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The island of Terra del Fuego, having received its name of “Land of Fire,” from the number of volcanoes which diversify its desolate region, may well be represented under the metaphor of Torch-bearer to the Oceans, as they rush to mingle their waves.

The custom which prevails among the aboriginal Americans, of adopting a captive foe in the place of some near relative, who has fallen in battle, is well known. The affection thus transferred, is said to be sincere and ardent, and extinguished only with life. They have been styled the most revengeful, the most implacable of savage nations. Yet this practice, peculiar to themselves, seems rather to prove, that the habits arising from natural affection are stronger than the suggestions of revenge. Among civilized nations, in every age, the adoption of children has prevailed; but it has been circumscribed either by the limits of affinity, the predilection of friendship, or the excitement of compassion. When was it known to be extended to mortal foes, even by Christians, who are bound to requite enmity with love? Where, among the followers of Him, with whose death-pang was mingled a prayer for his murderers, has the shelter of paternal kindness been the portion of the enemy, whose sword had drank the blood of the lost son? or the offices of fraternal affection been extended to him who had pierced the breast of the lamented brother? Among the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, and Grecians, adoption by those who were childless, was a frequent usage. The Romans enacted laws for its regulation. The Lacedemonians required that it should be performed in the presence of their kings. The Turk, according to the appointed ceremonies of Mahomet, invests the adopted with his inner garment, or with his girdle; and the Gentoo offers sacrifices to his gods. But the native American being in this respect “without law, is a law unto himself;” he adopts the foe who would have shed his blood, without the pomp of prescribed ceremony, and with no sacrifice but that which affection exacts of vengeance. In other instances, we behold this race capable of degrees of virtue, as unexpected as they are unparalleled. The natives of Hascala, a populous province, bordering upon Mexico, shocked at the cruelties which marked the intrusion of the Spaniards, attacked them with impetuous bravery and with vast superiority of numbers. But the advantages arising from these circumstances, were entirely lost through their solicitude to save the wounded and dying. To relieve the sufferers, and remove them from further barbarity, divided the attention of the warrior even in the heat of battle; and a scene unknown among civilized nations was displayed, a sentiment of tenderness extinguishing victory. Afterwards, the Hascalans, meditating another attack, generously apprized the invaders of their hostile intentions, and knowing that a scarcity of provisions existed among them, sent to their camp a large supply of poultry and maize; “Eat plentifully,” said they, “for we scorn to attack enemies enfeebled by hunger, and should blush to offer to our gods, famished and emaciated victims.” Yet these sons of nature had never heard the command, “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink.”

Although the Mexicans were further advanced in refinement than any of the aborigines of America, they were the slaves of a superstition which was marked by the most barbarous sacrifices. At their first arrival near the Lake of Tetzuco, from their ancient possessions, on the borders of the Californian Gulf, they erected on the spot which they had selected for their principal city, a temple to their tutelar god, which they consecrated by the effusion of human blood. This event, according to their traditions, and the simple annals preserved by their hieroglyphical paintings, occurred in the year 1335 of the Christian era. Following them through the variations of their government, from its original form of aristocracy, to that of elective monarchy, and ultimate despotism, combined with the feudal spirit, we see the same stern religion preserving its sway unaltered, and mingling with their civil institutions. Their political festivals were attended with the sacrifice of human beings, and in their expiatory offerings to their deities, they believed that “without shedding of blood was no remission.” During the reigns of Tizoc, and his brother Ahuitzotl, a temple was erected, which surpassed in magnificence all the structures of Mexico, and at its completion in 1486, it was consecrated with the blood of more than 60,000 prisoners. Montezuma II. who was the ninth Mexican sovereign, entered into a war with some neighbouring tribes, in order to obtain victims for sacrifice at his coronation, and the cruel pageantry of that scene was in accordance with the inclinations of his subjects. The funeral rites of the Mexicans were sanguinary, particularly at the death of any distinguished personage. At the decease of an emperour, they slew a number of his principal attendants, and buried them in the same tomb; supposing, like the ancient Scythians, that he would have need of their assistance and counsel. The rites of their religion were reduced to a regular system; but their divinities were clothed in vengeance, and their priests perpetuated a worship of gloom and terrour.

