387 



banks of the Amazon and the Oroonoko from 

 the Mexican table-land ; although history re- 

 cords no fact, that connects the savage nations 

 of Guyana with the civilized nations of Anahuac, 

 the monk Bernard deSahagun, at the beginning 

 of the conquest, [found green stones which had 

 belonged to Quetzalcohuatl*, preserved at Cho- 

 lula as relics. This mysterious personage is the 

 Budha of the Mexicans ; he appeared in the 

 time of the Toltecks, founded the first religious 

 congregations, and established a government 

 similar to that of Meroe and of Japan. 



The history of the jade, or of the greenstones 

 of Guyana, is intimately connected with that of 

 the warlike women, whom the travellers of the 

 sixteenth century named the Amazons of the 

 i New World. M. de laCondamine has produced 

 many testimonies in favour of this tradition. 

 Since my return from the Oroonoko and the 

 river Amazons, I have often been asked at 

 Paris, whether I embraced the opinion of that 

 learned man, or believed, like several of his con- 

 temporaries, that he undertook the defence of 

 the Cougnantainsecouima, the independant wo- 

 men who received men into their society only 

 in the month of April, merely to captivate, in a 

 public sitting of the Academy, the attention 



* Researches on the American Monuments, vol. ii, (of the 

 present work xiv,) p. 350. 



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