order." (History of Mexico. Book 7. sect. 45.) The Indian women in Yucatan still wear their hair in one plait hanging down the back, and also wear a petticoat with the same kind of border as the Basque women. The men still wear Sandals.
The Druids are commonly supposed to have learnt from the Phœnicians the doctrines which they taught. The black dress they ordinarily wore is also considered to be of the same origin, and would seem to agree exactly with the description of dresses formerly worn by the Priests in Cozumel and Yucatan. The form of the sacrificial altars at Carnac in Brittany would likewise seem to agree exactly with those found in Central America.
Such then are the grounds on which I would advance the opinion that the civilization of Yucatan was the result of communication with strangers of Phœnician or some kindred race. The traditions of the former Inhabitants of America uniformly point to the teaching of strangers as the source from whence their knowledge of the arts of social life was derived. Manco Capac is described by Garcillaso de la Vega as a stranger appearing on the shores of the Lake of Titicaca and announcing himself as the Child of the Sun sent to teach mankind the religion and customs pleasing to the Deity. Other accounts represent him as coming from the Pacific, but all agree that he was a stranger. The Mexicans in like manner ascribed their civilization to the teaching of Quetzalcoalt, a white man with a large beard, who was afterwards deified; and who on his departure from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico declared that his descendants would come in future ages (and necessarily across the Atlantic) to claim possession of the country; and Cortes reports that Montezuma told him that he considered the Spaniards to be the people whose arrival had been expected. (Humboldt's Researches in descriptions of Cholula. Cortes. 2nd Letter. 4. Chapter.) The progress of the Aztecs can indeed be traced with tolerable accuracy. They arrived at Mexico about the year 1160. The Toltecs, a highly civilized people, lived there before them, but had been nearly destroyed by a very severe famine and pestilence; and the Aztecs occupied the vacant territory. We can easily gather from the rude remains and inscriptions in the Gila Country that their capacity and state of manners when they commenced their migration to Mexico, was little superior to that of the ordinary North American Indians, and it is undoubtedly to the remnant of the Toltecs who became mingled with them, and whose sacred edifices they used, that the Aztec, or as it is commonly called Mexican, civilization is to be attributed. I have not met with any original statement of traditions in Yucatan on
