snow in winter and never oppressively hot in summer, it may be the greatest city on the American continent before the twentieth century draws to a close.

But, after all, Canadians are more likely to be guided by their hearts than by their pockets. Mr. Goldwin Smith, who was a professor of history, ought to know, that, in guessing at the future of nations, history as well as geography must be taken into account. Mr. Erastus Wiman has much to say about Canadian loyalty to Great Britain, and he is right in thinking that there is a great deal of British sentiment in the Dominion, but stronger than that, more general than that, is the sentiment of Canadianism, the love of Canada. We like the Americans, we imitate them in many ways, we would be pleased, as I have said, to have millions of them come among us and share the era of extraordinary prosperity that is approaching our country, but we will never listen to any proposition involving the disintegration of "this Canada of ours," which we all love so well.

Watson Griffin

MONTREAL, CANADA, December 27, 1888.

ORIENTAL ACCOUNT OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA

In accordance with the desire expressed by Mr. Henry Harrisse for literary exemplifications concerning the reception which the discovery of America met with amongst the Orientals, some remarks are here given:

Hadji Khalfa (d. 1658) notes in his bibliographical lexicon under the same number two writings concerning the history of India. The first is composed by Muhammad ibn Yusuf-al-haravi, and in it he describes the East Indies. The other, taʼrikh hind al-djadid algharbi, history of the New West Indies, is translated by one of the more recent writers from the Frankish language, and he has added to it sundry matters from the Commentary of the tad'kira (record or memorandum book). He describes therein the history, resources and peculiarities of the quarter of the earth. which is called yeñi dunyâ, or New World, and how the moderns discovered it after the ancients had failed to do so.

The Leyden codex of Hadji Khalfa, written in 1729, gives this article another form, by reason of alterations in the text from omissions and additions. Fifty years ago, as a matter of curiosity, I made a copy of this piece, without imagining that after so long a period it might be turned to account. It runs thus, literally translated:

"Ta'rikh al-hind, written by Shaikh Muhammad ibn Yûsuf-al-haravî, an instructive book, entitled al-ta'rikh al-djadid (the new history). [There is a mistake in the title.] In it are enumerated the rulers of India one after the other with their ministers, the events of their dynasties are described, their notions of religion and morals, what happened in the time of their independence (daula), what remarkable things the described realms contained in the way of spices, trees and fruits, of the variety of character and languages of the natives, and other innumerable curiosities. One of the moderns then rendered the book into Turkish, after a learned man in earlier times had translated it from the Indian language into the Arabian. A supplement to it was made by the Shaikh Abu'lmuhlif Muhammed al-micri, and the description of that part of the world which lies in the ocean surrounding the earth was added. He relates that an Indian ship drifted about in the ocean, and sailed eight months without knowing where it was, till the wind cast it on the place which is called the New World. This is a wide outspread continent, with various races whose languages are not easy to understand, and who live mostly by the

chase and fishing. Amongst the remarkable things are gold and silver mines, but the silver is more plentiful.

The inhabitants made no use of the metals; the sailors went to work then, took as much of these metals as they could, returned to India, and related their experience. In consequence of which their king fitted out six other ships and sent them off well provisioned. They arrived in six months, during which time they saw neither land nor bird. The natives were rejoiced at their arrival when they saw what precious viands and sumptuous Indian garments they had, and gave them as much as they wanted of the said metals, and they also allowed a good many of the sailors to remain with them whilst a number of their own people went on the Indian ship.

Upon their return home in good condition, the news became known and spread abroad until it came to the regent of the Spaniards. [Turkish style.] He at once commissioned seven ships, which followed the Indian vessels and so came to the before mentioned part of the world. They had learned about it from the Greek books of history, and had gone to much trouble and pains to get there, but had not found it till finally they reached it by following the Indian ships.

They built there castles and fortresses, collected in them quantities of metals, placed themselves on a good footing with the natives, intermarried with them, and bestowed upon them such worldly goods as were new to

them. them.

The natives inclined towards them, left the Indians and attended Thus they got the upper hand of the Indians, and there arose between them fighting, quarreling and war.