The mild Peruvians who, at the time of the invasion of the Spaniards, had made many attainments in the arts of civilization, had a form of religion whose features were remarkably free from harshness and barbarity. “The most singular and striking circumstance in their government,” says Dr. Robertson, “was the influence of religion upon its genius and laws. The whole system of their civil policy was founded upon religion. The Inca appeared not only as a legislator, but a messenger from Heaven. The superstitions on which he engrafted his pretensions to high authority, were of a very different character from those established among the Mexicans. By directing their veneration to that glorious luminary which by its universal and vivifying energy is the best emblem of divine beneficence, the rites and observances which they deemed acceptable to Him were innocent and humane. They offered to the Sun a part of the productions which his genial warmth had called forth from the bosom of the earth, and fostered to maturity. They sacrificed, as an oblation of gratitude, some of the animals who were indebted to his influence for nourishment. They presented to him choice specimens of those works of ingenuity, which his light had guided the hand of man in forming: but the Incas never stained his altars with human blood, nor conceived that their beneficent father, the Sun, would be delighted with such victims. Accordingly, the Peruvians, unacquainted with those barbarous rites, which extinguish sensibility, and suppress the feelings of nature at human sufferings, were formed by the spirit of the superstition they had adopted, to a national character more gentle than that of any people in America.” The tribe of Chacmeheca's who succeeded the ancient Toltecan monarchy, which was situated in the neighbourhood of Mexico, also paid homage to the Sun, as their tutelar divinity, and offered to him the herbs and flowers which they found springing in the field. The Parent of warmth and vegetation appeared to their untaught minds, as the Fountain of existence and of hope; and how much more elevated was the choice of their Paganism, than that of the polished Egyptians, who, in their absurd worship of vegetables, noxious reptiles, and the lifeless formations of Nature, clearly evinced, that the “world by wisdom knew not God.”

Such a marked diversity of customs, and religious rites, is found among the aborigines of America, that they must be considered as the mingled offspring of different nations, who in various ages have become inhabitants of this western hemisphere. The Peruvians, in their ancient offerings, like a sect of the Persians, recognized the Sun as the Parent of their joys, and the supreme object of their adoration. Some of the eastern tribes of South America preserve a tradition that their ancestors migrated from the African continent. The Toltecas, originally bordering upon Mexico, and celebrated for their superiour knowledge, which comprised some branches of agriculture, together with the art of cutting gems, and casting gold and silver into various forms, possessed some ancient paintings, which represented the passage of their ancestors through Asia, and the north-western countries of America. The Mexicans who, in the barbarity of their religious sacrifices, point to the blood-stained altars of Carthage, in the style of their architecture, the construction of pyramidal edifices, the use of hieroglyphicks, and the mode of computing time, lead us back to the institutions of ancient Egypt. This similarity has so forcibly impressed the minds of some learned writers, particularly Siguenza, and Bishop Huet, that they have designated the Mexicans as the descendants of Naphtahim, the son of Mizraim, and nephew of Ham. The Esquimaux recognizes his sires in the north of Europe, and by a variety of customs proves his affinity. The Mohawks, from the peculiarity of their language, composed entirely without labials, so that they never close their lips in speaking, and from the superiority which they assumed over the surrounding tribes, seem also to claim a distinct origin. The Abbe Clavigero supposes that the ancestors of those nations who peopled the country of Anahuac, passed from the northeastern parts of Asia to the western extremity of America. Amid the variety of customs which distinguish the different tribes, some have been observed so similar to those of ancient Israel, that they have given rise to conjecture, that some of the ten tribes, who, after the Assyrian invasion in 721, (B. C.) were long in a wandering state, might have been allured to pass, with other emigrants, the narrow strait which separates the Old from the New World. This opinion received strength from the circumstance, that among some of the natives, the name of their Supreme Being was “Tehewah,” evidently resembling the Hebrew Jehovah, that the word “Hallelujah,” occurred in their songs of praise, that they bear upon their shoulders to battle a consecrated Ark, which is never suffered to touch the earth, and the mysteries of whose interior they guard with the most jealous care. Traditions of the murder in Eden, of original longevity, the general deluge, the saving of the righteous pair, the bird sent from the ark, who returned with a verdant branch, the confusion of tongues, the anger of the Great Spirit at the building of a high place, which the pride of man contemplated should reach the heavens, and many more, evidently derived from the Scriptures, are preserved among them. Some of the early settlers, who had an opportunity of observing their character before its debasement, traced in their religious offerings and festivals a similarity to the Jewish ritual. Intelligent men, who have resided among them as traders, or surveyed them as travellers and missionaries, have occasionally gathered traits of resemblance to the peculiar people; and some learned men have been inclined to credit this hypothesis, by a comparison of their language with the ancient Hebrew. “Dr. Buchanan,” says a judicious writer, “supposes the ten tribes of Israel, to be now in the country of their first captivity; but this by no means precludes the possibility of individuals having migrated northward and eastward to the American continent. He speaks of the white and the black Jews of Asia: we know that there are also white Jews in Europe, and black Jews in Africa; and why, since they are the scattered, the distinguished people, may there not be red Jews in America?”

