Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/10

VI of the remains at Myra (Lycia) says that the custom of colouring the bas-reliefs and the mode of doing it, as well as the similarity of the action of the figures, removed one of the few doubts he still entertained of those people having been connected with the ancient inhabitants of Etruria: (Discoveries in Lycia p. 197) and he further states that "the nearest parallel to the domestic scenes [represented in the Lycian buildings] appears to be in the Etruscan paintings." (p. 252). Mr. Sharpe in the Memorandum appended to that work states that he was much struck with the great resemblance between the Lycian and the Etruscan letters; that the letters on various coins attributed to Cilicia have a still greater identity with those of Etruria; and further that the circumstance that it may be proved from a comparison of the Alphabets, that the Etruscans derived their character from Asia Minor and not from Greece, goes far to confirm the account given by Herodotus of their Lydian origin. No better authorities than the above can be quoted, and I feel convinced that an examination of the vases &c. brought from both countries which are to be seen in the British Museum can only tend to a similar conclusion.

The design of the Papers on the American Indians is to show that America was peopled from various parts of the Old World, and that the Caribs in particular came from Africa. This opinion is strengthened by an incidental remark by the German traveller Julius Frœbel respecting the similarity between a musical instrument called the Marimba which he notices as used in Nicaragua and there said to be of Indian origin, and an instrument of the same name and construction described by Livingstone as used in Angola and the neighbouring districts.

London, July 1861.

C. M. K.