e West"
as the elysium of the ancient Hindus, "The White Islands of the West." The
Celtae of the European continent believed that their souls were transported
to England, or some islands adjacent. (See _Encyclopedie Methodique_, art.
"Antiquites," vol. i. p. 704.) The Celtic elysium, "Flath-Innis," a remote
island of the West, is mentioned by Logan in his _Celtic Gael_, vol. ii. p.
342., who no doubt drew his information from the same source as Professor
Rafinesque, whose observations on this subject I transcribe, viz.:

"It is strange but true, that, throughout the earth, the place of
departed souls, the land of spirits, was supposed to be in the West, or
at the setting sun. This happens everywhere, and in the most opposite
religions, from China to Lybia, and also from Alaska to Chili in
America. The instances of an eastern paradise were few, and referred to
the eastern celestial abode of yore, rather than the future abode of
souls. The Ashinists, or Essenians, the best sect of Jews, placed
Paradise in the Western Ocean; and the Id. Alishe, or Elisha of the
Prophets, the happy land. Jezkal (our Ezekiel) mentions that island;
the Phoenicians called it Alizut, and some deem Madeira was meant, but
it had neither men nor spirits! From this the Greeks made their Elysium
and Tartarus placed near together, at first in Epirus, then Italy, next
Spain, lastly in the ocean, as the settlers travelled west. The sacred
and blessed islands of the Hindus and Lybians were in this ocean;
Wilford thought they meant the British Islands. Pushcara, the farthest
off, he says, was Iceland, but may have meant North America.

"The Lybians called their blessed islands 'Aimones;' they were the
Canaries, it is said, but likely the Atlantides, since the Atlantes
dwelt in the Aimones," &c.

And farther he says, the Gauls had their Cocagne, the Saxons their
Cockaign, Cocana of the Lusitanians,--

"A land of delight and plenty, _which is proverbial to this day_! By
the Celts it was called 'Dunna feadhuigh,' a fairy land, &c. But all
these notions have earlier foundations, since the English Druids put
their paradise in a remote island in the west, called {344}
'Flath-Innis,' the flat island", &c.--_American Nations_, vol. ii. p.
245. _et infra_.

The coincidence then is this. The same veneration for the West prevails
among many of our Indian tribes,