We have thus seen that the Ten Tribes, namely, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Dan, Naphtali, Simeon, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, and Manasseh, were successively car ried into Assyria and Media, nor does it appear that they ever returned, although it has been asserted by some modern Jews and Christian Fathers. The Twelve Tribes are often mentioned in the New Testament as if they were all collected together, and the Epistle of St James is directed to them; but although it is well known that their descendants are still in existence, it by no means follows that they had previously returned to their own country. Probably the whole Jewish nation received the appellation of the Twelve Tribes according to the ancient division, in the same manner as we find the Apostles still called the Twelve after the death of Judas, and before the admission of Matthias into the Apostolical College. We also know that many of the Jews of the Ten Tribes, whose ancestors had escaped the general captivity, were either mixed with the Tribes of Judah and Benjamin, or dispersed throughout the world, particularly in Egypt, Arabia, and Asia Minor, and this circumstance justified the recognition of them

as an integral part of the Jewish nation. Josephus quotes an author who affirms that the Persians carried several thousands of Jews to Babylon, and it is therefore natural to conclude that a considerable number returned with the Tribes of Judah and Benjamin, when they were set at liberty by Cyrus.

The question as to the descendants of the Ten Tribes, and their actual locality at the present time, has often been discussed by the learned. There can be little doubt that numbers of them inhabit the neighbourhood of Hamadan, formerly Ecbatana, the ancient capital of Media. The districts to which they were carried are mentioned by the inspired historian, 2 Kings xvii. 6, and the names have been satisfactorily traced by Major Rennell in the remote district of Media towards the Caspian Sea, and the province of Ghilan, or rather in the neighbourhood of the river Kizil-Ozan (Gozan), which now forms the limit of the two most northern provinces of Persia, Azerhijan and Ghilan. We shall subsequently find the author of the Second Book of Esdras affirming that they adopted the resolution of emigrating into a hitherto uninhabited country-that the Euphrates was

miraculously divided for their passageand that, after wandering or journeying in a body for about one year and a half, they settled in a country the precise situation of which is altogether unknown. Adopting this view, Benjamin of Tudela assigns them a large and spacious territory, with fine cities and a dense population, but he does not attempt its geographical position. Eldad, a Jew of the thirteenth century, places them in Ethiopia, and gives them the sovereignty of the Saracens and twenty-five kingdoms. Another Jewish writer of the sixteenth century locates them in a country in closed by lofty mountains, and bounded by Assyria; he likewise places some of them in the deserts of Arabia, and some in the East Indies. Manasseh, a Rabbi of the seventeenth century, asserts that they passed into Tartary and expelled the Scythians, and others have conveyed them from Tartary to America.

It is easy to perceive that these accounts are visionary conjectures, originating in the vanity of the modern Jewish writers to aggrandize their own nation. Other authorities of greater importance, among whom we find Sir William Jones, argue that the Afghans are the descendants of the Ten Tribes. The Afghans are Mahometans, who inhabit the northern parts of India, and some of whom are spread over the whole of India, but in a more restricted sense the possessors of a tract of country which stretches from the mountains of Tartary to certain parts of the Gulf of Cambay and Persia, and from the Indies to the confines of Persia. They call themselves the posterity of Melic Talut, otherwise King Saul. They allege that in a war which raged between the Israelites and the Amalekites the latter were victorious, and besides plundering the Jews, obtained possession of the ark of the covenant. Imagining this ark to be the God of the Israelites, the Amalekites threw it into the fire, but it would not burn, and having tried other methods to destroy it without success, they placed it in their temple, and all the idols renlored homage. The ark was at length

fastened on a cow, which was permitted to wander unrestrained in the Wilderness. They applied to the Prophet Samuel for a king after their defeat by the Amalekites, and the angel Gabriel descended, and delivered a wand, with instructions that the person whose stature corresponded to that wand should be king of Israel. Melic Talut was then a herdsmen of inferior condition; he had lost a cow, and had applied to Samuel for assistance to recover it. When the Prophet perceived his lofty stature he asked his name, to which he answered, Talut. Samuel measured him by the wand, and announced to the Israelites that God had selected Talut to be their king. They inquired how they would know that he was to be their king, and Samuel informed them that they would know it by the restoration of the ark. The ark was restored, and Talut acknowledged king. After Talut obtained the sovereignty he invaded the territory of Jalut, otherwise Goliath, who resisted him with a large army, but was killed by David. Talut afterwards died in the war against the infidels, and David was constituted king of the Jews. The fallen monarch left two sons, Berkia and Irmia, who served and were beloved by David. The son of Berkia was Afghan, and the son of Irmia was Usbec. Afghan made frequent excursions to the mountains, where his posterity established themselves, built forts, and exterminated the infidels.—The preceding traditionary particulars were extracted from a Persian abridgment of a work called the Secrets of the Afghans, written in the Pushtoo language, and communicated to Sir William Jones by Henry Vansittart, Esq. Their claim to a descent from Saul resembles some of the Mahometan fictions borrowed from the Jewish Rabbins, but Sir William Jones inclines to the opinion that they are the descendants of Israel. "We learn," he says, "from Esdras that the Ten Tribes, after a wandering journey, came to a country called Arsaxeth, where we may suppose they settled. Now, the Afghans are said by the best Persian historians to be descended from the Jews;

they have among themselves traditions of such a descent; and it is even asserted that their families are distinguished by the names of Jewish tribes, although, since their conversion to the Islam, they studiously conceal their origin; the Pushtoo language, of which I have seen a dictionary, has a manifest resemblance to the Chaldaic, and a considerable district under their dominion is called Hazàreh, or Hazàret, which might easily have been changed into the word used by Esdras. I recommend an inquiry into the literature and history of the Afghans."