This refers to the “Star in the West,” a work which attempts to prove the descent of some of our aborigines, from the dispersed Israelites; written by the late Hon. Judge Boudinot, the venerable Sire and Patron of the American Bible Society. He asserts, that if the descendants of exiled Israel could now be identified, on any spot of the globe, we should not find, after the revolution of twenty-five centuries, the traces of similarity more striking; and that, admitting the affinity of our roving tribes with the peculiar people, it would be impossible not to be surprised at perceiving so many rites and traditions unimpaired, when to the lapse of ages is added the absence of a written language, of a temple, of a regular government, even of a permanent abode, and the vice, degradation, and misery, which, since their subjugation by the Europeans, has involved them in a darkness like midnight. He is strengthened in his theory by a passage from the Apocrypha, where Esdras “in his vision beheld the ten tribes who were carried captive by Shalmanezer, in the time of Hosea their king, taking counsel to leave the multitude, and go into a country where mankind never dwelt, that they might keep the statutes which they never kept in their own land, and remain there until the latter times.”—2 Esdras, xiii. 40.

The Rev. Dr. Jarvis, in his interesting “Discourse on the Religion of the Indian Tribes,” supposes them to be the descendants of Noah, who migrated to this continent, after the great dispersion of mankind. This theory, which accounts for many of the traditions preserved among them, is also adopted by Mr. Faber, so well known by his learned dissertations on the Prophecies.

Missionaries and traders have occasionally observed among the different tribes, the custom of pressing the hand upon the lips, and laying the mouth in the dust, in cases of deep bereavement. Some have supposed it the dictate of Nature in the humiliation of suffering. Others have traced in it a resemblance to the expression of grief in ancient Israel; and have been reminded of the passages in Job, Solomon, and Jeremiah: “Mark me, and be astonished, and lay your hand on your mouth:” “Behold, I am vile! what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth:” “If thou hast done foolishly, in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thy hand upon thy mouth.” “He putteth his mouth in the dust, if so be, there may be hope.”

The imagination of the inhabitants of Greenland traces in the Aurora Borealis, the dance of sportive souls. They suppose the place of torment for the wicked to be in the subterranean regions, where darkness and terrour reign, without hope. They believe in two Great Spirits, the good and the evil, and in various subordinate grades of ethereal beings, resembling the major and minor gods of the ancient heathens. When a friend is in the conflict of death, they array him in his best apparel, and when the last change has marked his countenance, bewail his loss, and prepare for his interment. They deposit in his grave instruments of labour, and darts for defence, and returning to the house of mourning, the men sit silent with uncovered faces, while the females prostrate themselves on the earth. The nearest relative pronounces an eulogy on the virtues of the departed, and at every pause their grief becomes more audible. The ceremonies of mourning are continued at intervals for months, and sometimes for a year; though its bitterness diminishes after the period which they allot for the perilous journey to the eternal regions. They believe that the spirits of the departed are occasionally permitted to revisit the earth, and reveal themselves to the former objects of their attachment. Some of the first missionaries who visited this people, supposed that the idea of a Divine Being was in some degree familiar to their minds, since they so readily received the knowledge of his attributes, and the most stupid among them were struck with horror at the thought of the annihilation of the soul.

Seward, Earl of Northumberland, feeling in his last sickness, that dissolution approached, quitted his bed, and encircled himself with his armour. To the inquiries of his attendants, he answered, “It becometh not a brave man to die like a beast.” Standing, and with an undaunted countenance, he met death, closing his life of intrepidity, by an act equally singular and heroic.

