NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.



83



teir colour is similar to that of the inhabitants of the north
oi Europe. Their red and fair hair, found in the north of
Europe, more frequently than in any other part of the
world; but above all, their language, which is said to be a
dialect of that spoken in East Greenland, the inhabitants
of which are believed to have emigrated from Europe, seem
to give this conjecture a considerable appearance of proba-
bility; besides, their religious notions are exactly the same
as those of the Greenlanders. On the whole, it appears rae
,tional to believe, that the progenitors of all the American
nations from Cape Horn to the southern limits of Labrador,
from the similarity of their aspect, colour, language, and
customs, migrated from the north-east parts of Asia; and
that the nations~that inhabit Labrador, Esquimeaux, and the
parts adjacent, from their unlikeness to the rest of the
Americans, and their resemblance to the northern Euro-
peans, came over from the north- west parts of Europe.
  Such are the most rational conjectures which we have
been able to form respecting the origin of the Esquimeaux,
who are evidently a different race from all the other North
American Indians. It remains now to trace the descent of
these. other tribes, who ere scattered over that co'untry
which extends from Cape Horn to the southern limits of



Labrador.
  We -shall here quote the I
wood a very learned author,
the present subject, and live
beth.        S



hollowing passage from Brere-
who paid much attention to
d in the time of Queen Eliza-



  " It is very likely that America received her first inhabi-
tants, from the east border of Asia; so it is altogether un-
like, that it received them from any other part of all that
border, save from Tartary. Because, in America there is
not to be discerned any token or indication at all, of the arts
or industry of China, or India, or. Cataia, or any other cie
vii region, along all that border of Asia: But, in their gross
ignorance of letters, and of arts, in their idolatry, and the
specialties of it, in their incivility, and many barbarous pro-
perties, they resemble the old and rude Tartars, above all
the nations of the earth. Which opinion of mine touching
the Americans descending from the Tartars, rather than