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in corroboration of it. As to the preference of the female to the male line, set- 
ting aside the eldest son in favour of the sister, and taking as heir the son of the 
sister, I recollect that there is a statement in Herodotus to the effect that the 
Lycians had the same practice, and they gave as a reason the somewhat pun- 
gent statement that a man might be pretty sure who his mother was, but he 
could not be quite so sure about his other parent. (Laughter.) It is a fact, which 
is doubtless very well known to Mr. Titcomb, that the Lycians, of whom we 
know comparatively little, appear to have been a civilized people. I may 
also add that the practice of baptism, which Mr. Titcomb mentions as 
having been prevalent among the Aztecs, was also observed by the natives 
of New Zealand. The child was taken when eight days old to the priest, 
who poured water on it that it might live, without which the infant was sup- 
posed to be eaten by the Atua demon within a certain time. That is a 
curious analogy ; but I should be inclined to attribute it, not to any Christian 
tradition, but rather to a tradition connected with the early custom of the 
J ews in the admission of their proselytes. I should, for the same reason, 
be inclined to doubt whether Mr. Titcomb is correct in attributing to 
the Aztecs a medley of Christian morals mixed up with idolatrous abomina- 
tions and certain vivid resemblances of the Roman Catholic ritual. I should 
rather attribute those customs to some affinity with the Buddhist ritualism ; 
and there is reason to believe that the strange customs referred to existed 
among the Buddhists long before they were borrowed by the Roman Catholics. 
Indeed, there is some reason for thinking that, instead of the Buddhists having 
borrowed anything from the Roman Catholics, the Roman Catholics got from 
them some things in their system, as pointed out by Mr. Titcomb ; for in- 
stance, celibacy, abstinence from flesh, and penance, which have been known to 
exist for ages among the Buddhists. Any one who has read M. Hue’s enter- 
taining account of his visit to the Lamaseries in Mongolia will not be at a loss 
to see how the Aztec, Roman Catholic, and Buddhist customs may be considered 
to have a connection one with another. I may perhaps, however, be permitted 
to say that I think Mr. Titcomb scarcely appreciated sufficiently the fact (in 
referring to the analogy between the Iberian or Euscaldune language and the 
languages of North America) that the Euscaldune language probably be- 
longs to the Turanian family, and was also a finished language : in fact, it is 
not unlikely that the ancient Lycian and the ancient Euscaldune languages 
were very similar. The agglutinate character, which is very remarkable in all 
the languages of North America, is found in the Turanian, and to a great 
extent in the Mantchou language. The monosyllabic 'form tends to agglu- 
tinate, and the number of syllables such as a North American strings together 
is really more characteristic of the Mantchou than it is of the more finished 
Turanian. Still the principle is the same, and we can therefore well sup- 
pose that the Turanian race did actually cross over at some remote period 
to the great continent of America, which is still further strengthened by the 
tradition which was found to exist in Central America that it was peopled 
by a race who came over in three great canoes. I think that we are very much 
indebted to Mr. Titcomb, and are bound to give him our hearty thanks for 
