"It is strange but true, that, throughout the earth, the place of departed souls, the land of spirits, was supposed to be in the West, or at the setting sun. This happens everywhere, and in the most opposite religions, from China to Lybia, and also from Alaska to Chili in America. The instances of an eastern paradise were few, and referred to the eastern celestial abode of yore, rather than the future abode of souls. The Ashinists, or Essenians, the best sect of Jews, placed Paradise in the Western Ocean; and the Id. Alishe, or Elisha of the Prophets, the happy land. Jezkal (our Ezekiel) mentions that island; the Phoenicians called it Alizut, and some deem Madeira was meant, but it had neither men nor spirits! From this the Greeks made their Elysium and Tartarus placed near together, at first in Epirus, then Italy, next Spain, lastly in the ocean, as the settlers travelled west. The sacred and blessed islands of the Hindus and Lybians were in this ocean; Wilford thought they meant the British Islands. Pushcara, the farthest off, he says, was Iceland, but may have meant North America. "The Lybians called their blessed islands 'Aimones;' they were the Canaries, it is said, but likely the Atlantides, since the Atlantes dwelt in the Aimones," &c. And farther he says, the Gauls had their Cocagne, the Saxons their Cockaign, Cocana of the Lusitanians,-- "A land of delight and plenty, _which is proverbial to this day_! By the Celts it was called 'Dunna feadhuigh,' a fairy land, &c. But all these notions have earlier foundations, since the English Druids put their paradise in a remote island in the west, called {344} 'Flath-Innis,' the flat island", &c.--_American Nations_, vol. ii. p. 245. _et infra_. The coincidence then is this. The same veneration for the West prevails among many of our Indian tribes, who place their Paradise in an island beyond the Great Lake (Pacific), and far toward the setting sun. There, good Indians enjoy a fine country abounding in game, are always clad in new skins, and live in warm new lodges. Thither they are wafted by prosperous gales; but the bad Indians are driven back by adverse storms, wrecked on the coast, where the remains of their canoes are to be seen covering the strand in all directions. I cannot refrain from adding here another coincidence connected with futurity. The above idea of sailing to the Indian Paradise, though prevalent, is not general; for instance, the Minnetarees and Mandans believed that to reach Paradise the souls of the departed had to pass over an extremely narrow bridge, which was done safely by the good Indians, but the bad ones slipped off and were buried in oblivion. (See Long's _Expedition to the Rocky Mountains_, vol. i. p. 259.)