LETTERS UNKNOWN IN AMERICA. 307 



wordes, but onely to note the thing : neyther do they call LlB - vr&amp;gt; 

 those characters, letters, or writings, as indeede they are 

 not, but rather ciphers or rernembraunces, as those be 

 which the Spherists or Astronomers do vse, to signifie 

 divers signes or planets of Mars, Venus, lupiter, etc. 



Such characters are ciphers, and no letters : for what 

 name soever Mars may have in Italian, French, or Spanish, 

 this character doth alwaies siguifie it, the which is not found 

 in letters : for, althogh they signify the thing, yet is it by 

 meanes of words. So, as they which know not the tongue, 

 vnderstand them not : as, for example, the Greekes nor the 

 Hebrews, cannot conceive what this word Sol doth signifio, 

 although they see it written ; for that they vnderstand not 

 the Latine word : so as writing and letters are onely prac 

 tised by them, which signifie words therewith. For if they 

 signifie things mediately, they are no more letters nor writ 

 ings, but ciphers and pictures : whereby wo may observe 

 two notable things. The one, that the memory of histories 

 and antiquities may bee preserved by one of these three 

 meanes, either by letters and writings, as hath beene vsed 

 amongst the Latines, Greekes, Hebrews, and many other 

 Nations; or by painting, as hath beeno vsed almost through 

 out all the world, for it is said in the second Nicene Coun- 

 sell, &quot;Painting is a booke for fooles which cannot reade&quot;: 

 or by ciphers and characters, as the cipher signifies the 

 number of a hundred, a thousand, and others, without 

 noting the word of a hundred or a thousand. The other 

 thing we may observe thereby is that which is propounded 

 in this chapter, which is, that no Nation of the Indies dis- / 

 covered in our time, hath had the vse of letters and writ 

 ings, but of the other two sortes, images and figures. The 

 which I observe, not onely of the Indies of Peru and New 

 Spaine, but also of lappon and China. And although this 

 may seeme false to some, seeing it is testified by the dis 

 courses that have beene written, that there are so great 



