105 



village situate on the plain of the ancient Cundi- 

 namurca. His office having enabled him to 

 gain the confidence of the natives, who are 

 descendants of the Muyscas, he has endeavoured 

 to collect all that tradition has preserved during 

 three centuries concerning the state of those 

 regions before the arrival of the Spaniards in 

 the New Continent. He succeeded in procuring 

 one of those sculptured stones, by which the 

 Muysca priest regulated the division of time ; 

 he acquired the knowledge of the simple hiero- 

 glyphics, which denote both numbers and the 

 lunar days ; and he has written a statement of 

 the knowledge he acquired, the fruit of long and 

 laborious researches, in a memoir that bears the 

 title of Dlsertacion sobre el Kalendario de los 

 Muyscas, Indios naturales del nuevo Reyno de 

 Grenada. This manuscript was communicated 

 to me at Santa F6, 1801, by the celebrated 

 botanist Don Jose Celestino Mutis. Mr. Du- 

 quesne gave me permission to sketch the penta- 

 gonal stone, of which he has endeavoured to give 

 an explanation ; and it is this drawing, which 

 has been engraven on the 4th plate. 



I shall here offer a few desultory observations 

 on the calendar of the Muysca Indians, from the 

 materials contained in the Spanish memoir which 

 1 have just cited ; and shall subjoin certain con- 

 siderations relative to the analogy between this 

 calendar and the cycles of Asiatic nations. 



