io 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by Quetzatcoatl, whatever part of Europe he may have belonged 

 to. The probability of St. Brendan designing such a voyage is 

 supported alike by the renown of the saint as a " navigator/' and 

 by the known maritime enterprises and enthusiastic missionary 

 spirit of the Irish of his time ; the supposition that he succeeded 

 in his design is countenanced by the ample preparations he is said 

 to have made for the voyage. 



There is a disagreement between the Mexican tradition and the 

 Irish narrative in respect to the stay of the white man in Mexico. 

 Quetzatcoatl is said to have remained twenty years in the coun- 

 try, but only seven years seven Easters are assigned to the ab- 

 sence of St. Brendan from his monastery. Either period would 

 probably suffice for laying the foundations of the Christianity the 

 remnants of which the Spaniards found in the beginning of the 

 sixteenth century. On this point the Irish record is more likely to 

 be correct. The Mexican tradition was already very ancient when 

 the Spaniards became acquainted with it as ancient as the sway 

 of the vanquished Toltecs. For centuries it had been handed 

 down from generation to generation, and not always through gen- 

 erations of the same people. It is, therefore, conceivable that it 

 may have undergone variations in some minor particulars, and 

 that a stay of seven years became exaggerated into one of twenty. 

 The discrepancy is not a serious one, and is in no sense a touch- 

 stone of the soundness of the theory that Quetzatcoatl and St. 

 Brendan may have been one and the same person. 



A curious feature of the Mexican tradition is its apparently 

 needless insistency upon the point that Quetzatcoatl sailed away 

 from Mexico in a vessel of serpents' skins. There seems no spe- 

 cial reason for attributing this extraordinary mode of navigation 

 to him. If the design were to enhance his supernatural attributes, 

 some more strikingly miraculous mode of exit could easily have 

 been invented. The first impulse, accordingly, is to reject this 

 part of the tradition as hopelessly inexplicable as possibly alle- 

 gorical in some obscure way, or as originating in a misnomer, or 

 in the mistranslation of an ancient term. But further considera- 

 tion suggests the possibility of there being more truth in the "ser- 

 pents' skins " than appears at first sight. In the absence of large 

 quadrupeds in their country the ancient Mexicans made use of 

 serpents' skins as a substitute for hides. The great drums on the 

 top of their temple-crowned pyramids were, Cortes states, made 

 of the skins of a large species of serpent, and when beaten for 

 alarm could be heard for miles around. It may, therefore, be that 

 Quetzatcoatl, in preparing for his return voyage across the At- 

 lantic, made use of this material to cover the hull of his vessel 

 and render it water-tight. The Mexicans were not boat-builders, 

 and were unacquainted with the use of tar or pitch, employing 



