In closing the historical part of this memoir, it may not be uninteresting to allude to another countrymen of ours, Elihu Burritt, commonly called “The Learned Blacksmith,” who is at present engaged in making a pedestrian tour in various parts of Europe, and giving the result of his observations in the “Christian Citizen,” from which we make the following extract:—
I have just got out “An Olive Leaf, from the Housewives of America, to the Housewives of Great Britain and Ireland, or Recipes for making Various Articles of Food, of Indian Corn Meal,” containing all the recipes I received before leaving home from our kind female friends in different parts of the Union—heaven bless them! I have had 2,000 of these Olive Leaves struck off, and intended, in the first place, to send a copy to every newspaper in the realm. I shall have a thousand, all of which I shall put into the hands of those I meet on the road. I have resolved to make it a condition upon which only I consent to be any man’s guest, that his wife shall serve up a johnny-cake for breakfast, or an Indian pudding for dinner. I was invited yesterday to a tea party which comes off to-night, where about thirty persons are to be present. I accepted the invitation with the johnny-cake clause, which was readily agreed to by all parties. So to-night the virtues of corn meal will be tested by some of the best livers in Birmingham.
Mythology.—The Indians of Peru and the adjacent country, who existed before the empire of the Incas began, were at best but tamed animals, and often they were more brutish than the beasts of the field. They possessed no right of property, no fixed laws, no religion, nor government; neither did they plough, sow, or till the earth, nor did they understand the art of weaving cotton or wool; but dwelt together in small hordes as they happened to meet in caves or holes in the rocks and mountains, subsisting on grass, herbs and roots, wild fruits, and the flesh of man, with no other clothing than the leaves and bark of trees, and the skins of beasts. In short, they were altogether savage.
