60 



from the recitals of his friends. The work of 

 Gemelli Carreri, like that of a celebrated travel- 

 ler, who, in our own times, has been treated with 

 so much severity, seems to contain an inextrica- 

 ble mixture of errors and well observed facts. 



The sketch of the migration of the Aztecks 

 formerly made part of the distinguished collec- 

 tion of Dr. Siguenza,. who inherited the hiero- 

 glyphic paintings of a noble Indian, Juan de 

 Alba Ixtlilxochitl. This collection, as Abb6 

 Clavigero affirms, was preserved, till 1759, in 

 the college of the Jesuits at Mexico. We are 

 ignorant of its fate after the destruction of the 

 order. I turned over the leaves of the Azteck 

 paintings preserved in the library of the Uni- 

 versity, without being able to find the original 

 of the drawing represented in the 32d plate ; 

 but several old copies exist at Mexico, which 

 certainly were not made from the engraving of 

 Gemelli Carreri. If we compare all that is 

 symbolical and chronological in the painting of 

 the migrations with the hieroglyphics contained 

 in the manuscripts of Rome and Veletri, and in 

 the collections of Mendoza and Gama, no one cer- 

 tainly would give credit to the hypothesis, that 

 the drawing of Gemelli is the fiction of some 

 Spanish monk, who has attempted to prove, by 

 apocryphal documents, that the traditions of the 

 Hebrews are found among the indigenous na- 

 tions of America. All that we know of the 