The natives of Patagonia bury their dead on the eastern shores, and with their faces turned toward the rising Sun, where they say was the country of their ancestors. Bougainville, and others, have suggested their resemblance to the roving Tartars. Like them they traverse immense plains, constantly on horseback, clothing themselves with the skins of wild beasts, which they destroy in the chase, and occasionally pillaging travellers, who cross their path, or interrupt their career.

“Among some of our aborigines, the graves of departed friends are guarded with the most delicate and jealous affection. They suffer no weeds to take root upon them, and frequently visit them with lamentations. This tender and sacred sentiment is expressed in an effusion of simple eloquence, which bears the antiquity of nearly 200 years. In one of the earliest records of the settlement of Massachusetts, it is mentioned that the Indian monuments of the dead had been defaced by the whites at Passonagessit, and the grave of the Sachem's Mother plundered of some skins that had decorated it. Gathering together his people, in the first moments of his grief and indignation, he thus addressed them: “When last the glorious light of this sky was underneath the globe, when the birds grew silent, I began to settle, as my custom is, to take my repose. But ere my eyes were fast closed, I saw a vision at which my soul was troubled. As I trembled at the fearful sight, a spirit uttered its voice:— ‘Behold! my Son, whom I have cherished. See the hands that covered, and fed thee oft. Wilt thou forget to take revenge of those wild people, who have disturbed my ashes, disdaining our sacred customs? See now! the Sachem's grave lies, like one of the common people's, defiled by an ignoble race. Thy Mother doth complain. She implores thine aid against this thievish people, newly intruding themselves into our land. If this be suffered, can I rest quietly in my everlasting habitations?’ Then the Spirit vanished, and I, trembling, and scarce able to speak, began to get some strength, and recollect my thoughts that had fled, determining to ask your counsel and assistance.”

Rollin, in his interesting history of the expedition of Darius against the Scythians, relates the embarrassment which he suffered in being unable to bring that roving people to a regular engagement. “Prince of the Scythians,” said he, “why do you continually fly before me?” “If I fly before thee, Prince of Persia,” he replied, “it is not because I fear thee. We, Scythians, have neither cities or lands to defend: yet come! attack the tombs of our fathers, and thou shalt find what manner of men we are.” Soon after, they exemplified another singular trait of character, by sending a herald to Darius, with a present of a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows. The monarch exclaimed with joy, “Now they acknowledge subjection, and by these emblems yield to me the dominion of their lands and waters, of their warriors, and even of the atmosphere they breathe.” But Gobryas, one of his officers, who was better versed in the hieroglyphics of Scythia, correctly interpreted this typical message:—“Unless the Persians can ascend into the air like birds, conceal themselves in earth like mice, or beneath the waters like frogs, it is not possible for them to escape the Scythian arrows.”

It is generally admitted that the northern parts of America were settled by the Scandinavians, several centuries before the expedition of Columbus. Ericke Raude, so named on account of his red hair, is considered as the original discoverer of those inhospitable regions. Having past a winter on the coast of Greenland, he returned to Iceland, and persuaded many of his countrymen to accompany him, and undertake the establishment of a colony. He assured them that the country which he had found, abounded in fish, and exhibited such a verdant appearance, that he had assigned it the name of Groenland, or Greenland. Twenty-five ships, filled with Icelanders and Norwegians, attended him in consequence of these representations; but it is said that only fourteen sustained the inclemencies of the voyage. The establishment of this colony bears date, according to Torfæus, in his “Groenlandia Antiqua,” in the year 982; yet it would seem to have been of earlier origin, by the bull of Pope Gregory 4th, issued in 835, and committing the conversion of the Greenlanders and Icelanders, to the first northern apostle, Ansgarius. This colony assumed the appearance of prosperity, and in 1261, voluntarily submitted to the sceptre of Norway, and was governed by a Norwegian viceroy, according to the laws of Iceland. It was considerably harassed by the natives, who were denominated “Skrællings,” and whose origin is traced to the North East regions of Tartary. Driven from their country by imperious and potent enemies, they crossed the straits of Bherring, and gradually passing to the east and north, began their hostilities against the Icelandic colony in the eleventh century. They gained great ascendancy over it about the year 1350, when it had been enfeebled by the ravages of pestilence; and in the course of two or three centuries nearly exterminated it. The small remnant of European settlers were driven from the western toward the eastern shores, and compelled to incorporate themselves with their conquerors. Some of them, however, retreated to the inlets between the mountains, and like the Welch still preserve the character of an unconquered people.

