18 



Pedro de los Rios *, I found the Mexican draw- 

 ing represented in plate 26. This historical 

 document is so much the more curious, as it 

 indicates the duration of each age by signs of 

 which we know the meaning. In P. Rios's 

 Commentary, the order in which the catastrophes 

 took place is entirely confounded ; the last, 

 which is the deluge, is there considered as the 

 first. The same error is found in the works of 

 Gomara, Clavigero f , and the greater part of 

 the Spanish authors ; who, forgetting that the 

 Mexicans placed their hieroglyphics from right 

 to left, beginning at the bottom of the page, 

 necessarily inverted the four destructions of the 

 world. I shall point out this order, as it is re- 

 presented in the Mexican paintings of the Va- 

 tican library, and described in a very curious 

 history written in the Azteck tongue, fragments 

 of which have been preserved by the Indian 

 Fernando de Alvar Ixtlilxochitl^. The testi- 

 mony of a native writer, and the copy of a 

 Mexican painting made on the spot a short time 

 after the conquest, merit undoubtedly more con- 

 fidence than the recital of the Spanish histo- 



* See vol. 13, -p. 191, and 201. 



f Storia Antica di Messico, torn. 2, p. 57. 



X Gama, § 62, p. 97 : Boturini, Cat. del Museo, § 8. 

 n. 13. 



