The Ocean-Titan of the Silver Crown,-Teneriffe,gradually falling beneath the horizon of the East, would suggest to the "wise men" of the Galleys, to note his bearing with the Stars of Night,-that the astral chart might guide them for a return voyage, should their expedition be prolonged beyond their means of sustenance: for amid all the desolation, misery, and ruin of their country, in which the savage Conqueror revelled during his slaughter-banquet, although he triumphed over the dead, he could not destroy the visionary minds of the living—their knowledge of Astronomy made each rescued Tyrian a Prophet of the deep! GOD's handwriting on the wall of Heaven (where the dazzling Stars are His letters) was read correctly by these Ocean-Daniels of Tyrus. That nation was indeed like ancient Babylon, numbered and finished; weighed in the balances and found wanting, and the kingdom divided and given to the Conqueror; for her fate was sealed, and by the Macedonian Signet, whose owner solved the Gordian problem by the Sword alone!

แ

66 MENE MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN"

appeared not only to the chief Son of Babylon;-the 'Daughter of Sidon" had it branded on her brow; and in vain she wandered through her streets, striking with trembling fingers the loosened chords of her once-loved harp, to remind the passer-by of her former beauties; the diapason of her heart could never more awake an echo, for GOD had spoken to the Sea Queen-"I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of

thy harps shall be no more heard !"-but, the Chaldean language of the Skies was not learnt by her Daniels in vain: it had taught them in a former age, to guide their bold prows from Pharaoh's fatal Sea; and coasting around all Afric's burning land, enabled them to pass the Herculean boundary Pillars, and so homeward to the Nile and Tyrus, which after two score Moons received them and now, when the remorseless Conqueror-not Science-drove their descendants forth upon "great waters" where "the East-Wind could have broken them in the midst of the Seas,"—that constant gale from the Orient point, created with Time, and will only cease with his decay,—that earth-circling and never-varying gale from East to West,-as if to COMPEL Discovery of the other Hemisphere, and thence praise the works of GOD!-that onward breeze, which alone wafted the bold Genoese and turned the reported vision to reality;-when the Tyrian Sons were again upon these Seas, but now before that Orient gale;-still the star-tracery on the azure wall of the eternal Dome, and their Apollo daily sinking on his Western couch, and with his last glance, beckoning them, as it were, still to follow on his path,-this knowledge and their Religious adoration, directed them in safety to that Virgin land where the glorious Sun from Creation's dawn, had never beamed upon a human foot-print, until their own had kissed the untouched Floridian Shore! There Flora and her attendant Nymphs in all their peerless beauty, and Nature's own attire, were grouped on every hill; from their coloured lips smiling

Welcome breathed forth her ceaseless incense from every mound and valley, which waft on Zephyr's wings enrapt with health and gladness the approaching Sons and Daughters of a distant Sea, whose wild songs of praise to gorgeous Apollo were borne by their Orient and faithful envoy to the wave-clad Shore:-Echo caught the subduing chorus of the heart, and bore it to her favourite haunts in mountain or in cave,-the human voice now first heard, aroused the reposing animals from glade and glen;-the feathery tribes in all their rainbow tinted plumage, arose high in air,played their circles, and rested-music breathing—on "the fruit tree-tops," as in the Day of Innocence, to receive their names from the Adams and the Eves, of a new-found Eden in another Hemisphere !

There arrived in joyous gladness, and welcomed by all the gifts of Nature,-like an heir to sudden fortune uncertain where to rest, the Tyrian left the Shore of Florida and coasted the Gulf of Mexico, and so around the peninsular of Yucatan and into the Bay of Honduras; they thence ascended a River of shelter and safety, and above the rapids of which they selected the site of their first City,-now occupied by the Ruins, Altars, Idols, and Walls of Copan!

After their first sacrifice to Apollo, they would naturally erect a Chief Altar, around which the Tyrian Pilgrims who had come from "afar off to sojourn," might gather in remembrance of the vital act from Sidonian friendship.

As we firmly believe, so we repeat that belief,-that

the sculpture of the Chief Altar of Copan (as seen at this day) portrays, from the hands of National Gratitude, a Religious tribute to Sidon, who, amid the desolating hurricane, had safely gathered the human "gleanings" from the last field of their ill-fated country; who had lifted up her prostrate "Daughter," and given her renewed strength and power, whereby―

"Her own feet could carry her afar off to Sojourn."

Another Altar (sacred to Apollo) would be erected to that Heavenly Science, the knowledge of which had aided them over their watery track in safety and to freedom. Their children would fail not to cherish the altar-fire of Astronomy; the flame of which has, to the human eye, not only illuminated the Earth, but unfolded the Mechanism of the Heavens! It became the ever-burning lantern to their feet, until they could trace in Sculpture the annual glory of that refulgent Orb, which, in their Father-land, had been for a century of ages, the divine emblem of their Religion and their God! *

In preserving the secret of their discovery (their ancient precept) there was one incident only to be dreaded, and that was the possibility, at a future day, of a portion of the colony becoming disaffected, and thereupon resolving to return to the Fortunate Isles, and so betray them. There was but one way to prevent this, and that was, by the destruction of their Galleys, and

Sculpture found in buried Ruins at Mexico; i. e. the Calendar mentioned by Baron Humboldt.

added to this, the passing of a law, that no others should be built, and for the same reason. If this did take place (as we believe it did) the cause is instantly apparent, why their new-found Continent was for so many centuries unknown to Asiatics or Europeans; and it should be remembered, that the East-Wind, which, like a friend, had wafted them to that Continent, would oppose, as an enemy, any return from whence they

came.

Another cause may have led them to destroy their vessels, viz., a Religious offering to Apollo,-and consequently fire would be the instrument of sacrifice. It would be their first thought, upon a final landing, to present to their deity the most precious offering in their possession; and what had they so inestimable in value as the very means whereby their lives had been rescued ?—and having made that sacrifice to Apollo, fanatical zeal may have led them to abhor the future use of means, which, as a grateful offering, had been given to their deity. Thence may be traced the gradual loss of Nautical practice, on an enlarged scale; and the great Continent now possessed by them, would also diminish by degrees the uses of Navigation.

The destruction of a fleet to prevent the return of followers, was actually practised by Cortez, the conqueror of the descendants of these Tyrians, and in the Gulf of Mexico. He may have received from tradition in the country, that such an act had been accomplished by their Aboriginal ancestors: and when he repeated the device, and for a similar purpose, he would, for the