328 



difficulty in expressing very considerable limn-* 

 bers, and whose annals were written in hierogly- 

 phical characters. 



We have just seen, that the Mexicans, the 

 Japanese, the people of Thibet, and several 

 other nations of central Asia, have followed the 

 same system in the division of the great cycles, 

 and in the denomination of the years that com- 

 pose them. We have now to examine a fact, 

 which more immediately concerns the history of 

 the migrations of the natives, and which seems 

 hitherto to have escaped the researches of the 

 learned. I think it may be proved that a great 

 part of the names, by which the Mexicans de- 

 noted the twenty days of their month, are those 

 of the signs of a zodiac in use from the remotest 

 antiquity among the nations of Eastern Asia. 

 In order to demonstrate, that this assertion is 

 less unfounded than it appears at first sight, I 

 shall unite in the same table, 1st, The names of 

 the Mexican hieroglyphics, such as they have 

 been transmitted to us by every writer of the 

 sixteenth century ; 2dly, The Tartarian, Japa- 

 nese, and Thibetan names of the twelve signs 

 of the zodiac ; and 3dly, The names of the 

 naschatras, or lunar houses, of the calendar of 

 the Hindoos. I flatter myself, that such of my 

 readers as shall attentively examine this compa- 

 rative table will feel interested in the discussion 

 of the first divisions of the zodiac, on which we 

 are going to enter. 