Dr Claudius Buchanan also strongly argues that the posterity of the Jews remain in India. During his residence in the East, he heard of the existence of colonies of Jews in various districts, some of whom had arrived long before the Christian era, and had remained a distinct people among the Hindoos, persecuted by the native princes but not destroyed. He tells us that the Jews are divided into two classes-the Jerusalem or White Jews, and the Ancient or Black Jews, the former of whom, after the destruction of the second Temple, departed from Jerusalem dreading the conqueror's wrath-a numerous body of Priests, and Levites, men and women, and came into India. The latter are the descendants of those Jews who arrived before the Christian era. According to Dr Buchanan, the appearance of the Black Jews sufficiently demonstrates that they must have arrived in India some ages before the White Jews, who look upon their Black brethren as an inferior race-a circumstance which proves that they have not latterly sprung from a common stock in Judea. He says that their Hindoo complexions, and their very imperfect resemblance to the European Jews, indicate that they must have been detached from the parent stock in Judea ages before the Jews in the West, and that there have been intermarriages with families not of the race of Israel. Those Black Jews gave Dr Buchanan important information respecting some of their small colonies in Northern India,

VOL. II.

Tartary, and China; but when he inquired concerning the Ten Tribes, he was informed that it was commonly believed among them that the great body of the descendants of these Tribes stil! inhabit Chaldea and the adjacent countries-being the same districts into which they were carried captive by Shalmanezer; that a few families had migrated into more remote regions, such as Cochin and Rajapore in India, and to other places farther to the east; but that the bulk of the nation, though reduced in numbers, had not removed at the present time two thousand miles from Samaria. When Dr Buchanan was amongst the Jews of Malabar he made repeated inquiries respecting the Ten Tribes. He informed them that it was the opinion of some that they had migrated from the Chaldean provinces; but he was asked in reply to what country those persons supposed they had gone, and whether it was ever known of their moving in a great army in such an expedition. In confirmation of the opinions of the Black Jews and the Jews of Malabar we have the testimony of Josephus, that in his own time the Ten Tribes were still captive under the Persian princes, and he recites a speech made by King Agrippa to the Jews, exhorting them to submit to the Romans. St Jerome, treating of the despised Jews in his notes on the Prophecy of Hosea, says that unto this day (the fifth century) the Ten Tribes are subject to the kings of Persia, nor has their captivity been loosed; and in another place he asserts that the Ten Tribes inhabit at this day the cities and mountains of the Medes. It is well known that no Jewish family dares to leave Persia without permission from the king. A late traveller was so impressed with the general appearance, dress, and manners of the inhabitants of Cashmire, as to think, without any previous knowledge of the fact, that he had been suddenly transported among a nation of Jews; and he concludes by giving it as his decided opinion that the greater part of the Ten Tribes, as they now exist, are to be found in the countries of their first captivity.

E

The opinion that the Ten Tribes were conveyed from Tartary into America has been revived in a work published in 1836, entitled, "The Ten Tribes of Israel historically identified with the Aborigines of the Western Hemisphere, by Mrs Simon." The authoress of this very ingenious work says that the Mexicans in particular are the undoubted descendants of the longlost Tribes, and maintains her theory with great ability, on the authority of various historians, whose names denote that they were of Hebrew descent, although all of them were Christians, and most of them ecclesiastics of the Roman communion. "Those early Spanish writers," says Mrs Simon, "unanimously recognised and acknowledged the manifold analogies which demonstrate the transference of the Levitical economy to the New Continent; but while some of them discerned in this circumstance an indisputable proof of the Hebrew origin of the newly-discovered people,' others accounted for this facsimile resemblance by asserting that Satan had counterfeited in this people-whom he had chosen for himself the history, manners, customs, traditions, and expectations of the Hebrews, in order that their minds might thus be rendered inaccessible to the faith which he foresaw the Church would in due time introduce amongst them. The historians who ranked themselves as the advocates of the former of these alternatives were Las Casas, Sahagun, Gumilla, Benaventa, and Martyr. Those who maintained the latter hypothesis were Torquemeda, Herrera, Gomara, D'Acosta, Cortez, D'Olmes, and Dias."

