Page 152 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

148 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

Hindoo and Persian laws in the Peruvian polity, indicate tliat,
at least, all three of these nations mere represented in the
structure of the Peruvian civilization; and to account for the
existence of their representatives in Peru, we are shut up to the
doctrine of chance nzigration, perhaps all by the same vessel,
and perhaps by several; and we have our choice between the
northern and southern rontes, or part by the one and part by
the other. The distinctive blood and character of the Incas,
seem inconsistent with tlie supposition that they were first cast
upon the north-west coast, migrated to Mexico, passed through
the crucible of that empire and then penetrated into South
America. It seems more rational to conclude that persons from
China, Persia, and Hindostan, may, in rare instances, have been
cast upon the coast by the southern route.
There is one more anomaly in Indian history which I cannot
pass unnoticcd. We have distinct indications of the occasional
appearance among the original inhabitants, of, to them, myste-
rious personages who seen1 to have left t.races of a European
origin. The descriptions given by the Mexicans of their deified
Quetzalcoatl, and the Christian rites and ethics interwoven with
their heathenish doctrines aiid pra,ctices, point significantly to
Europe for their origin. It is true that the liability to chance
migrations from Europe across the Atlantic, compared with
those from Asia across the Pacific, niay be a hundred to one in
favor of the latter; and yet, it is not only possible, but abstractly
probable tliat such chance voyages may, occasionally, have been '
made in the course of centuries. But such chance migrations
across the Atlantic could only be made within or near the tro-
pics, and direct from the old countries, as there is no chain of
islands to support the inductive process which must have been
carried on through thc Aleutian chain, and other islands of tlie
Pacific. Castaways from Spain or Portugal, for example,
would naturally fall into the Gulf of Mexico, and if would not
be strange, therefore, if persons froin these, or other countries
of Europe, should have found their way, by the chances of navi-