64 ABOEIGINAL WRITING IN MEXICO, ETC. 



Another Maya manuscript is preserved in the National Library at Paris. 

 It was erroneously designated as Codex Mexicanus No. 2; but INI. Leon de Rosny 

 found it to be of Maya origin, and named it Codex Percsianus, having discovered 

 the name " Perez " wi-itten on a piece of the envelope containing the manuscript. 

 It has been published by that gentleman in a work which I have never seen 

 ("Archives Paleographiques de I'Orient et de I'Amerique").* 



The Codex Troano is the third important manuscript deserving mention in 

 this place. It was called after the owner, Don Juan de Tro y Ortolano, a de- 

 scendant of Cortes, and professor of paleography at Madrid. Brasseur saw it in 

 1866, while on a visit in the capital of Spain, and the possessor permitted him to 

 copy this valuable document, which was published in 1869-70 at Paris, under the 

 auspices of the Scientific Mexican Commission as "Manuscrit Troano. Etudes 

 sur le Systeme Graphique et la Langue des Mayas, par M. Brasseur de Bour- 

 bourg."f This codex resembles in appearance that preserved in the Dresden 

 Library, being many times folded so as to form a kind of volume. The designs, 

 however, executed in black, red, blue and brown on both sides of the paper, are 

 much ruder than in the Dresden manuscript, a circumstance which has induced 

 Brasseur to regard it as much older than it evidently is. 



It has been intimated that the Fejervary manuscript, to which allusion was 

 made, might be a Maya production. I must confess that the analogy does not 

 seem to me sufficiently marked for warranting such a supposition. 



Brasseur de Bourbourg was among the first to make use of Landa's key for 

 the purpose of decipherment, applying it to the Dresden Codex and the INIexi- 

 can Codex No. 2 (Codex Peresianus), which are written in the same characters. 

 "Notwithstanding the short time during which they were in our hands," he 

 observes, "we have found in them all the signs of the calendar reproduced by 

 Landa, and about a dozen phonetic signs. We have thus read a cei'tain num- 

 ber of words, such as ahpop, ahau, etc., which are common to most Central Amer- 

 ican languages. The difficulty we have thus far encountered in identifying the 

 other signs has led us to believe that they belong to an antiquated language, or 

 to dialects diffisring from the Maya or the Quiche. Yet, nevertheless, a more 

 attentive examination of the Dresden Codex may cause us to change again that 

 view."{ 



Brasseur's well-known attempt to decipher a portion of the Codex Troano 

 must be considered a total failure, and it is almost to be regretted that he ever 

 published his "Etudes," which undoubtedly have greatly injured his literary 

 reputation by lessening the confidence in his deductions in general. Indeed, it is 

 painful to follow the obvious delusions to which he abandons himself in his inter- 



* De Eosny ; Essai sur le Dechiffrement de I'Ecriture Hieratique de I'Amerique Centrale; Paris, 1876, p. 0. 



f Two volumes in folio. 



% De Landa: Relation etc., p. iv. 



