ariety of the brightest pages of Saadi.

A proof of their antiquity and foreign extraction is, that few of their
records and traditions are local; they refer to countries on the other
side of the sea, countries where the summer is perpetual, the population
numberless, and the cities composed of great palaces, like the Hindoo
traditions, "built by the good genii, long before the creation of man."

There is no doubt, indeed it is admitted by the other tribes that the
Shoshone is the parent tribe of the Comanches, Arrapahoes, and Apaches--
the Bedouins of the Mexican deserts. They all speak the same beautiful
and harmonious language, have the same traditions; and indeed so recent
have been their subdivisions, that they point out the exact periods by
connecting them with the various events of Spanish inland conquest in
the northern portion of Sonora.

It is not my intention to dwell long upon speculative theory but I must
observe, that if any tradition is to be received with confidence it must
proceed from nations, or tribes, who have long been stationary. That
the northern continent of America was first peopled from Asia, there can
be little doubt, and if so it is but natural to suppose that those who
first came over would settle upon the nearest and most suitable
territory. The emigrants who, upon their landing, found themselves in
such a climate and such a country as California, were not very likely to
quit it in search of a better.

That such was the case with the Shoshones, and that they are descendants
from the earliest emigrants, and that they have never quitted the
settlement made by their ancestors, I have no doubt, for all their
traditions confirm it.

We must be cautious how we put faith in the remarks of missionaries and
travellers, upon a race of people little known. They seldom come into
contact with the better and higher classes, who have all the information
and knowledge; and it is only by becoming one of them, not one of their
tribes, but one of their chiefs, and received into their aristocracy,
that any correct intelligence can be gained.

Allow that a stranger was to arrive at Wapping, or elsewhere, in Great
Britain, and question those he met in such a locality as to the
religion, laws, and history of the English, how unsatisfactory would be
their replies; yet missionaries and travellers among these nations
seldom obtain farther access. It is therefore among the better classes
of the Indians th