Cli. XX ] ASIATIC ORIGIN. 373 



the Nahuatls, who, from the ease with which they em- 

 braced the religion of the Spaniards, are shown to have 

 been open to receive foreign ideas. 



The three arguments on which Ilumboldt principally 

 relied to prove that a communication had existed between 

 the east of Asia and the Mexicans may be explained 

 without adopting this theory that the Nahuatls had 

 travelled round from the old world. The remarkable 

 resemblance of the Mexican and Thibeto- Japanese 

 calendars might result from the accidental stranding of 

 a Japanese or Chinese vessel on their shores, bringing to 

 them some man learned in the astronomy of the old 

 world. The correct orientation of the sides of their 

 pyramidal temples was but the result of their great 

 astronomical knowledge and of the worship of the sun. 

 And the resemblance of their traditions of four epochs of 

 destruction and of the dispersion of mankind after a great 

 flood of waters, arose from the fact that the great catas- 

 trophes that befel the human race at the melting of the 

 ice of the glacial period were universal over the world. 