It is curious to observe the opinions of these authorities, which are all identified with the great question of the peopling of America, and prove the fact that the New World received its population by an Asiatic migration. Bartholomew Las Casas was a Dominican Spaniard, and bishop of Chiapa. His work on New Spain was never published; but it is ascertained that he was so much struck with the appearance of the Mexicans and other Indian tribes, whom he took to be real

Hebrews, that he exclaimed, Loquela tua manifestum te fecit, "Thy speech betrays thee;" and we are assured by an author that "Las Casas even goes so far as to say that the language of the Island of St Domingo was corrupt Hebrew." The reader will observe that it is not our intention to discuss the theoretic vagaries and speculations of the Spanish ecclesiastics here mentioned, some of which are as fanciful as the Rabbinical traditions or the fictions of Mahomet; our object is simply to quote their opinions, and place them in contrast with the facts previously and subsequently stated. Bernard de Sahagun, a Franciscan Spaniard, who resided sixty years among the Indians, and composed a Universal Dictionary of the Mexican language in twelve volumes, says that he found it to be a generally received tradition among the nations, confirmed by the testimony of their historical paintings, that a colony had arrived long before the Christian era on the coast of America, from a region situated to the north-east called Chicomoztoc, first touching on the shores of Florida; and it certainly is remarkable that Montezma, in his speech to the celebrated Cortez, expressly declared that his ancestors were from the East. Garcia, in his treatise on the Origin of the Indians, says in the introduction to the Third Book, "Many have supposed, and the Spaniards generally who reside in the Indies believe, that the Indians proceed from the Ten Tribes who were lost in the time of Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, of whom Rabbi Schimon Sugati, who is named Sincha by Bartolocia, says, nothing is certain, nor is it known where they dwell. This opinion is grounded on the disposition, nature, and customs of the Indians, which they found were very similar to those of the Hebrews; and although some learned men are disinclined to assent to such a belief, I, nevertheless, have bestowed great diligence upon the verification of this truth."

The Jews themselves have entertained a strong belief that America was colonized by the Ten Tribes, but this opinion

is entitled to no more credit than their traditions, and must be held as resulting from a vain desire to magnify their nation. They ground their opinion on what is said in certain chapters of the Old Testament of the people of the Isles, to which Isles an Hebrew appellative word signifying the west has been given, showing that it could not, have been Ceylon or the Isles of the Indian Archipelago; but more especially on the passages of the Apocryphal Book of Esdras already alluded to, which are as follows:-" And whereas thou sawest that he gathered another peaceable multitude unto him, those are the Ten Tribes which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Osea (Hoshea) the king, whom Salmanasar, the king of Assyria, led away captive, and he carried them over the waters, and so came they into another land. But they took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen and go forth into a farther country where never mankind dwelt, that they might there keep those statutes which they never kept in their own land. And they entered into Euphrates by the narrow passages of the river; for the Most High then showed signs for them, and held still the flood till they passed over. For through that country there was a great way to go, namely, of a year and a half, and the same region is called Arsareth (or Ararath). Then dwelt they there until the latter time; and now when they shall begin to come, the Highest shall stay the springs of the stream again, that they may go through; therefore sawest thou the multitude with peace,” 2 Esd. xiii. 39–47. This singu lar passage, on which it is unnecessary to comment, is alleged to be explanatory of the many analogies in the laws, rites, and customs of the Indians. These analogies are thus enumerated, as conclusively proving that the Aborigines of South America are of Hebrew origin, and the descendants of the Ten Tribes:-1. Their belief in the symbolical purification of water: the inhabitants of Utican gave to water, with which they baptized their

10. The traces

children, the title of the water of regeneration; they also invoked Him whom they believed to be the living and true God, of whom they made no graven image. 2. They used circumcision. 3. They expected a Messiah. 4. Many words connected with the celebration of their religious rites were obviously of Hebrew extraction. 5. The resemblance which many of the ceremonies and rites of the Indians bear to the Jews. 6. The similitude which existed between the Indian and Hebrew moral laws. 7. The knowledge which the Mexican and Peruvian traditions supplied that the Indians possessed the history contained in the Pentateuch. 8. The Mexican tradition of the Teo-moxtli, or Divine Book of the Toltics. 9. The famous migration from Aztlan, otherwise Asia. of Jewish history, traditions, laws, customs, and manners, which are found in the Mexican paintings. 11. The frequency of sacrifice among the Indians, and the religious consecration of the blood and fat of the victims. 12. The style of the architecture of their temples. 13. The fringes which the Mexicans wore fastened to their garments. 14. A similarity of the manners and customs of the Indian tribes far removed from the central monarchies of Mexico and Peru to those of the Jews, which writers who were not Spaniards have noticed, such as the celebrated Sir William Penn, who, in his Letter on the "Present State of America," thus observes, "Their eyes are black like Jews-they reckon by moons--they offer the first fruits-they have a feast of Tabernacles-their altar stands on twelve stones-their mourning lasts a whole year. The customs of women are like those of the Jews—their language is concise, masculine, full of energy, resembling the Hebrew; one word serves for three, and the rest is supplied by the understanding of the hearers. They were to go into a country which was neither planted nor sown; and He who imposed such a condition was well able to level their passage thither, for we may go from the eastern extremity of it to the west of America."