'continue to drink well, to eat well, to enjoy yourselves well, you canno give me greater pleasure; I am very careful of you: it is I who procure for you all the benefits you derive from hunting and from fishing; and from me you derive all the good which you possess.'

"After this answer which the people hear with great respect in silence they return to their dances, and the chica which is their drink; and their heads being soon warmed by their excessive potations, the festival ends by quarrels, wounds, and often by the death of several.

"The Gods are thirsty in their turn, and want drink. Vases ornamented with flowers are prepared, and the man and woman most respected in the village are selected to present their drink: the mapono, lifts a corner of the curtain, and receives the beverage for the purpose of carrying it to the Gods, for he only is their confidant, and he alone has a right to entertain them: neither are the offerings of game and fish forgotten.

"When those persons are at the height of their intoxication and quarrels, the mapono comes forth from the sanctuary and commanding silence, announces that he has laid their necessities before the Gods; that he has received very favourable answers, that they have promised to the people all sorts of prosperity, rain as it might be wanted, a good harvest, abundant game and fish, every thing which they can desire. One day an Indian less credulous than his fellows, said in a good humoured way, that the Gods had taken a good drink, and were put into a good temper by the chica: the mapono who heard this ebullition of jest, immediately changed his magnificent promises, and threatened the people with tempests, thunders, famine and death.

"Sometimes the mapono reports very cruel answers from his Gods. He orders a whole village to take up arms, and casting itself upon a neighbouring people to pillage all that can be brought away, and to destroy the rest in fire and blood. He is always obeyed. This perpetuates enmity and uninterrupted war amongst these tribes, which lead to their mutual destruction. Such is the recompense of their servitude to the infernal spirit who loves discord and strife, and whose sole aim is the eternal ruin of his adorers.

"Besides these principal Gods, they adore others of an inferior order whom they style Isituus: Lords of the water:' their employment is to pass through the rivers and lakes, and to stock them with fish for their devotees: the people invocate them in the fishing season, and incense them with the smoke of tobacco: if the game or the fish be abundant, they go to the temples of these deities to make the offering of a portion as a testimony of their gratitude.

"These idolaters believe that the souls are immortal (they call them oquipau) and that at their separation from the body they are carried by their priests to heaven, where they are to have everlasting joy. When any person dies the obsequies are celebrated with more or less solemnity, according to the rank of the deceased. The mapono, to whom they believe the soul is entrusted, receives the offerings which the mother and the wife of the departed bring to him; he pours about water to purify the soul from its stains, consoles this mother and wife, and encourages their hopes that he will speedily have good news to bring them, of the

happy lot of the soul of the deceased, which he now goes to conduct to heaven.

"After some time, when he has returned from his journey, he sends for the mother and wife; and assuming a cheerful air, he orders the wife to wipe away her tears and to lay aside her mourning, because her husband is happy in heaven, where he waits to share his felicity with her.

"This journey of the Mepono with the soul is very troublesome. He must traverse thick forests, rugged mountains, plunge into valleys filled with rivers, lakes and soft marshes, until after many labours and great fatigue he arrives at a large river, over which a wooden bridge, guarded day and night by a God named Tatusiso, who presides over the passages of souls, and puts the mapono in the way to heaven.

"This God has a pale visage, a bald head, and a countenance which inspires horror; his body is full of ulcers, and his clothing is only wretched rags. He does not go to the temple to receive the homage of his devotees, the nature of his occupation does not afford him leisure, for he is continually employed in passing souls. Sometimes this God seizes upon the soul on its journey, especially if it be that of a young man, for the purpose of purifying it. If the soul be not very docile, and offers resistance, he grows angry, and taking it up, hurls it into the river to be drowned. This they say is the source of so many mishaps which take place in the world.

