down and sie hir, and would dyne and sup in hir sundrie tymes, and he showing his lordis hir ordour and munitioun."-LINDSAY'S Chronicles of Scotland, vol. i. p. 256.

Dr. Plott, who wrote on the discovery of America, says, in page 116, "I find in the British Annals, that Prince Madoc ap Owen Gwynnedd, that is, son of Owen Gwynnedd, whose father Griffith ap Conan did homage for certain lands in England to William the Conqueror, being tired with the civil wars which happened amongst his brethren Jorwerth, Howel, and David, each of them claiming a dividend of their father's dominions by the custom of gavelkind, and perceiving, at the same time, their new neighbours the Normans ready to swallow them up, and that his advice and propositions of peace were not hearkened unto, but that rather for these good offices he made himself the object of their fury, therefore studying his own preservation, and seeing no part of his native country likely to afford him any quiet, he resolved to haste abroad to some remote part of the world, where he might acquire future happiness. In order whereunto he prepared for a sea voyage, and in the year 1170, the sixteenth of Henry II., he set off from Wales, with so prosperous a gale that, after some weeks sail due west, he descried land, where, upon his arrival, he found store of good victuals, sweet water, fresh and healthful air."

Here, then, about Canada or Florida, Madoc perhaps settled, and here the descendants of his little colony probably remained, deprived of the means of informing their European friends of their success, until Columbus, the first of modern navigators who returned from America, introduced that knowledge which has led to their recognition, although they had themselves lost all record of their removal, or tradition of their eastern origin.

Herbert, 1. 3, asserts, that the Spaniards found some traces of this story on their arrival in America; there yet remaining amongst the Mexicans a tradition that, about the time of Madoc's supposed emigration, a strange people actually came thither in "curraugh," or ships, as Columbus and Gomera testify; and who imparted to them some knowledge of God, with the religious use of beads and crucifixes, which articles of Papal worship were in fact found amongst them.

Sir Charles Giesecke, who spent eight years in Greenland, has put it beyond all doubt that a part of the east coast of West Greenland was formerly colonised by Norwegians from Iceland.

Note X.-p. 61.

The narrative here mentioned, together with a Latin translation, is, I find, inserted in the Saxon original, in the Appendix to Sir John Spelman's Life of Alfred, published by Walker. Much information upon the same subject may also be gathered from the work of Asser of Saint Davids, a learned Briton, who was one of King Alfred's intimate friends, and wrote the me moirs of his reign, the last edition of which venerable record was, I believe, printed at Oxford, in 1722.

In the year 1741, there appeared in London a tract entitled The Right of the Crown of Great Britain more ancient than that of Spain, in which an attempt was made to prove that, three centuries previous to the discoveries of Columbus, the British were established in the New World; but the argument was founded merely upon the authority of a letter of Sir Morgan Jones to Thomas Lloyd of Pensylvania, through whose means Dr. Plott had also gained his information.

Note XI. p. 62.

"Quelques momens après, les Espagnols virent paroître deux corps nombreux d'hommes armés comme ceux de Cotoche: et il sortit d'un temple environ dix prêtres vêtus de mantes blanches, fort larges, et portant à la main des vases de terre pleins de feu. Ils y jettoient de la gomme copale, en faisant aller la fumée du côté des Espagnols, et prononçoient diverses paroles." This appears to have been a ceremony of religious purification: as much as to say to the invading Spaniards, if you do not take yourselves off, your blood be upon your own heads. Accordingly, finding that the intruders did not take the hint, they attacked, and compelled them to quit their shores.

Most of the Indian tribes of America possessed also some obscure tradition of an universal Deluge. "Les anciennes histoires des Mexicains rapportent," says Carreri, quelques circonstances d'un Déluge qui fit périr tous les hommes, et les animaux, à l'exception d'un homme et d'une femme, qui se sauvèrent dans une de ces barques qu'ils nomment Acalles. L'homme, suivant le caractère qui exprime son nom, s'appelloit Corcor; et la femme Chichequetzal. Cet heureux couple arriva au pied de la montagne de Culhuacan, une de celles qui environnent la vallée du lac. Il y mit au monde un grand nombre d'enfans, qui nâquirent tous muets, et qui reçurent un jour la

VOL. I.

2 B

faculté de parler, d'une Colombe, qui vint se percher sur un arbre fort haut. Mais l'un n'entendant point le langage de l'autre, ils prirent le parti de se séparer."-Hist. Gén. des Voyages, vol. xviii. p. 542.

Note XII. p. 68.

Mancipia ibi nigra repererunt ex regione distante à Quarequa dieruin spatio tantum duorum quæ solos gignit nigritas, et eos feroces, atque admodum truces.-Decad. 3. cap. 1.

Note XIII. p. 69.

