Manco examination of the relics of their art and calendar. capac, accompanied by his sister, appeared among the Peruvians, gave them an admirable system of laws, and then ascended to his father, the sun. The plumed serpent, the Quetzalcoatl of the Nahuas, the Cukulcan of the Mayas, is said to have introduced the calendar, and after a Saturnian reign to have passed to a distant country. These myths imply the arrival of strangers of a higher culture than the natives, and cannot fairly be taken to be wholly without foundation. Mexico and Central America certainly possessed an indigenous civilisation, the result of the experience of man for a long series of ages in those and the neighbouring regions, and this formed the basis on which the new culture was engrafted. We should attribute the differences between the Peruvian and Mexican on the one hand, and Central American civilisation on the other, by ascribing them to the arrival of different bodies of emigrants at different times. But if this view of the Asiatic origin of a part of the Mexican and Central American civilisation be accepted, contact with Asia must have taken place in the enormously remote period of human progress which is marked by the knowledge of the art of making bronze, coupled with the ignorance of the use of iron. The emigrants must have left Asia not later than the bronze age. It is very generally assumed that the knowledge of making bronze was arrived at in the Americas without any communication with Asia. This is a mere assumption unsupported by any proof. Tinstone is not of a lustre suggestive of metal, and there are many other alloys which might have been made of copper, and which a savage would be as likely to discover. None of the ores of iron so abundant in Mexico, nor the large blocks of meteoric iron, such, for example, as at Cholula, were used before contact with the Europeans. The ignorance of native iron is very singular when we reflect that it was used by Eskimos for the manufacture of implements and weapons. From the identity of the polished stone axes of the American tribes generally, with those of the old world, it may be inferred that the principal emigration took place while the civilisation of Asia was in the Neolithic stage. We might expect to derive light in these interesting and difficult problems from the study of language, but unfortunately the philologer has not yet arisen to collect together and collate the American dialects with sufficient completeness to allow of their being used in the inquiry; indeed, we may say the same with almost equal justice of the non-Aryan dialects of Asia. and other grotesques of the Chinese and Japanese; and when we find further that the Aztec calendar was constructed on the same principle as the Mongolian, the suspicion that the one was derived from the other becomes almost a certainty. correspondence quite as extraordinary,' writes Mr. Prescott (Conquest of Mexico,'p. 466), 'is found between the hieroglyphs used by the Aztecs for the signs of the days, and those zodiacal signs which the Eastern Asiatics employed as one of the terms ' of their series. The symbols in the Mongolian calendar are 'borrowed from animals. Four of the twelve are the same as 'the Aztec. Three others are as nearly the same as the different species of animals in the two hemispheres would allow. The remaining five refer to no creature then found in Ana'huac. The resemblance went as far as it could. The similarity of these conventional symbols among the several nations of the East can hardly fail to carry conviction of a common origin for the system as regards them. Why should 'not a similar conclusion be applied to the Aztec calendar, which, although relating to days instead of years, was, like the Asiatic, equally appropriated to chronological uses and to 'those of divination?' 6 * It would be absurd to suppose that two uncivilised peoples could devise such artificial and cumbrous methods of dividing time without some intercourse with each other. Such a supposition would push Mr. Buckle's theory of civilisation to the verge of the ridiculous. It is very hard in a great many cases to define what are the results of environment, pure and simple, from those manners and customs which have been inherited; in this case, however, where a scientific method is concerned, we are driven to believe that the civilisations of Asia and America were connected in remote times. It is very improbable that this knowledge could have been introduced alone without some of the other arts having been brought along with it. We feel, therefore, inclined to hold with Humboldt that the civilisation was to some extent imported from Asia. The Japanese current, as we have already remarked, sweeps straight across the Pacific, and would easily convey vessels from the shores of Japan and China to Southern California and the shores of Mexico. To that daring race which has peopled Polynesia such a current would offer a comparatively easy highway. The traditions of the ancient civilised peoples of America point towards the view which we have arrived at from an examination of the relics of their art and calendar. Mancocapac, accompanied by his sister, appeared among the Peruvians, gave them an admirable system of laws, and then ascended to his father, the sun. The plumed serpent, the Quetzalcoatl of the Nahuas, the Cukulcan of the Mayas, is said to have introduced the calendar, and after a Saturnian reign to have passed to a distant country. These myths imply the arrival of strangers of a higher culture than the natives, and cannot fairly be taken to be wholly without foundation. Mexico and Central America certainly possessed an indigenous civilisation, the result of the experience of man for a long series of ages in those and the neighbouring regions, and this formed the basis on which the new culture was engrafted. We should attribute the differences between the Peruvian and Mexican on the one hand, and Central American civilisation on the other, by ascribing them to the arrival of different bodies of emigrants at different times. But if this view of the Asiatic origin of a part of the Mexican and Central American civilisation be