160 



of Macuilxochitl, Quauhtinchan, and Tehuilc- 

 j ocean , signify, Jive Jlowers, house of the eagle, 

 and place of mirrors: to indicate these three 

 cities, they painted a flower placed on five points, 

 a house from which issued the head of an eagle, 

 and a mirror of obsidian. In this manner the 

 union of several simple hieroglyphics indicated 

 compound names, and by signs which spoke at 

 the same time to the eye and the ear : the cha- 

 racters which designated towns and provinces 

 were often drawn also from the productions of 

 the soil, or the occupations of the inhabitants. 



From the whole of these researches it follows, 

 that the Mexican paintings which have been 

 preserved to our times, offer a great resemblance 

 not with the hieroglyphical writings of the 

 Egyptians, but with the rolls of papyrus found 

 in the swathings of the mummies ; which we 

 may also consider as paintings of a mixed kind, 

 because they unite symbolical and isolated cha- 

 racters with the representation of an action. 

 We recognize, in these rolls of papyrus, initia- 

 tions, sacrifices, allusions to the state of the soul 

 after death, tributes paid to conquerors, the be- 

 neficent effects of the inundations of the Nile, 

 and the labours of agriculture. Among a great 

 number of figures represented in action, or in 

 connexion with each other, we observe real 

 hieroglyphics, those isolated characters which 

 belonged to writing ; and it is not only on the 



