

 and 42° of latitude. We cannot reflect on the military 

 monuments of the United States, without recollecting the 

 first country of the civilized nations of Mexico. It is in 

 rising to more general historical considerations, in examin- 

 ing with more care than has been hitherto done, the lan- 

 guages, and the osteologic conformation of different tribes, in 

 exploring the immense country bounded by the Alleghanies, 

 and the coast of the western ocean, that means will be ob- 

 tained of throwing light upon a problem so worthy of 

 exercising the sagacity of historians. In these researches 

 there can be no question either respecting the first inhabi- 

 tants of America (real history does not go back so far), or of 

 a very advanced civilization, superior, for instance, to that of 

 so many nations of Tartar or Mongul race in central Asia $ 

 nor, finally, respecting the fortuitous analogy of some sounds, 

 some syllables that are again found, with significations al- 

 together different, in the Tschoude, Indo-pelasgic, Iberian or 

 Basque, and Welsh or Celtic tongues. {Wilhelm von Humboldt, 

 ilber die Urbewohner IJispaniens, p. 95.) It is from vague 

 and unphilosophical views that Indians have occasionally been 

 believed to be discovered who speak Irish, Bas Breton, or 

 the Celtic of Scotland. The fable of Welsh Indians, having 

 preserved the Welsh, or Celtic language, is of very old date. 

 In the time of Sir Walter Raleigh, a confused report was 

 spread over England, that on the coast of Virginia the Welsh 

 salutation had been heard $ hao, houi, iach. Owen Chapelain 

 relates, that in 1660, by pronouncing some Celtic words, he 

 saved himself from the hands of the Indians of Tuscorora, 

 by whom he was on the point of being scalped ! The same 

 thing, it is pretended, happened to Benjamin Beatty, in going 

 from Virginia to Carolina. This Beatty asserts that he found 

 a whole Welsh tribe, who preserved the tradition of the 



