Perhaps you will allow me to give you, in a few words,
the author's views on this part of the subject. He considers the
ancient monuments, found in parts of the United States and in Mexico,
to have originated within five hundred years of the dispersion from
Babel; that the Indians are the Almogic branch of the Eber-ites; and
that the ancient monuments do not denote so high a degree of
civilisation as is generally supposed. It is only since the discovery
of America by Europeans that anything like certainty attaches to the
history of the natives. The Mohicans 'preserve the memory of the
appearance and voyage of Hudson, up the river bearing his name, in
1609;' and among other tribes similar traditions are retained. In the
wrong-headedness and persistence of idea, the Indians entirely
resemble the Oriental branches of the great Semitic family; and the
evidence shews that originally they crossed over from Asia at
Behring's Strait, a voyage still performed in canoes to the present
day. One of the titles of Montezuma was Lord of the Seven Caves; and
the caves in which tradition says the traverse took place, are taken
to be the caves or subterranean abodes still used by the Aleutian
islanders.
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