"Continual rains had ruined the harvest in the land of the Jururaros. The people who were inconsolable, applied to the manopo to inquire of the Gods the cause of their great calamity. The mapono after having taken sufficient time to consult the deities, reported their answer, which was, that in carrying to heaven the soul of a young man of their village, who refused to be purified, the soul treated T'atusiso so disrespectfully that he was flung into the river. At this news, the young man's father, who had great affection for his child, and believed him already in heaven, was inconsolable; but in this extremity the mepono was at no loss. He told the parent that if he prepared a proper canoe for him, he would go in quest of his child's soul to the very bottom of the river. The canoe was soon provided, and the mapono took it away upon his shoulders. Soon afterwards the rain ceased, and the weather became settled. He came with good tidings to the old man, but the canoe never made its appearance. Their paradise after all is but a poor one; and the pleasures which exist there will be only a wretched mode of satisfying the most moderate reasonable being. They say that it contains a forest of huge trees, which distil a gum, upon which the souls subsist, and that there are apes there which you would take for Ethiopians; there is honey and a small quantity of fish. You see a great eagle flying about in every direction, and the fables which they relate of him are so ridiculous and pitiable, that one cannot help deploring the blindness of these poor people."

These volumes contain extremely interesting geographical, statistical, botanical and historical information, besides, the singular recital of the astonishing labours, the persevering exertions, the untiring zeal, and incalculable sacrifices made by the

men who sowed the seeds of Christianity, and laid the foundation of civilized society on this continent.

To attempt a general review of the volumes was altogether out of the question, and though we have by no means exhausted the topics which we selected as likely to be interesting for their novelty, if for no other cause, still we believe that enough has been produced to shew how unfounded is the argument which some very elegant and admired European writers have attempted to build upon the allegation, that the Christian missionaries found in South-America entire and extensive nations, in which there never had been any religion, and whose inhabitants not only had no form of worship, but that the existence of a God was never known to them or to their progenitors.

We have in vain sought for some evidence in those volumes, of the splendid worship of the Peruvians, which has so often dazzled our young imagination, and led us to consider the people of this El Dorado, as something far beyond what our blanketted brethren of these states now exhibit; once we turned eagerly to the account of Pisco, in whose vicinity is a mountain, which was in former days, the great station for the adorers of the sun. Though we did not seek such ruins as those of Athens, nor calculate upon beholding what might vie with the Coliseum or the Pantheon; yet we did expect something, considerably less, it is true, than the Pyramids or the Sphinx. We had determined to be satisfied with even less than a remnant of one of the hundred gates of Thebes. We met only the following in a letter from Father Morghen to the Marquis of Reybac, dated at Guacho, on the 20th of September, 1755:

"Two or three leagues from this (Pisco) is a mountain, where it is pretended the Indians formerly used to assemble to adore the sun. There is a tradition that those savages used to throw from the acclivity of this mountain into the sea, pieces of gold, of silver, and of emerald, which abounded in this country, together with a quantity of other jewels which they had. This mountain is so famous in the province, that it is the first object of a stranger's curiosity upon his arrival. I followed this established custom, but found nothing worthy of a traveller's notice."

Father Morghen is but the relator of what was seen by a companion, for his letter to the Marquis is compiled from the observations of another missionary; but he had a good opportunity of forming a correct opinion in several instances from his own observation, and in others, as well from conversing with his brethren, as from reading their notes and narratives. Perhaps, several of our readers, after the perural of this article, will be disposed to agree with his remark to the Marquis.

"I have not forgotten the glowing pictures which you once gave me of this country, but I beg leave to assure you they by no means resemble the original, and that the travellers who have suggested those notions to us, have taken less pains to give true statements, than to delight the minds or their readers. I am far from saying that Peru is one of those sterile and wild regions which has nothing pleasing for strangers. There certainly might be found here many singularities to draw the attention of curious travellers; but there must be a serious deduction made from the stock of notions which an European has formed. You will judge by the recital of the missionary, whose mere copyist I might call myself."

