those of sorrow, they returned to the high road, which they had left about half a dozen miles to pay this visit, and pursued their journey. There is another barrow much resembling this, in the low grounds of the south branch of Shenandoah where it is crossed by the road leading from the Rockfish gap to Staunton. Both of these have within these dozen years, been cleared of their trees and put under cultivation, are much reduced in their heighth, and spread in width, by the plough, and will probably disappear in time. There is another on a hill in the Bluge ridge of mountains, a few miles north of Wood's gap, which is made up of small stones thrown toge ther. This has been opened and found to con. tain human bones, as the others do. There are also many others in other parts of the country. Great question has arisen from whence came those aboriginals of America? Discoveries, long ago made, were sufficient to show that the passage from Europe to America was always practicable, even to the imperfect navigation of ancient times. In going from Norway to Iceland, from Iceland to Groenland, from Groenland to Labrador, the first traject is the wildest: and this having been practised from the earliest times of which we have any account of that part of the earth, it is not difficult to suppose that the subsequent trajects may have been sometimes passed. Again, the late discoveries of Captain Cook, coasting from Kamschatka to California, have proved that if the two continents of Asia and America be separated at all, it is only by a narrow streight. So that from this side also, inhabitants may have passed into America: and the resemblance between the Indians of America and the eastern inhabitants. of Asia, would induce us to conjecture, that the former are the descendants of the latter, or the latter of the former: excepting indeed the Eskimaux, who, from the same circumstance of resemblance, and from identity of language, must be derived from the Groenlanders, and these probably from some of the northern parts of the old continent. A knowledge of their se veral languages would be the most certain evidence of their derivation which could be pro duced. In fact, it is the best proof of the affinity of nations which ever can be referred to. How many ages have elapsed since the English, the Dutch, the Germans, the Swiss, the Nor-.. wegians, Danes and Swedes have separated from their common stock? Yet how many more must elapse before the proofs of their common origin, which exist in their several languages, will disappear? It is to be lamented then, very much to be lamented, that we have suffered so many of the Indian tribes already to extinguish, without our having previously collected and deposited in the records of literature, the general rudiments at least of the languages they spoke. Were vocabularies formed of all the languages spoken in North and South America, preserving their appellations of the most common objects in nature, of those which must be present to every nation barbarous or civilized, with the inflections of their nouns and verbs, their prin ciples of regimen and concord, and these deposited in all the public libraries, it would furnish opportunities to those skilled in the languages of the old world to compare with these, now, or at any future time, and hence to construct the best evidence of the derivation of this part of the human race. But imperfect as is our knowledge of the tongues spoken in America, it suffices to discover the following remarkable fact. Arranging them under the radical ones to which they may be palpably traced and doing the same by those of the red men of Asia, there will be found probably twenty in America, for one in Asia, of those radical languages, so called because, if they were ever the same they have lost all resemblance to one another. A separation into dialects may be the work of a few ages only, but for two dialects to recede from one another, till they have lost all vestiges of their common origin, must require an immense course of time; perhaps not less than many people give to the age of the earth. A greater number of those radical changes of language having taken place among the red men of America, proves them of greater antiquity than those of Asia. I will now proceed to state the nations and numbers of the Aborigines which still exist in a respectable and independent form. And as their undefined boundaries would render it dif ficult to specify those only which may be within. any certain limits, and it may not be unacceptable to present a more general view of them, I will reduce within the form of a catalogue all those within, and circumjacent to, the United States, whose names and numbers have come to my notice. These are taken from four dif ferent lists, the first of which was given in the N year 1759 to General Stanwix by George Croghan, deputy agent for Indian affairs under Sir William Johnson; the second was drawn up by a French trader of considerable note, resident among the Indians many years, and annexed to Colonel Bouquet's printed account of his expedition in 1764. The third was made out by Captain Hutchins, who visited most of the tribes, by order, for the purpose of learning their numbers in 1768. And the fourth by John Dodge, an Indian trader, in 1779, except the numbers marked*, which are from other information. Northward and Weftward of the United States. Croghan. TRIBES. 1759 Bouquet. Hutchins. 1764. 1768. 100 Where they refide. At Swagatchy, on the river St. Laurence. 350 700 550 130 400 300 2500 2000 3000 1500 1500 2500 10,000 1800 10,000 1100 2000 1700 500 Near Trois Rivieres. River St. Laurence. River St Laurence. River St. Laurence. Towards the heads of the Ottawas river. Towards the heads of the Ottawas river. Riviere aux Tetes boules on the Eaft fide Lake Superior. Lake Chriftinaux. Lake Affinaboes. On the heads of the Miffiffippi and weftward of that river. |