Regularly to the present time the Frankish ships of the Spaniards went there, the new ships went, the old came. We have seen how a lot of people set out on the way at the same time with the ships of the West Islands, and watched them in the neighborhood of their territory; then when ship after ship came till seven ships [themselves?] followed, they drew up against them ten ships strong, captured the garrisons and found silver bars as if they were but iron, and each and every one of them took from the garrison of those ships a number of hundred weights of the sameand the wealth of the inhabitants of the island [sic] had its origin in this booty."

Unfortunately the time of the two authors cannot be ascertained from the present means at hand. Muhammad al-haravi appears, judging from his expression concerning the former independence, to have lived in a time when the supremacy of the Mohammedan dynasties was firmly established. Elliott, History of India, IV, 1872, p. 558, in accordance with

an irresistible combination, places him in the first quarter of the 14th century of the Christian era, by which the truth may be arrived at. So many works bear the title tadkira that from want of a closer description nothing can be divined as to which is here meant. In like manner, which would be of the greatest importance, nothing can be found out about Abu'lmuhlif.

As he evidently knows about the convoys and the filibusters, he may have written after the middle of the 16th century. Also whether both the Turkish works are identical or not is not positively certain, although probably they are. The putting together with the earlier work under one title by the genuine Hadji Khaifa leads to the conclusion that he already knew them in the united form; the writer of the codex of 1729 must have been visually entrusted with a sight of its contents, and was thus induced to amplify the original article. The unfortunate transferring of the name Indies has brought, as a consequence, the accession of a book treating of the East Indies; in like manner can be explained the peculiar distortion of the history; if the Spaniards fought with the East Indians still they must have got at them first.

Bōnn.

J. Gildermeister.

The foregoing, with the exception of the altered title and omitted technical references to libraries and MSS., is a close translation of the first two-thirds of an article entitled "Oriental Literature Concerning the Discovery of America," which appeared in the July (1888) number of the Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen of Leipzig. The remaining part treats of some more recent Turkish books on the same subject, but has no peculiar interest beyond aiming at bibliographical fullness, and is omitted in this connection. There is a certain similarity in the statements of this old narrative to that passage in the Varia Historia of Aelian, where it is said "that Europe, Asia, and Africa are surrounded by the ocean; and that beyond there is a great continent sustaining huge animals, and the land possessed an abundance of gold and silver, which the people regarded less than the Phrygians did iron." See Samuel F. Haven's Archeology of the United States, 1856. This work of Aelianus (who flourished in the early part of the third century) therefore was probably one of the old Greek books referred to by Abu'imuhlif in his concise but interesting

account.

Alfred J. Hall.

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA.

THE MOUND-BUILDERS AND NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS

WHENCE CAME THEY?

There is evidence that in the early ages of the human race migrations were made from As a to America, the nearness of the two continents in their northern portions facilitating such movements. The currents in Behring Sea as well as the winds are mainly toward the American coast, but even much more is this the case in the currents of the North Pacific, the main one of which-the Japan-comes near the coast directly opposite the mouth of the Columbia River; likewise the prevailing winds are in the same direction, while the waters are comparatively smooth and free from

storms.

These migrations, though they occurred in the comparatively early ages of the world's history, must have been at least in two divisions, and they far separated in time. The first immigrants, the presumed ancestors of the mound-builders of the Mississippi Valley, came evidently from the north middle portion of eastern Asia. We may imagine their ancestors occupying long ages in growing in numbers, and in migrating from the cradle of the human race in the vicinity of Mount Ararat, and moving in an easterly direction along the southern slope of the Altai Mountains, and north of the great desert of Gobi, or Shamo, till they reached the headstreams of the Amoor, then availing themselves of these water-courses they passed down to the ocean, meanwhile the fertile soil of the valley and the fish of the river itself affording them sustenance. They being a pastoral and agricultural people, became a prey to robbers, perhaps the wild Tartars or Scythians, who, though of the same stock or race now known as the Mongolian, roamed over the northern slopes of the Altai Mountains, and who, by invasion, may have compelled a portion of these unwarlike people to abandon their homes in the valley of the Amoor. The latter may at first have taken refuge on the island Saghalien, off the mouth of that river, and on the Kurile and Aleutian Isles (Lenormant's Beginnings of History, p. 452). Thence they found their way along the south shore of Alaska, and round to the valley of the Columbia River, while another portion in rude vessels may have been carried along the north shore of the Pacific to the same destination by the remarkable current just mentioned, aided by the westerly winds. This migration from