In the following pages we shall have occasion to notice how man, when left to himself, always sinks to deeper degradation, and final extinction, and that the savage never rises in the social scale unaided. III. EARLY MIGRATIONS TO AMERICA. Y what people, and from what quarter, BY was the continent of America first inhabited? is a question that has never been satisfactorily answered, although it has always been one of deep and absorbing interest to the antiquarian and philologist. The veil that at present surrounds with doubt and uncertainty those wonderful and interesting ruins which at the present day exist in Central America, as well as the ancient remains of populous nations that formerly lived on the plateaus of Mexico and Peru, races who preceded the Aztecs and Peruvians, and who so silently disappeared,—is but as yet only partiWhence came they? The ruins. of their cities, now buried beneath the humid ally lifted. soil of Yucatan, and overshadowed by the gigantic forest trees that have sprung up amidst their courts and temples, sufficiently testify that a race far advanced in civilization once possessed the country, and ruled over those lands where now in many places an almost impenetrable wilderness exists. This circumstance, however, is not peculiar to America, for we have but to glance at the Old Continent to find similar examples, particularly in India; but we possess more or less information with regard to these remains of civilization in Asia through the medium of the Hindoo and other records. In like manner, the past magnificence of Egypt and Assyria have been gradually unfolded by means of their graven monuments, but it does not seem probable that the tablets of hieroglyphics at Palenque, Copan, and Quirigua will be so soon or so easily deciphered. In all probability it is upon the Central American monuments that any future discoveries regarding the primitive races, belong |