Note I-108 — Chapter I · ON THE ORIGIN OF THE AMERICANS.

This relation, says Ranking, 'has naturally enough been considered by Robertson and others as a ridiculous fable; and any reader would be inclined to treat it as such, were it not accounted for by the invasion of Japan, and the very numerous and convincing proofs of the identity of the Mongols and the Incas.' Hist. Researches, p. 55. He thinks that the giants were the Mongolian invaders, mounted upon the elephants which they brought with them. 'The elephants,' he says, 'would, no doubt, be defended by their usual armor on such an extraordinary occasion, and the space for the eyes would appear monstrous. The remark about the beards, &c., shows that the man and the elephant were considered as one person. It is a new and curious folio edition of the Centaurs and Lapithæ; and we cannot wonder that, on such a novel occasion, Cape St. Helen's did not produce an American Theseus.' Id., pp. 53-4.