s
travelling in Tartary he met a Huron woman whom he had known in
Canada. He asked her by what adventure she had been carried into a
country so very remote from her own; she replied that having been
taken in war, she was conducted from nation to nation, until she
reached the place where she then was.

Monsieur Charlevoix narrates another circumstance of a similar kind.
He says that he had been assured, another Jesuit had met with a
Floridian woman in China. She also had been made captive by certain
Indians, who gave her to those of a more distant country, and by these
again she was given to those of another nation, 'till having been
successively passed from country to country, and after having
travelled through regions extremely cold, she at length found herself
in Tartary. Here she had married a Tartar, who had attended the
conquerors in China, and with whom she then was.

Arguing from these facts and from the similarity of several kinds of
wild beasts which are found in America, with those of Hyrcania and
Tartary, he arrives at what he deems, a [16] rational conclusion, that
more than one nation in America had Scythian or Tartarian extraction.

Charlevoix possessed a good opportunity of becoming acquainted with
the character and habits of the American Indians. His theory however
has been controverted by some, possessing equal advantages of
observation. Mr. Adair, an intelligent gentleman who resided among the
nations during the space of forty years, and who became well
acquainted with their manners, customs, religion, traditions and
language, has given to them a very different origin. But perfect
soever as may have been his knowledge of their manners, customs,
religion and traditions, yet it must be admitted that any inquiry into
these, with a view to discover their origin, would most probably prove
fallacious. A knowledge of the primitive language, alone can cast much
light on the subject. Whether this knowledge can ever be attained, is,
to say the least, very questionable--Being an unwritten language, and
subject to change for so many centuries, it can scarcely be supposed
now to bear much, if any affinity, to what it was in its purity.

Mr. Adair says, that from the most exact observation he could make
during the long time which he traded among the Indians, he was forced
to believe them lineally descended from the Israelites, either when
they were a maritime power, or soon after the general captivity; most
pro