63 



persons and sites. I am inclined to think, that 

 the picture, which Siguenza communicated to 

 Gemelli, is a copy made after the conquest, either 

 by a native, or the descendant of a Spaniard and 

 a Mexican. The painter has no doubt avoided 

 following the incorrect forms of the original ; 

 he has imitated with scrupulous exactness the 

 hieroglyphics of the names, and the cycles ; but 

 he has altered the proportions of the human fi- 

 gures, the drapery of which he has formed in a 

 manner analogous to that we have found in other 

 Mexican paintings *. 



The following are the principal events indi- 

 cated in the 32d plate, according to Siguenza's 

 explanation, to which we shall add a few inci- 

 dents taken from the historical annals of the 

 Mexicans. 



The history begins by the Deluge of Coxcox, or 

 the fourth destruction of the world, which, accord- 

 ing to the Azteck cosmogony, terminates the 

 fourth of the great cycles, atonatiuh, the age 

 water This cataclysm took place, according 

 to the two received chronological systems, one 

 thousand four hundred and seventeen, or eigh- 

 teen thousand and twenty-eight years after the 

 beginning of the age of earth, tlaltonatiuh. 

 The enormous difference of these numbers ought 



* Plate 14, No. 5 and 7. 

 t See above, page 23. 



