30 
history of these legislators^ which I have 
endeavoured to unfold in this work, is in- 
termixed with miracles, religious fictions, 
and with those characters which imply an 
allegorical meaning. Some learned men 
have pretended to discover, that these 
strangers were shipwrecked Europeans, or 
the descendants of those Scandinavians, 
who, in the eleventh century, visited Green- 
land, Newfoundland, and perhaps Nova 
Scotia ; but a slight reflection on the pe- 
riod of the Tolteck migrations, on the 
monastic institutions, the symbols of wor- 
ship, the calendar, and the form of the 
monuments of Cholula, of Sogamozo, and 
of Couzco, leads us to conclude, that it was 
not in the north of Europe that Quetzal- 
coatl, Bochica, and Manco Capac framed 
their code of laws. Every consideration 
leads us rather towards Eastern Asia, to 
those nations who have been in contact 
with the inhabitants of Thibet, to the Sha- 
manist Tartars, and the bearded Ainos of 
the isles of Jesso and Sachalin, 
7 
