17 



the fourth sun, the world was plunged in dark- 

 ness during the space of twenty-five years. Amid 

 this profound obscurity, ten years before the 

 appearance of the fifth sun, mankind was re- 

 generated. The gods, at that period, for the 

 fifth time, created a man and a woman. The 

 day, on which the last sun appeared, bore the 

 sign tochtli (rabbit) ; and the Mexicans reckon 

 eight hundred and fifty years from this epocha to 

 1552. Their annals go back as far as the fifth 

 sun. They made use of historical paintings 

 (escritura pintada) even in the four preceding 

 ages ; but these paintings, as they assert, were 

 destroyed, because in each age every thing ought 

 to be renewed. According to Torquemada*, this 

 fable of the revolutions of time, and the regene- 

 ration of nature, is of Tolteck origin : it is a 

 national tradition common to that group of 

 people, whom we know under the name of Tol- 

 tecks, Chichimecks, Acolhuans, Nahuatlacks, 

 Tlascaltecks, and Aztecks ; and who, speaking 

 the same language, have been flowing from north 

 to south since the middle of the sixth century of 

 our era. 



On examining, at Rome, the Codex Vaticanus, 

 No. 3738, copied in 1566 by a Dominican monk, 



* Torquemada, vol. 1. p. 40; Vol> 2, j>. 83. 

 VOL. XIV. C 



