Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/208

 196 On the defcent of the American Indians from the Jews.

in a conftant manner, without fweating in the field j the moft tronble- fome of all. things to manly brifk warriors. He infifted, that all who were defirous of fo natural and beneficial a correfpondence, fliould contribute large prefents, to be delivered on the embaffy, to their brethren terras filij^ to clear the old chain of friendlhip from the ruft it had contracted, through the fault of cankering time. He accordingly received prefents from moft of the people, to deliver them to their beloved fubterranean kindred: but it feems, they (hut up the mouth of the cave, and detained him there in order to be purified.

The old wafte towns of the Chikkafah lie to the weft and fouth-weft, from where they have lived fince the time we firft opened a trade with them ; on which courfe they formerly went to war over the Miffifippi, becaufe they knew it beft, and had difputes with the natives of thofe parts, when they fkft eame from thence. Wifdom directed them, then to connive at fome injuries on account of their itinerant camp of women and children ; for their tradition fays, it confifted of ten thoufand men, befides women and children, when they came from the weft, and patted over the Miffifippi; The fine breed of running wood horfes they brought with them, were the prefent Mexican or Spanifh barbs. They alfo aver, that their anceftors cut off, and defpoiled the greateft part of a caravan, loaded with gold and filver j but the carriage of it proved fo troublefome to them, that they threw it into a river where it could not benefit the enemy.

If we join together thefe circumftances, it utterly deftroys the fine Peruvian and Mexican temples of the fun, &c. which the Spaniards have lavidily painted from their own fruitful imaginations, to (hew their own capacity of writing, though at the expence of truth ; and to amufe the gazing diftant world, and leflen our furprife at the fea of reputed hea- thenim blood, which their avaricious tempers^ and flaming fuperftitious zeal, prompted them to fpill,

If any Englim reader have patience to fearch the extraordinary volumes of the Spanilh writers, or even thofe of his catholic majefty's chief hifto- riographer, he will not only find a wild portrait, but a ftriking refemblance and unity of the civil and martial cuftoms, the religious rites, and traditions, of the

ancient.

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