BOURBOURG,--has,
in a history recently published, done the best service to this cause. It
is entitled "Histoire des Nations Civilisees du Mexique et de l'Amerique
Centrale." (Paris, 1857.) M. de Bourbourg spent many years in Central
America, studying the face of the country and the languages of the
Indian tribes, and investigating the ancient picture-writing and the
remains of the wonderful ruins of that region. Probably no stranger has
ever enjoyed better opportunities of reading the ancient manuscripts and
studying the dialects of the Central American races. With these helps he
has prepared a groundwork for the history of the early civilized peoples
of our American continent,--a history, it should be remembered, ending
where Prescott's begins,--reaching back, possibly, as far as the
earliest invasions of the Huns, and one of whose fixed dates is at the
time of the Antonines. He has ventured to lift, at length, the veil from
our mysterious and confused American antiquity. It is an especial merit
of M. de Bourbourg, in this stage of the investigation, that he has
attempted to do no more. He has collected and collated facts, but
has sought to give us very few theories. The stable philosophical
conclusions he leaves for later research, when time shall have been
afforded for fuller comparison.

There is an incredible fascination to many minds in these investigations
into the traditions and beliefs of antiquity. We feel in their presence
that they are the oldest things; the most ancient books, or buildings,
or sculptures are modern by their side. They represent the childish
instincts of the human mind,--its _gropings_ after Truth,--its dim
ideals and shadowings forth of what it hopes will be. They are the
earliest answers of man to the great questions, WHENCE and WHITHER?

* * * * *

The most ancient people of Central America, according to M. de
Bourbourg,--a people referred to in all the oldest traditions, but of
whom everything except the memory has passed away,--are the Quinames.
Their rule extended over Mexico and Guatemala, and there is reason to
suppose that they attained to a considerable height of civilization. The
only accounts of their origin are the oral traditions repeated to the
Spaniards by the Indians of Yucatan,--traditions relating that the
fathers of this great nation came from the East, and that God had
delivered them from the pursuit of their enemies and had opened to
t