144 Mr, Rankiqg^ori the Ruins of Palenque, 



huans : they were of the noble house of Citin. They repre- 

 sented themselves as sons of a great lord, and that they had 

 been attracted by the reports they had heard of the hospitality 

 of the Chechemecan monarch. The king was pleased with 

 their manners, and gave bis two daughters in marriage to the 

 two eldest princes. 



The last thiat arrived were the Aztecs. The whole of the 

 above spoke the Toltec language. The Aztecs resided many 

 years at Culiacan and other places, but settled themselves, and 

 called their city Tenochtitlan, in 1324 : it was afterwards 

 named Mexico, and became an elective monarchy in 1377, 

 Montezuma died in 1520; he was the ninth king, and was de- 

 scended from the first monarch. Montezuma's ancestors had 

 arrived in ships under the command of a mighty lord, but 

 whether by design or accident was not manifest *. ^ ' 



Guatemala had been conquered by Ahuitzotl, the eighth 

 king of Mexico, who died in 1502. 



Regarding the ruins at Palenque, says Baron Humboldt, 

 "they are evidences of the taste of the Toltec and Aztec race 

 for the ornaments of architecture. We are absolutely ignorant 

 of their antiquity, but it is scarcely probable that it goes back 

 farther than the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries of our era." 

 — Researches^ ii. 158. 



* Speech of Montezuma to Cortez. See Peter Martyr in Hakluyt, vol. iv. 558 ; 

 Quarterly Journal of Science, January 1828, p. 359. Montezuma is an Asiatic name. 

 -The earliest writers, Peter Martyr, Purchas, Herera, Clavigero, (see Portrait, vol. i.), 

 and others, spell the name iVio/ezuma, and zin was added. Moti is a Chinese name, 

 (Du Halde, \^ol. i. p. 197, 203), and is also the name of the Emperor of the Kin, or 

 Nioutches, (D'Herbelot, Canon Chronologique, iv. 276), who are Mongols, (Abul 

 Ghazi, ii. 383.) Tscoum means venerable, (D'Herbelot, iv. p. 349, lines 8 and 

 23 ;) zin means ^reaf in the Mogul language,' (Abul Ghazi Bahader, part iii. ch. 

 iv.) Thus the name is consistent with the dignity of this famous monarch, who told 

 Cortez that his armour, jewels, &c., were those which he had preserved from his 

 forefathers, as the usage of kings is.— (Conquest by the Mongols, p. 325.) 



Regarding the Emperor telling Cortez, that the Children of the Sun' expected 

 bearded men from the Rising Sun, (a) or east ; it could not mean Europe, as the 

 Americans did not suspect the earth being spherical ; and Japan is named Nipon, 

 and in Chinese Sipon, both of which mean basis or foundation of the sun. 



(a) Cabrera, page 60, This is the most important and principal mistake which 

 has led this author, and many others, into their Carthaginian hypothesis. But Cortez, 

 in his letter to the King of Spain, says; — " I replied to all he had said in the way most 

 suitable to myself, by making him believe your majesty to be the chief whom they have 

 so long expected."— p. 62. 