Dr. Darwin's plan of navigating southward those tremendous masses of ice, which for ages have been accumulating amid the polar regions, in order to allay the fervour of the tropics, is one of the many visionary theories of that splendid poet and eccentric philosopher.

The Ice Palace, erected in the year 1740, by the Empress Anne, of Russia, was 52 feet in length, and when lighted exhibited the most splendid appearance. Yet to a reflecting mind, its brilliance must have been dimmed by the recollection, that many lives were sacrificed to its construction, by the severity of cold. The description of this singularly beautiful structure, by the poet Cowper, is in accordance with that purity and elegant simplicity, which characrerize his numbers.

Olaf, or Olaus, a Norwegian king, having renounced heathenism, sent a priest to Greenland, early in the tenth century for the conversion of the inhabitants. His exertions were successful, and the whole colony embraced Christianity. In the year 1122, they chose a Norwegian bishop, and a regular succession in the Episcopacy was preserved, until the year 1406, when the last of seventeen bishops was sent over. Darkness for a time overspread the religious prospects of this people; like that which enveloped ancient Israel, when the harp of prophecy was broken in the hand of Malachi, and for more than three centuries there was no divine communication. But in the year 1721, a pious clergyman of Norway, by the name of Hans Egede, whose heart had long been moved by the wretchedness of the Greenlanders, resolved, notwithstanding the obstructions that were cast in the way of his enterprize, to bear to that inhospitable region the glad tidings of salvation. He was accompanied by about forty adventurers, who aided him in imparting a knowledge of those arts which advance the comfort of the present life; while, with the most condescending attention, the most faithful diligence, and under the pressure of almost unexampled hardships, he taught the precepts of a religion, whose benevolence he exemplified. After sustaining the arduous duties of a missionary almost forty years, he closed his honourable and pious life, at the age of seventy-three, and to him, and to his son, Paul Egede, we are indebted for an ample and authentic account of modern Greenland. The Moravians also, whose zeal in diffusing the blessings of religion, cannot be too highly appreciated, extended the exertions of their Christian love to this desolate region. Perhaps it is without parallel in the annals of benevolence, that a Society so restricted in pecuniary resources, so afflicted by persecution as to have been reduced to about six hundred individuals, should display the missionary spirit in such unbroken strength and splendour. After the oppressions of the Church of Rome, when they had taken refuge on the estates of Count Zinzendorf in Lusatia, they sent, in the space of nine years, missionaries to Greenland, to South-America, to Algiers, to Guinea, to Lapland, to the West-Indian and Nicobar islands, to Ceylon, to the extremities of the Cape of Good Hope, and to the wilds of Tartary. About the year 1733, when the mission of Mr. Egede was so coldly patronized by government, and so overclouded by misfortune, that it seemed ready to expire, the Moravians having resolved to carry the gospel to Greenland, two of their venerable messengers arrived on foot at Copenhagen, entreating permission to accomplish their design. “How,” said one of the ministers of the crown of Denmark, “do you hope to maintain yourselves in that desolate region?” “By the labour of our hands,” they answered, “and by the blessing of God. We will build a house, and cultivate a piece of land, that we may not be burdensome to any.” The nobleman, perceiving that they were not fully acquainted with the sterility of the country, replied, “There is no timber there to build with.” “Then,” said these devoted servants of the cross, “we will dig a cavern in the earth, and lodge there.” These faithful missionaries with others who from time to time were sent to their assistance, suffered indescribably from the rigours of the climate, and the ravages of famine and pestilence. Yet nothing extinguished the flame of their benevolence, and they expressed themselves willing to prolong their labours until death, to continue “to believe while there was nothing to be seen, to hope when nothing was to be expected.” Soon after their arrival, the Small-Pox was communicated by a Greenlander who had returned from Europe, and it assumed so malignant a form, that few who were seized by it, survived beyond the third day. Destitute of the knowledge of medicine, and of the comforts which alleviate disease, the wretched natives stabbed themselves, or plunged into the sea, to put a period to their sufferings. The Moravians, in company with Mr. Egede, hastened from place to place, to impart assistance or consolation. Empty houses, and unburied corpses, bleaching on the snow, every where shocked their eyes. On one island, only one little girl, and her three brothers, survived. Their father had buried all the inhabitants, and finding himself and his youngest child smitten with the malady, lay down in a grave, with the sick infant in his arms, commanding his daughter to cover them with skins and stones, that their bodies might not be devoured by ravens and foxes. In 1753, the severity of that terrific climate was heightened to an unusual degree, and snow fell in every month of the year. In March, the cold was so intense, that even glass and stones burst. Famine was the consequence, and continued till 1757, when it surpassed all that had ever been imagined by the Europeans. “We found,” said the Missionaries, “near a house that we visited, fifteen persons nearly starved to death. They lay near each other, striving to preserve warmth, for they had no fire, nor the least morsel to eat. For very faintness they did not care to lift up themselves, or to speak to us. Four of their children were already dead with hunger. At length a man brought a fish from the sea, and a girl snatched it, raw as it was, and tore it in pieces with her teeth, gorging it with violence. She looked pale as death, and was ghastly to behold. We distributed among them our small pittance, and advised them to endeavour to remove to our part of the land.” Children perished in great numbers by famine, and old people were buried alive in order to save the food that they would have consumed. The Missionaries participated in these sufferings, till their strength was exhausted, and their constitutions debilitated, yet occasional success in their spiritual work, caused them to count their afflictions light. Settlements were formed at New Herrnhut, Lichtenfels, and Lichtenau; and materials for two churches were sent them from Europe, which were erected and partially filled with worshippers. In the year 1814, more than 1100 inhabitants belonged to these three settlements, and the whole population of Greenland was estimated at 7000. Since the commencement of the mission by Mr. Egede, which has comprised a century, the number baptized is computed at about 5000.

