[76] Hakluyt, vol. iv., p. 558; and Conquest of Peru and Mexico, ch. vii.
[77] A Roman coin is said to have been discovered recently among the Indians in America, which has justly created surprise; but others have been found long ago. Bishop Hakewill’s book is dated A.D. 1635: he says, “Marianus Siculus, in his history of Spain, reports that certain coined pieces of gold, engraved with the image and inscription of Augustus Cæsar, were found in the American mines; thereby inferring that those countries were then discovered.” p. 310. Batou, the cousin of Kublai, both grandsons of Genghis, had conquered Russia, ravaged Europe to the Adriatic, and died on his march to Constantinople, in 1256. His successor also ravaged as far as Constantinople, (P. de la Croix, p. 387.) Mango (so spelt by Du Halde, ii., 251, and Maundeville, p. 275; Manku by Tooke, Russ. Emp., ii., 13) was brother to Kublai, who is considered by the writer to be the father of the first Inca, and there is nothing more probable than that he and other Moguls on the Japanese expedition may have possessed Roman coins, the plunder of Hungary, Poland, Dalmatia, and the Greek empire, as far as the capital.
[78] Cuvier, Theory of the Earth, p. 257.
[79] Conq. of Peru, &c. plate iv.
[80] Theory of the Earth, p. 67.
[81] Herodotus, Thalia xcix. Rees’s Cyc., “Sumatra.”
[82] Wars and Sports, p. 335.
[83] Travels of Lewis Vertomanus to Egypt, Arabia, &c., A.D. 1503, in Galvano’s collection. Hakluyt, vol, iv., p. 162.
[84] Wars and Sports, p. 354.
[85] See Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth, p. 80. Wars and Sports, p. 335. With regard to the unicorn, Camper has remarked, that “if this animal was ruminant and cloven-footed, it is certain that its frontal bone must have been divided longitudinally into two, and that it could not possibly have had a horn placed upon the suture.” This remark by Camper, when we consider how nature adapts every thing to its purposes, cannot stand as a real objection to the existence of the oryx. The most eminent naturalists have been wrong in some of their conjectures. John Hunter pronounced the mastodon to be a carnivorous beast. Buffon, after frequently considering the bones of the mammoth, conceived them to belong to a beast six times larger than the biggest elephant; and Muller was of opinion that it must have been 105 feet in height, and 133 in length! So little capable is any human being to judge what nature does, or can do!