326 



Warden, enquires justly, why all the traces of Welsh co- 

 lonies and the Celtic tongue, have disappeared since less 

 credulous travellers, and who in some sort controul one 

 another,, have visited the country situated between the Ohio 

 and the Rocky Mountains. Mackenzie, Barton, Clark, 

 Lewis, Pike, Drake, Mitchill, and the editors of the new 

 Archceologia Americana, have found nothing, absolutely no- 

 thing, which denotes the remains of European colonies of 

 the 12th century. The voyage also of Madoc-ap-Owen is 

 much more uncertain than the expeditions of the Scandina- 

 vians (the Islandais Rauda, Biorn, Leif, &c.) If we were 

 to find the vestiges of any European language in the north 

 of America, it would be rather Teutonic, (Scandinavian, Ger- 

 man, or Gothic), than the Celtic or Welsh, which differ 

 essentially from the Germanic tongues. As the structure of 

 the American idioms appears singularly strange to the diffe- 

 rent nations who speak the modern western languages, the- 

 ologians have fancied they saw in it Hebrew (Semitic or 

 Arameen) 5 the Spanish colonists, Basque, (or Iberian) ; the 

 English and French planters, Welsh, Irish, and Bas-breton. 

 The pretensions of the Basques, and the inhabitants of Wales., 

 who regard their languages not only as mother-tongues, but 

 as the sources of all other tongues, extend far beyond Ame- 

 rica, to the Isles of the South Sea. I met with two officers 

 of the Spanish and English navy, on the coast of Peru, one 

 of whom pretended that he had heard the Basque at Tahiti, 

 and the other Irish-Gaelic at the Sandwich islands. See 

 above, Vol. iii, 205 5 and Wilhelm von Humboldt, ilber 

 die Urbew. Hispaniens, p. 174 — 177). I thought it my duty 

 to state with frankness my doubts of the existence of Celto' 

 Americans. I shall change my opinion only when I am fur- 

 nished with convincing proofs of the fact. 



According to the traditions collected by Mr. Heckwelder, 

 the country east of the Mississipi {Nemasi-Sipu, Fish -river, 

 Mcesisip by corruption), was heretofore inhabited by a pow* 



