PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS,
NO. 82 CLIFF-STREET,

AND SOLD BY THE PRINCIPAL BOOKSELLERS THROUGHOUT THE

UNITED STATES.

1835.

[Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1835, by HARPER & BROTHERS,

in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.]

collecte 10-29-40

41854

LETTERS FROM THE SOUTH.

LETTER I.

DEAR FRANK,

;

In order to lay a solid foundation for my travels, I ought first to tell how this new world was made and, secondly, how it was peopled; since, if it had never been made or peopled, it would not be worth writing about. There are two ways of making a world, lately invented by the geologists-one by fire, the other by water. I mention these to show you it is no difficult matter; and you may take your choice of either, as people choose whether they will have their mutton roasted or boiled.

But, though it was easy enough for the philosophers to tell how America was made, the peopling of it was not quite so trifling a job, and cost them more labour than all the rest of the earth put together. The old world, it seems, was hugely surprised, at finding this thumping bantling, as it were, thus laid at its door; and the philosophers, like faithful parish officers, set to work to ferret out the father. In this pilgrimage, they fared pretty much like the lad in the French novel, who, in a

similar pious research, discovered no less than thirty-six fathers, one after the other.

The honest aboriginals of America, not being philosophers, did not much care to what country their ancestors appertained; but the learned were good enough to oblige them, by enlightening their comprehension in this particular. For this purpose each one set out on a different track, and, what is very remarkable, each found what he was looking for, in his own opinion; although, to say the truth, some of them, assuredly, were not governed by a family likeness. One found out they were descended from Joktan, the son of Eber, son to— the Lord knows who; a second, from the Spaniards, who fled on the first invasion of Spain by the Moors; a third, from the Atlantides; a fourth, from the Scandinavians; a fifth, from the Hunns; a sixth, from the Canaanites; a seventh, from the Japanese; an eighth, from the Romans; a ninth, from the Gauls; a tenth, from the Friezlanders; an eleventh, from the Celts; a twelfth, from the Egyptians; a thirteenth, from the Phoenicians; a fifteenth-I beg pardon--a fourteenth, from the Chinese; a fifteenth, from the Norwegians; a sixteenth, from the Ethiopians; and a seventeenth, from the Anthropophagi! Here is an ancestor for every state in the union, which is enough, in all conscience, to content a reasonable man. But there are at least twenty more papas putting in for little America, which shows how anxious every body was to claim this noble offspring. Each of these supported his theory with

a pertinacity proportioned to its enormity; and, perhaps, there never was such a mass of absurdity as has been generated by this subject, useless in itself, and now beyond the reach of human research to determine.

It was to be hoped that the subject had been laid at rest in the learned lumber of the times, never to be revived. But a philosopher of our own country, whose name may be found in all the newspapers, has lately revived it; and did, what was thought utterly impossible--produced new absurdities. The flat-nosed Tartars, and Samoiedes, and all the nonsense of old Thomas Brerewood, are again conjured up, to play at foot-ball with, and tickle our learned societies. Since, however, the subject has been thus raised from the dead, I see no reason why I may not advance my theory, which, I have little doubt, will overturn and utterly demolish all others, if it ever fairly comes before the world. I have actually discovered, by the infallible aid of analogy, that America is the oldest quarter of the world, and the true hive from whence the earth was peopled after the deluge. "First recover that-and then

thou shalt hear further."

America is the largest quarter of the globe, and must therefore be the eldest born; for, taking the analogy of all nature, the largest must be the oldest, because it has had the longest time to grow; and this analogy is peculiarly applicable to the earth, which, according to the geologists, is growing lustily every day. Another proof of the superior antiquity VOL. I-A 2