311 



The same contrivance of the concordance of 

 two periodical series was employed to distinguish 

 the days of the same year. It appears, that 

 originally among the Mexican nations, as well 

 as among the Persians, each day of the month 

 had a name, and a particular sign ; these twenty 

 signs recall to mind the yogas, which, in the 

 astrological almanack of the Hindoos, we find 

 added to the twenty-eight days of the lunar 

 month. In the Metzllapohitalli, or reckoning 

 of the Moon of the Aztecks, they were distri- 

 buted among the small cycles of the half-luna- 

 tions ; so that a periodical series of thirteen 

 terms, which were all ciphers, corresponded to 

 a periodical series of twenty terms, which con- 

 tained only hieroglyphical signs. It is in this 

 series of days, that we find the four grand signs, 

 rabbit, cane, flint, and house, by which, as we 

 have just seen, the years of a cycle were denoted ; 

 sixteen other signs of an inferior order were so 

 distributed, that in an equal number of four they 

 separated the grand signs one from the other. 



Recollecting, that each Mexican month was 

 divided into four small periods of five days, we 

 may conceive, that originally the hieroglyphics 

 rabbit, cane, flint, and house, indicated the be 

 ginning of these small periods in the years, the 

 first day of which bore one of the four signs 

 above named. In fact, when the first of the 



