The order, system, and policy of their morals; the arrangement of public records; their duties; the worship of the sun, the moon, the planets, and natural elements, distinctly and strictly forbidden in Hebrew laws, because such practices had existed before the Exodus, and, therefore, were objected to in the reformed code.
Indeed, the resemblance in the manners and customs of the Peruvians, before the Spanish conquests, to those of oriental nations of the most remote antiquity, has been frequently referred to by historians best acquainted with the peculiarities of each.
The revolutions of the civilized nations of ancient Asia are repeatedly referred to in biblical history to instruct the people in the causes which led to proposed reformations in their moral laws.
To obtain relief from oppressive superstitions, famine, diseases, and wars, or to find means fully to express the wonderful movements of mental action, ancient revolutions may have driven numerous colonies, in long forgotten ages, to seek refuge in most distant lands as now.
That such emigrations were made by land occasionally, a curious proof exists in the interior of China. A town is inhabited by descendants of people from the neighborhood of the Mediterranean, bearing manuscripts of Hebrew laws, written upon rolls of skins or parchment, in the peculiar characters of that people, and still remain as evidence of their original descent, although the present inhabitants have become so assimilated with the Chinese, that no one among them can read or comprehend the language of those ancient commandments.
If the modern knowledge of the winds and currents of the ocean permit, the writer will attempt to show, that sea-going vessels, well managed by Phœnicians, Tyrians, or Carthaginians, equal, at least, to those in which Columbus made his discoveries, were perfectly competent to traverse the Indian and South Pacific oceans, and to have landed a civilized pair on the coast of Peru, sufficiently near Lake Titicaca to give permanent credit to their appearance from that direction, to instruct the gentle and tractable aborigines of those mountains, who, by the mild, intelligent, and persuasive character of the strangers, adapting their moderate government to the peculiarities in the dispositions of the natives, gradually acquired that prominence in the peaceful arts of life which put to shame the acts of later conquerors.
In comparing the skulls of the Incas family with those of the aboriginal Peruvians, engravings demonstrate the latter were deficient in intellectual character, while the Incas exhibit very distinct differences of conformation and of ability.
The oriental practice of travelling, by water or land, accompanied by wives, is notorious. It still appears a trait of character distinguishing eastern people, both in Asia and America.
Captain Gallownin, of the Russian sloop-of-war Diana, sent by his government in 1811 to make a survey of the Kurile group, and to attempt friendly relations with the Japanese, was induced to land with a weak party, and taken prisoners. The officers of the Diana, in retaliation, intercepted a Japanese vessel of the largest size. Fortunately, the captain of this vessel was a great ship-owner and merchant—a person of much influence and ability. He and his lady, the inseparable companion of his voyages, are described to have borne their misfortunes with wonderful composure, like old sailors.
We are taught by the winds and currents of the north Atlantic ocean, that had Christopher Columbus sailed on his voyage of discovery in a different month of the year, he never could have reached the New World. He would have perished amidst calms, of which he knew nothing.