The population of the vast empires of Mexico and Peru has undoubtedly been exaggerated by the early Spanish historians, who proudly amplified their discoveries by painting all their objects in enlarged proportions. Their ostentations, on such an occasion, may be pardonable, but we may be allowed to criticise their calculations. Three years after the conquest of Mexico, we find that the Castilians were obliged to import a population to that kingdom, first from Jamaica and the adjacent islands, and, when these stores were exhausted, from the distant regions of Africa. If it had contained, as we are told, thirty millions of inhabitants in the year 1518, how came it to be depopulated in 1521? It would be absurd to suppose that Cortez, accompanied only by four or five hundred assassins, could, in the lapse of three years, have glutted his bloodthirsty spirit by the extirpation of such an overwhelming multitude.

It has indeed been said, that half a million of the native assistants in his conquests perished in the contests, and found no other grave than the stomachs of their foes. But even this I suspect to be an exaggeration: for the Indians were not canibals any more than the French revolutionists, who satiated their revenge by the most barbarous excesses, amounting almost to canibalism. In a tumult excited by superstition, the Egyptians devoured the flesh of one of their fallen enemies. From this horrid action it is not fair to conclude that the Egyptians were canibals, or equalled in barbarity the Cyclops and the Lestrigons. The French treated with equal brutality Maréchal d'Ancre; and the Dutch, Pensionary de Witt. The fixed and permanent character of a people ought never to be inferred from moments of madness and fury.

Note XIV. p. 70.

Gage, in his Survey of the West Indies, observes, that "the Indians of America in many things seem to be of the race and progeny of the Tartars in Quivira; and all the west side of the country, towards Asia, is far more populous than the east, towards Europe, which sheweth these parts to have been first inhabited. Secondly, their incivility, and barbarous properties, tell us that they are most like the Tartars of any. Thirdly, the west side of America, if it be not continent with Tartary, is yet disjoined by a small strait. Fourthly, the people of Quivira, nearest to Tartary, are said to follow the season in pasturing of cattle, like the Tartars."

The Indians invariably carried their women with them in all their marine excursions; and the rapidity of their increase upon any spot where design or chance planted them, can thus be easily accounted for, though scarcely computed.

The narrative of Bagniouski, the famous adventurer, who escaped from his exile at Kamschatka, is interesting, and his veracity, I believe, may be safely trusted. He returned into Europe by Japan and China, though his original design was to penetrate through the North-East passage. He actually followed the coast of Asia as high as the latitude of 67° 35′, till his progress was stopped by the ice, in a strait between two continents, which was only seven leagues broad. Thence he de'scended along the coast of America, as low as Cape Mendocin, but was repulsed by contrary winds in his attempts to reach the port of Acapulco. The journal of his voyage, with his original charts, is now at Versailles, in the Dépôt des Affaires Etrangères.

The Chickasaws declared, that they came from the setting sun, and spent seven years in their journey, marching only one moon in each year.

The Esquimaux Indians, confined to regions of eternal snow, were acquainted, at the time of their discovery, with the principles and construction, not simply of the arch, but of the dome, the most difficult of arches.-FRANKLIN'S Journey to the Polar Sea, p. 265.

Note XV. p. 81.

Baptiste Porte says, that the Indians used a composition, whose peculiar properties enabled them to endure hunger and thirst for a great length of time. "Utuntur et alia compositione Occidentales Indi, ad famem et sitim tolerandum; ex tobaco, herba vocata, quippe ex ejus succo, et cochlearum cinere, pilulas componunt, et in umbra exiccant, et in itineribus trium, vel quatuor, dierum spatio unam inter inferius labrum et dentes locant, continuoque sugunt, et suctum glutiunt; six toto illo dierum spatio, nec famem, nec sitim, aut lassitudinem sentiunt." -Magia Naturalis, p. 215, edit. Rotterdam, 1650.

Note XVI. p. 89.

Cheemeens, La Borde tells us, was also the Charaibean name for the "Master-spirit of Good," another coincidence of expression which seems to prove some affinity between the tribes. One of these Zemez is now in my possession; it is about seven inches in height, composed of a mixture of earth and pulverized stone, baked to the hardness and consistency of granite, and representing the rude features of an human being, a flattened head with double knobs on each side representing ears, and fixed upon a conical base.

Note XVII. p. 99.

De Laet, in his History of the Origin of the Americans, p. 178, mentions the prevalent persuasion of a God, “Qui omnia creavit, dein plures in terram defixerat sagittas, è quibus hominum genus ortum, et propagatum, fuit ;" though they also believed in other inferior divinities. And, in p. 106, he says,— “Alii narrant è quadem specu per fenestram exiliisse sex, aut nescio quot homines; eosque initium dedisse humano generi in loco qui ob eam causam dicitur Pacari tampo; atque ideo opinantur Tambes esse hominum antiquissimos."-Acosta, 1.1. c. 25.

Note XVIII. p. 100.

The vegetable Hippomanes of Brown. Its native soil is the island of Porto Rico, and it is but rarely found in the other islands. The Indians, when they would cut this tree, covered their faces, and used the same precautions which the Africans do when they extract the liquid gum from the Euphorbier. An