will, therefore, refrain from
intruding mine on your readers. On the other hand, they are welcome
to see it in the discourse I have pronounced before the American
Geographical Society of New York in January, 1873, which has been
published in the New York Tribune, lecture sheet No. 8.

The Quichua contains also many words that seem closely allied to
the dialects spoken by the nations inhabiting the regions called
today Central America and the Maya tongue. It would not be
surprising that some colony emigrating from these countries should
have reached the beautiful valley of Cuzco, and established
themselves in it, in times so remote that we have no tradition even
of the event. It is well known that the Quichua was the language of
the inhabitants of the valley of Cuzco exclusively before it became
generalized in _Ttahuantinsuyu_, and it is today the place where it
is spoken with more perfection and purity.

In answer to the question, if man came from the older (?) world of
Asia,--and if so how, there are several points to consider, and not
the least important relates to the relative antiquity of the
continents. You are well aware that geologists, naturalists and
other scientists are not wanting who, with the late Professor
Agassiz, sustain that this western continent is as old, if not
older, than Asia and Europe, or Africa. Leaving this question to be
settled by him who may accomplish it, I will repeat here what I
have sustained long ago: that the American races are autochthonous,
and have had many thousand years ago relations with the inhabitants
of the other parts of the earth just as we have them today. This
fact I can prove by the mural paintings and bas-reliefs, and more
than all by the portraits of men with long beards that are to be
seen in Chichen Itza, not to speak of the Maya tongue, which
contains expressions from nearly every language spoken in olden
times (to this point I will recur hereafter), and also by the small
statues of tumbaya (a mixture of silver and copper) found in the
huacas of Chimu, near Trujillo on the Peruvian coast, and by those
of the valley of Chincha.

These statues, which seem to belong to a very ancient date,
generally represent a man seated cross-legged on the back of a
turtle. The head is shaved, except the