285 



eight hours, forty-eight minutes. To correct 

 the lunar year, and make it coincide with the 

 solar year, eleven days, according to ancient 

 custom, were added ; which, by the edict of the 

 Inca, were divided among the twelve moons. 

 According to this arrangement, it was scarcely 

 possible, that four equal periods, into which the 

 lunar months should be divided, could be seven 

 days each, and correspond to the phases of the 

 Moon. The same historian, whose testimony 

 is cited by M. Bailly in favor of the opinion, that 

 the week of the Hindoos was known to the Ame- 

 ricans, affirms, that, according to an ancient 

 law of the Inca Pachacutec, there ought to be in 

 each lunar month three days for festivals and for 

 markets (catu); and that the people were to 

 work, not seven, but eight consecutive days, and 

 rest the ninth *. This is undoubtedly a divi- 

 sion of a lunar month, or a sideral revolution 

 of the Moon, into three small periods of nine 

 days. 



We shall observe, on this occasion, that the 

 Japanese -f-, a nation of the Tartar race, are 

 equally unacquainted with the small period of 

 seven days ; while it is in use among the Chinese, 

 who seem also aborigines of the elevated plain of 



* Garcilasso, Lib. 0, C. 35, torn. 1, p. 216. 

 t Voyage de Thunberg au Japon, p. 311. 