We shall conclude the view of South-America, with the following extract from the same letter :—

"In leaving the territory of Pisco, I entered upon the province of Chinca, whose capital is at present a small Indian village of the same name. Formerly it was a powerful city which contained nearly two hundred thousand inhabitants; they used to count their population by millions in this province, but to-day it is nearly a desert; there is a remnant of something over two hundred families. I found on my road some monuments which had been erected to preserve the recollection of those giants who are mentioned in Peruvian history, and who were struck by thunder for crimes similar to what formerly brought down fire from heaven upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Indians furnish the following tradition: They state that during a deluge, by which their country was inundated, they retired to the tops of the hills until the waters flowed off into the sea; that when they descended to the plains, they found there men of an extraordinary stature, who waged a cruel war upon them; those who escaped from its desolation, were obliged to take refuge in the caves of the mountains; where having remained for some years, they perceived in the sky a young man, who launched thunder against the giants, and upon the destruction of those usurpers, the refugees were enabled to re-possess their ancient domains. One cannot learn when this deluge occurred; perhaps, it was partial, like that of Deucalion and Pyrrha, in Thessaly, in the account of which ancient authors have left us a mingling of truth and fable. As regards the existence and the crimes of the giants, I shall give no opinion, especially as the monuments which fell under my view, have no characteristic of antiquity. The traces of the famous wars which have devastated this province, have something more of reality. Once a charming country, it is now a vast desert, which saddens you by the recollection of the unhappy lot of its ancient inhabitants; one cannot pursue his journey through it without feelings of awe; and the tranquil melancholy of the few Indians whom he meets, appears to remind him incessantly of the misfortunes and death of their ancestors. These Indians most fondly preserve the recollection of the last of their Incas. They assemble occasionally to celebrate his memory. They sing verses in his praise, and perform upon their flutes such melodiously mournful and pathetic airs, as to create sympathy in all who hear them. Persous have seen striking effects of this

music. Two Indians melted by its strains, some days since cast themselves from the summit of a craggy mountain to rejoin their prince, and reuder to him in another world, those services which they would have gladly paid to him here. This tragic scene is frequently renewed, and thus eternizes in the Indian mind, the affecting recollection of their progenitors' calamities."

We have thus taken a pretty extensive view of the materials which these volumes furnish respecting the religion of our Aborigiues. They were idolatrous polytheists, having a variety of rude, barbarous, and too often demoralizing rites in their ceremonial. They were grossly superstitious. Superstition is the relying upon any rite or observance for an effect, which it is not calculated by its own nature to produce; or which has not in the supernatural order been attached or promised to its performance by God, who can, if he will, certainly bestow the effect on such an occasion by his own power, without using the natural cause. Neither the nature of the act nor the revelation of the Godhead led the Indian to his expectation; he blindly observed the rites, and foolishly expected, without any rational grounds, a result for which no sufficient cause existed. And the superstition varied with the caprice of those who had the power to regulate; this power was established sometimes by force, often upon accident, not unusually by the observance of some custom that might, in its origin, have been rational, but obscured, perverted, misunderstood and misapplied, degenerated into a sort of mysterious tradition of a forgotten date, and an unexplained import; the blind and obstinate adherence to which is, indeed, the very essence of this criminal folly.

We are of opinion that amongst various tribes, similarity of religious observances goes far to prove a common origin; and impressed as we are, with a belief in the probability of the occupation of our soil in the first instance, by an Asiatic race, whether Persian, Hindoo or Chinese, whether the colonists were Chinese of an Hindoo descent, or were the children of the various southern and eastern portions of that continent, who, in their canoes, were borne from spot to spot, as resting places in the Pacific, till they reached our shores; whilst the more hardy sons of Northern Asia, having penetrated through the Scandinavian woods, deluged the older Europe, we cannot well determine. But when we recollected the sun-worship of Persia, and the Gheber's fire; when we knew of the fidelity of the widow of the east, and found also amongst several of the Asiatic tribes, customs similar to those which we observe at this side of the globe; we were anxious to discover some authentic account