298 



divisions, sometimes a cycle of fifty-two years, at 

 others a tlalpilli of thirteen years, and at others a 

 single year of two hundred and sixty days, con- 

 tained in twenty small periods of thirteen days, 

 according as the history was more or less mi- 

 nute. Along with the periodical series of the 

 hieroglyphics of the years and the days, the 

 migrations of the nations, their battles, and the 

 events which had rendered the reign of each 

 king illustrious, were represented in paintings 

 brilliant in colouring, hideous from the form and 

 the extreme imperfection of the drawing, but 

 often natural in the composition. It could not 

 be denied, but that Valades, Acosta, Torquema- 

 da, and in these latter times Siguenza, Boturini, 

 and Gama, have gained information from paint- 

 ings which went back as far as the seventh cen- 

 tury. I have had in my own hands paintings, in 

 which the migrations of the Toltecks were re- 

 cognised ; but I doubt whether the first Spanish 

 conquerors found, as Gomara asserts, annals 

 that traced events, year by year, through eight 

 centuries. The Toltecks had disappeared four 

 hundred and sixty-five years before the arrival of 

 Cortez ; the nation which the Spaniards found 

 settled in the valley of Mexico was of the Az- 

 teck race : what he knew of the Toltecks he 

 could have learnt only from paintings, which 

 they had left in the country of Anahuac ; or from 



