228 



NOTES, 



period, the Egyptians, from the fear of being deserted 

 by the Sun, give themselves up to grief, tear their 

 hair, and rend their clothes, at the moment when the 

 Sun was in the zenith, and darted its fiercest fires. 

 This is not probable. Achilles Tatius has been too 

 laconic on this point, for us to comprehend this pre- 

 tended custom of the Egyptians. If the festival took 

 place every year on the same day, it was absurd during 

 fourteen ages and a half of a sothic period ; if it took 

 place only on the year of the renewal of the period, 

 why in preference on that year? and finally, if the 

 festival was advanced a da}' every four years, we must 

 admit, that the Egyptians lamented unnecessarily the 

 approaching disappearance of the Sun, since at Thebes, 

 at the winter solstice, it was an elevation of about 

 forty degrees. 



u You have drawn a comparison between the Mexi- 

 can years and days, and the names of the signs of the 

 Tartar zodiac and the different zodiacs of the old con- 

 tinent. You have shown, that at Mexico they said, 

 rabbit, tiger, or ape day, &c. ; as in Asia they said 

 hare, tiger, and ape month, &c. : you have shown also, 

 that several of these animals are equally unknown in 

 Tartary and in Mexico ; and this last remark leaves 

 room to think, that the use of the periodical series for 

 the calculation of time, common to the Mexicans and 

 the Asiatics, as well as these denominations, might 

 come from a very different and very distant country. 

 These questions are highly interesting ; but I shall 

 here confine myself to the resemblance of one of the 

 signs of the Aztecks, that of Cipactli, with the Capri- 

 corn of the Greek, or rather Egyptian zodiac : this is 

 the only one of the twenty names of Mexican days 

 that affords this analogy. Is it not remarkable, that 