The extension of this Note by an interesting extract from the 18th volume of the Quarterly Review, will be forgiven by minds who have felt solicitude in the extension of truth, or sympathy for the privations of its messengers. It is a forcible delineation of the feelings of a missionary and his family, during the gloom and loneliness of a Greenland winter, and is drawn from the manuscripts of Saabye, a grandson of that venerated apostle Hans Egede. “They have one bright epoch; for it is a happy time, when the ice is loosed from the rocky coast, and they can expect the arrival of the vessel which alone reaches their solitude. Often deceived by the floating Ice-berg, forming itself in mockery into the shape of their friendly visitant, at length they see the white sails, the towering masts, the blessed guest riding at anchor in the bay. By this vessel their wants are supplied. The active and pious housewife busies herself in arranging the stores of the ensuing twelvemonth. There are letters too, from friends, and from relations, and books, and newspapers; and banished as they are, they live again in Denmark, in ‘their father-land.’ The hour of enjoyment soon glides away; the ship sails; the Missionary and the partner of his toils remain behind, solitary and forsaken. To this season of sadness succeeds the gloom of the polar night. A few days before the 26th of November, Saabye was accustomed to climb the high rocks, from whence at noon he could just see the sun shining with a soft and pallid light; and then the sun sank, and he bade farewell to the eye of creation with heaviness and grief. Dubious twilight lingered till the beginning of December; then darkness ruled. The stream near which Saabye's house was situated, roared beneath the ice; the sea dashed and howled over the rocks, bursting in foam against his windows, and the dogs filled the air with long continued moans. About the 12th of January, the rays of the rising sun glittered on the rocks, and suddenly faded, like the high-raised hopes of man.”

From researches made by British Antiquarians, it appears that traditions exist of the discovery of America, by Madoc ap Owen Guyneth, a Welch Prince, in the year 1170. It is asserted that a colony was planted by him, west of the Mississippi, and that their descendants have at various times been recognized by travellers. The fact has been recorded also, by the ancient poets of Wales, and the celebrated Mr. Southey has founded upon it one of the most interesting modern epic poems in the English language. In Howel's Letters, volume 2, page 71, it is recorded, that Madoc ap Owen, Prince of Wales, made two voyages to America, at the time specified: and the Welsh Cantbria, translated into English, by H. Lloyd, contains, in its 225th page, the reasons which induced that Prince to undertake such an expedition. Some modern writers have employed their pens in this investigation, among whom are Dr. Williams, Rector of Sydenham, and the Rev. George Burder, late of Coventry, England.

