them over the whole earth, and to give to each nation its own language. For this purpose he placed a caldron of water on the fire, and commanded the different races to approach it in order, and to select for themselves the sounds which were uttered by the singing of the water in its confinement and torture."'

Grimm might have added another legend which is current among the Thlinkithians, and was clearly framed in order to account for the existence of different languages. The Thlinkithians are one of the four principal races inhabiting Russian America. They are called Kaljush, Koljush, or Kolosh by the Russians, and inhabit the coast from about 60° to 45° N. L., reaching therefore across the Russian frontier as far as the Columbia River, and they likewise hold many of the neighbouring islands. Weniaminow estimates their number, both in the Russian and English colonies, at 20 to 25,000. They are evidently a decreasing race, and their legends, which seem to be numerous and full of original ideas, would well deserve the careful attention of American ethnologists. Wrangel suspected a relationship between them and the Aztecs of Mexico. These Thlinkithians believe in a general flood or deluge, and that men saved themselves in a large floating building. When the waters fell, the building was wrecked on a rock, and by its own weight burst into two pieces. Hence arose the difference of languages. The Thlinkithians with their language remained on one side; on the other side were all the other races of the earth".

Holmberg, 'Ethnographische Skizzen über die Völker des Russischen Amerika.' Helsingfors, 1855.

Neither the Esthonian nor the Thlinkithian legend, however, offers any striking points of coincidence with the Mosaic accounts. The analogies, therefore, as well as the discrepancies, between the ninth chapter of Genesis and the chapter here translated from the Quiché MS. require special attention :

'All had but one language, and they did not invoke as yet either wood or stones; they only remembered the word of the Creator, the Heart of heaven and earth.

'And they spoke while meditating on what was hidden by the spring of day; and full of the sacred word, full of love, obedience, and fear, they made their prayers, and lifting their eyes up to heaven, they asked for sons and daughters:

"Hail! O Creator and Fashioner, thou who seest and hearest us! do not forsake us, O God, who art in heaven and earth, Heart of the sky, Heart of the earth! Give us offspring and descendants as long as the sun and dawn shall advance. Let there be seed and light. Let us always walk on open paths, on roads where there is no ambush. Let us always be quiet and in peace with those who are ours. May our lives run on happily. happily. Give us a life secure from reproach. Let there be seed for harvest, and let there be light."

'They then proceeded to the town of Tulan, where they received their gods.

And when all the tribes were there gathered together, their speech was changed, and they did not understand each other after they arrived at Tulan. It was there that they separated, and some went to the East, others came here. Even the language of the four ancestors of the human race became different.

66

Alas," they said, "we have left our language. How has this happened? We are ruined! How could we have been led into error? We had but one language when we came to Tulan; our form of worship was but one. What we have done is not good," replied all the tribes in the woods and under the lianas.'

The rest of the work, which consists altogether of four books, is taken up with an account of the migrations of the tribes from the East, and their various settlements. The four ancestors of the race seem to have had a long life, and when at last they came to die, they disappeared in a mysterious manner, and left to their sons what is called the Hidden Majesty, which was never to be opened by human hands. What it was we do not know. There are many subjects of interest in the chapters which follow, only we must not look there for history, although the author evidently accepts as truly historical what he tells us about the successive generations of kings. But when he brings us down at last, after sundry migrations, wars, and rebellions, to the arrival of the Castilians, we find that between the first four ancestors of the human or of the Quiché race and the last of their royal dynasties, there intervene only fourteen generations, and the author, whoever he was, ends with the confession :

'This is all that remains of the existence of Quiché; for it is impossible to see the book in which formerly the kings could read everything, as it has disappeared. It is over with all those of Quiché! It is now called Santa-Cruz!'

March, 1862.

341

XV.

SEMITIC MONOTHEISM'.

A

WORK such as M. Renan's Histoire Générale

et Système Comparé des Langues Sémitiques' can only be reviewed chapter by chapter. It contains a survey not only, as its title would lead us to suppose, of the Semitic languages, but of the Semitic languages and nations; and, considering that the whole history of the civilised world has hitherto been acted by two races only, the Semitic and the Aryan, with occasional interruptions produced by the inroads of the Turanian race, M. Renan's work comprehends in reality half of the history of the ancient world. We have received as yet the first volume only of this important work, and before the author had time to finish the second, he was called upon to publish a second edition of the first, which appeared in 1858, with important additions and alterations.

In writing the history of the Semitic race it is necessary to lay down certain general characteristics

1 'Histoire Générale et Système Comparé des Langues Sémitiques.' Par Ernest Renan, Membre de l'Institut. Seconde édition. Paris, 1858.

'Nouvelles Considérations sur le Caractère Général des Peuples Sémitiques, et en particulier sur leur Tendance au Monothéisme.' Par Ernest Renan. Paris, 1859.

common to all the members of that race, before we can speak of nations so widely separated from each other as the Jews, the Babylonians, Phenicians, Carthaginians, and Arabs, as one race or family. The most important bond which binds these scattered tribes together into one ideal whole is to be found in their language. There can be as little doubt that the dialects of all the Semitic nations are derived from one common type as there is about the derivation of French, Spanish, and Italian from Latin, or of Latin, Greek, German, Celtic, Slavonic, and Sanskrit from the primitive idiom of the ancestors of the Aryan race. The evidence of language would by itself be quite sufficient to establish the fact that the Semitic nations descended from common ancestors, and constitute what, in the science of language, may be called a distinct race. But M. Renan was not satisfied with this single criterion of the relationship of the Semitic tribes, and he has endeavoured to draw, partly from his own observations, partly from the suggestions of other scholars, such as Ewald and Lassen, a more complete portrait of the Semitic man. This was no easy task. It was like drawing the portrait of a whole family, omitting all that is peculiar to each individual member, and yet preserving the features which constitute the general family likeness. The result has been what might be expected. Critics most familiar with one or the other branch of the Semitic family have each and all protested that they can see no likeness in the portrait. It seems to some to contain features which it ought not to contain, whereas others miss the very expression which appears to them most striking.