52 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



bigot and the iconoclast are twin brothers ; liberty is foreign to them 

 both. 



Torquemada says that five cities alone contributed no fewer than 

 sixteen thousand bundles of manuscript. Nevertheless, Landa and 

 Zumarraga did not burn all the native books, and even of those that 

 were burned the retentive aboriginal memory preserved the chief con- 

 tents, which, in later days were set down, no longer in the hieroglyphics 

 of Mexico and Central America, but in European letters, isometimes in 

 Spanish, but as oiten in the original tongues. To enumerate the Mexican 

 and Maya manuscripts that escaped the fire and are now in public or pri- 

 vate libraries in Europe and in Mexico, Avould be at once a difficult and a 

 thankless task, inasmuch as scholars are still undecided as to their inter- 

 pretation. In his magnificent work on Mexico, Lord Kingsborough era- 

 bodied all the Aztec manuscripts available in his time. The best known 

 Maya codices are those of Dresden, of Paris, called Peresianus, and of 

 Madrid, called Troano. The intelligible pi-e-Coiiimbiun literature survives 

 in the works of natives who made use of ancient materials after the con- 

 quest. The quantity of the historical and descriptive material alone may 

 be judged from the fact that the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, in his 

 History of the Civilized Nations of Mexico and Central America, occupies 

 not far from 2, TOO largn octavo pages in setting it forth. It is true that 

 the enthusiastic Abbé was inclined to be discursive, even garrulous, but 

 he had his authorities well in hand and used them freely. 



More than fifty manuscinpts written in European characters, but in 

 the Mexican, Aztec, or Nahuatl Language, are known to exist, but very 

 few of them have been published. One of the most important of these is 

 The Mexican Chronicle of Chimalpain, or more fully, of Don Domingo de 

 San Anton MuSon Chimalpain. It is yet unedited. The chief native 

 histories of Mexico are written in excellent Spanish and in admirable 

 historical style by Ixtlilxochit' and Tezozomoc, who flourished about the 

 year lutlO but refer to ancient authorities who wrote prior to the Conquest. 

 Don Fernando dc Alva Lxtlilxochitl was a descendant of the royal line of 

 Tezcuco, one of the Mexican kingdoms. Proud of his parentage, he 

 industriously sought out the antiquities of his people, and, in m old 

 documents, compiled at least five extensive historical works, two of which, 

 Mdaciojies Mistoricas and HUtoria Chichimeca, are to be found in Lord 

 Kingsborough's collections. Fernando de Aivarado Tezozomoc, another 

 descendant of the Aztecs of old, wrote a Cronica Mexicana, which is 

 highly thought of, although he does not seem to have taken the care in 

 verifying his statements of fact that characterizes the work of lxtlilxo- 

 chitl. Similar service was rendered to the history of Peru by Garcilasso 

 dc la Vega, whose mother was the granddaughter of the Inca Tupac 

 Yupanqui, the third removed from the unfortunate Atahuallpa whom 

 Pizarro put to death. His Eoyal Commentaries written in 1575, are 