Taliesin, who wrote in the sixth century, was one of the most celebrated of the ancient Welch bards. His poems have been highly commended by the amateurs of the old Cambrian minstrelsy. The affinity of the language of Wales to the Hebrew, has rendered its study interesting to many classical scholars; and recently, among the prizes offered in Jesus College, Oxford, England, for the best six Englynion, on a passage of Taliesin, beginning “Cymru fu, Cymru fydd.” The early taste of the Welch, for poetry and music, is well known. The knowledge of the harp was considered essential to the character of a prince and a hero; and the bards received in the courts of their kings such dignity and honour, as Homer asserts were enjoyed by Demodocus and Phemius, in the first ages of Greece.

Columbus expired in obscurity, at Valladolid, on the 25th of May, 1506, in his 59th year, exhausted by hardships and infirmities. The discoverer of America, like the conqueror of Mexico, found the close of his days rendered wretched by the persecution of enemies, and the chilling indifference of those from whom he had expected patronage and consolation.

It is recorded by Robertson, that an opinion prevailed almost universally among the Mexicans, that some dreadful calamity would befall their country, by means of formidable invaders who should come from regions towards the rising sun. Their superstitious credulity saw in the Spaniards the instruments of that fatal revolution which they dreaded, and this in some measure accounts for the success of Cortes, with his ill-appointed force, over the monarch of a great and populous empire.

When the spoilers, in descending from the mountains of Chalco, caught their first view of the vast plain of Mexico, interspersed with fertile and cultivated fields, enriched with a lake resembling the sea in extent, whose banks were encompassed with large towns, and whose bosom was beautified with an island, where rose the capital city, adorned with its temples and turrets, they were impressed at once with a conviction of the great wealth of the country, and with an irresistible desire to possess it. After the humiliating death of Montezuma, and the more barbarous subjugation of Guatimozin, the imperial city yielded to its conquerors, August 21, 1521, after sustaining a siege of 75 days. This event, the most memorable of any in the conquest of America, preceded the death of Cortes 25 years. The neglect of his country embittered the declining life of the victor; and it was decreed, that the punishment of his injustice and cruelty should be inflicted, not by the vengeance of those whom he had injured, but by the ingratitude of those he had served.

The annals of the crimes of man are darkened with no blacker instance of perfidy, than that of Pizarro to the unfortunate monarch of Peru. Confiding in the protestations of the Spaniard, he advanced to the distance of a league from his city, to pay him a visit of respect. Pizarro instructed a priest to proclaim some of the articles of the Popish faith, strangely intermixed with the claims of the crown of Spain upon the New World, to which Ahatualpa not immediately assenting, the desperado seized him as his prisoner, and gave the signal of assault upon his followers.

The carnage continued till the close of day, and the Peruvians, unprepared for combat, and ignorant of the mode of European warfare, left 4000 dead upon the field, without scarcely making an impression upon the phalanx of their enemies. The imprisoned Inca made liberal offers for his ransom, and his subjects, like those of Richard Coeur de Lion, would have stripped the churches of their consecrated gold, to purchase liberty for their beloved sovereign. The apartment in which he was confined was 22 feet in length and 16 in breadth, and Pizarro demanded that it should be filled with vessels of gold, as high as he could reach. The line of demarcation was drawn upon the wall—the Peruvians hastened to heap the gold to the standard which avarice had prescribed, but with abominable treachery the Inca was detained in captivity. He was brought to a mock trial, and condemned to be burnt alive. The miserable monarch was offered, at the place of doom, that alternative which is allowed the victims of the “Auto da fe,” by the mercy of the Inquisition, to confess the Romish faith, and be strangled at the stake, or continue in heresy, and endure the anguish of the flame. Ahatualpa bowed to the baptismal font, and fell an immediate victim to the fury of those who, professing the “name of Christ, in works denied him.” This execrable deed was perpetrated in the year 1533; and, on the 26th of June 1541, Pizarro was destroyed by conspiracy in the city of Lima. The record of his fame is stained with atrocious barbarity; and he may be characterized, as the inhabitants of Melita unjustly designated the shipwrecked apostle, as “a murderer, whom, though he had escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffered not to live.”

The discovery of Brazil is usually placed in the year 1500. The honour of that event is ascribed to Perez Alvarez Cabral, a Portuguese naval commander. He originally gave it the name of Santa Cruz, but this was changed to Brazil, by King Emmanuel. The derivation of the latter name is from Brasas, a Portuguese word, signifying “glowing fire, or a red coal,” which colour resembles that produced by the celebrated tree “ibiripitanga,” commonly called Brazil wood, with which that country abounds.