accepted, contact with Asia must have taken place in the enormously remote period of human progress which is marked by the knowledge of the art of making bronze, coupled with the ignorance of the use of iron. The emigrants must have left Asia not later than the bronze age. It is very generally assumed that the knowledge of making bronze was arrived at in the Americas without any communication with Asia. This is a mere assumption unsupported by any proof. Tinstone is not of a lustre suggestive of metal, and there are many other alloys which might have been made of copper, and which a savage would be as likely to discover. None of the ores of iron so abundant in Mexico, nor the large blocks of meteoric iron, such, for example, as at Cholula, were used before contact with the Europeans. The ignorance of native iron is very singular when we reflect that it was used by Eskimos for the manufacture of implements and weapons. From the identity of the polished stone axes of the American tribes generally, with those of the old world, it may be inferred that the principal emigration took place while the civilisation of Asia was in the Neolithic stage. We might expect to derive light in these interesting and difficult problems from the study of language, but unfortunately the philologer has not yet arisen to collect together and collate the American dialects with sufficient completeness to allow of their being used in the inquiry; indeed, we may say the same with almost equal justice of the non-Aryan dialects of Asia. It is almost unnecessary for us to say that the Mexican, Central American, and Peruvian civilisations withered away at the contact with the fanaticism and ignorance of the Spaniard, and was replaced by one of foreign growth, which can scarcely be said to be higher. Probably its destruction would have been no less sure had it been brought into relation with any other European peoples. In dealing with it we cannot fairly compare it with any of those which have flourished within the last two thousand years in Europe. It can only be compared with the civilisation of the bronze age, which was rapidly passing away at the very dawn of history in the region of the Mediterranean; such, for example, as that revealed by the labours of Dr. Schliemann in the mound at Hisarlík. The general impression left on our mind by the study of the problem offered by the races of the Americas is: 1. That they are, with the exception of the Eskimos, of Mongolian derivation, and that they have inhabited the new world for a sufficient length of time to develope many languages and a peculiar civilisation. 2. That from time to time fresh bodies of emigrants arrived from Asia, probably over sea, bringing with them the knowledge of arts and sciences, which were engrafted into this civilisation. 3. That there is no proof of contact of the new with the old world to be found in the civilisations of Mexico, Central America, and of Peru later than the bronze age. The absence of domestic animals, except the dog in the two first, may be accounted for by the difficulty of their being conveyed in canoes, as well as by the seafaring Mongolians, Malays, Polynesians, &c. not being addicted to pastoral habits. 4. That the migration has been on the whole from Asia to America, and the general drift of the tribes from north to south. We can confidently recommend Mr. Bancroft's book to our readers as a trustworthy and well-edited encyclopædia of all that is known of the Native Races of 'the Pacific States of North America,' and of the most important facts relating to the history, art, and architecture of the civilised peoples of Mexico and Central America. ART. II.-Marie Antoinette. Correspondance Secréte entre Marie Thérèse et le Comte de Mercy Argenteau, avec les lettres de Marie Thérèse et de Marie Antoinette. Publiée par M. le Chevalier ALFRED D'ARNETH et M. A. GEOFFROY. Trois Tomes 8vo. Paris: 1874. THESE volumes are rather portentous in size, but they form a work of the greatest interest. In 1864, M. d'Arneth, who has for years been the chief superintendent of the Austrian archives, discovered and published a series of letters of the Empress-Queen, Maria Theresa, and of the ill-fated consort of Louis XVI., which, as many of our readers doubtless know, threw a clear light on more than one passage in the life and conduct of Marie Antoinette, and even on the contemporaneous history of France. This correspondence, however, valuable as it is, was, it would appear, a supplement only of another intimately connected with it, which is now given for the first time to the world, and certainly is of not less importance. On the occasion of the marriage of Marie Antoinette, Count Mercy Argenteau, the ambassador of Austria at the Court of Versailles, was commissioned by his imperial mistress to act as a kind of unavowed Mentor to the youthful Princess in her new position; and, at the same time, he was strictly enjoined to report fully, but with the closest secresy, the results of his counsels and observations, all that he could say touching the ways and doings of the royal lady entrusted to his charge, and the associations in which her lot was cast. Maria Theresa, in turn, answered her emissary in like manner: with the most perfect confidence, but with such precautions that her thoughts were hidden from third persons; she freely commented on the thousand details of the daily converse of Marie Antoinette which, month after month, were brought under her eye; and, simultaneously, she completely disclosed her estimate of her daughter's character, and openly indicated the line of conduct which, as Dauphiness and Queen, she ought to pursue. In addition, the Empress spoke out her mind unreservedly on the royal family of France, and on the dependents connected with it, who happened to be described to her; she said her say on all kinds of anecdotes of scandal and gossip related to her; and she often pointed out what, in her judgment, should be the policy of France and Austria, then, as is well known, for many years allied, on various questions that chanced to arise. This singular correspondence was regularly carried on from 1770 to 1780-the date of Maria Theresa's |