Acadia, the original name given by the French to Nova-Scotia, was their first possession in the New World. It was granted, in the year 1603, to De Mons, with somewhat indefinite boundaries, by Henry IV. of France. Settlements were made in Canada, five years after, by the same nation. Quebec, the capital, was reduced by General Wolfe in 1759, the year after his conquest of Cape Breton, or “Isle Royale.” The whole of Canada was ceded to Great-Britain, by the treaty at Paris in 1763.

The small source whence the St. Lawrence takes its rise, reminds us of the two parent springs of the Nile, whose size Rollin compares to that of a coach-wheel. They are, he remarks, thirty paces distant from each other, and are sometimes called eyes, “the same word, in Arabic, signifying both eye and fountain.”

The emigration from Germany to the United States, has been greater in recent times, than has generally been imagined. Only in the short period included between July 12th, 1817, and the beginning of the year 1818, nineteen vessels arrived, bringing passengers to the number of 6000. They were of every age, from infancy to eighty years, and many of them so poor, that they were compelled to bind themselves out for a term of service, to defray the expenses of their scantily provided passage. M. von Fürstenwärther, who was officially appointed to examine the situation of his countrymen who had emigrated to the United States, reports, that “the ships made use of in this service, are commonly of the worst quality, old and unseaworthy, and the commanders ignorant, inexperienced, and brutal. I was on board of a vessel at the Helder, July 7th, 1817, which had formerly been a Russian ship of the line, which a Dutchman had bought for the sake of carrying German emigrants to Philadelphia. There were already four or five hundred souls on board, and the vessel was not to sail without her complement of passengers. I have found the misery of most of the German emigrants greater, and the condition of all more forlorn and helpless than I could have imagined. A ship arrived from Amsterdam at Baltimore, in the summer of 1817, the greater part of whose passengers had not paid their freight. Two families were bought by free negroes in Maryland, but the Germans resident in Baltimore were so disgusted, that they immediately rebought them, and formed an association to prevent the recurrence of any such degrading abuse.”

“Laws have been passed in Philadelphia,” says the North-American Review, “for the protection of German redemptioners; and by these it was established, that the extreme term of service, in ordinary cases, for adults, is four years, and two years for the shortest term. Children under four years old, are not bound, but follow their parents; males over four, are bound to serve till they are 21, and females till they are eighteen years old.”—Stern realities, to those who parted from their native country with the expectation of finding in America something like Eden restored.

“In Germany the feudal institutions still subsist with great vigour, Its great princes possess all the feudal privileges.”—

The intrepid Condé approached the battle of Jarnac, which was sustained by the Huguenots with such constancy in the year 1569, with an arm debilitated and in a state of suffering. Entering the field, his leg also was broken, by the accidental rearing of the horse of his brother in law. Rising superior to pain, he exclaimed to his followers, “Nobility of France! know, that the prince of Condé, with an arm in a scarf, and a leg broken, fears not to give battle, since you attend him.” After displaying prodigies of valour, he was found, exhausted with fatigue, surrounded, and taken captive. He was placed at the foot of a tree, by those who had made him their prisoner, and, while in this defenceless condition, was barbarously shot by Montesquieu, a captain in the guards of the Duke of Anjou, whose master was supposed to have instigated the infamous deed, from motives of personal animosity. The persecuted Huguenots ever cherished with tender gratitude the memory of their great benefactor. We may trace a strong expression of this affectionate sentiment, in the fact recorded by Heriot, in his “travels through the Canadas,” that the name of Condé was given, by the early French settlers, to Lake Superior, as if they were anxious that his fame should find a monument in the most magnificent body of fresh and pellucid waters which the globe affords.

It is well known that Admiral Coligny had contemplated a removal with the Huguenots, where, enjoying liberty of conscience, they might be enabled without dread of death to say, “after the way which ye call heresy, so worship we the God of our fathers.” Permission had actually been accorded him, to conduct his adherents to the Floridas, but the design was deferred until the commencement of hostilities detained him to exhibit, on the continent of Europe, the invincible firmness and constancy of his character. He was the first victim of the diabolical massacre at Paris, on St. Bartholomew's day, 1572. Having been previously wounded by a hired assassin, and disenabled from defending himself, he was murdered in his chamber by a party led on by his implacable enemy, the Duke of Guise.