NOTES. 



245 



observe, that this dress is generally black ; but persons 

 in tolerable circumstances, for instance, those of the 

 mixed race, wear ruanas of striped serge (listado), 

 which cover the Indian tunic, called capisayo. These 

 ruanas are depicted on the 25th Plate ; in order that 

 the figures, detaching themselves from the back 

 ground of the landscape, may serve to vary the aspect. 

 The shape of the garment is very exact, but the co- 

 lours of the listado are too lively in some of the co- 

 pies. 



Page 30. System of the Hindoos. I am mistaken in 

 what I have said, on the testimony of some of the 

 Skastras, that all the yougas of the Hindoos terminated 

 by inundations. Mr. Maier, in his interesting work on 

 the Religious Ideas of Nations, observes, that, accord- 

 ing to the doctrine of the Banians, the first generation 

 was destroyed by the waters ; and the second perished 

 by the effect of tempests : that in the third age the 

 yawning earth swallowed up the human race ; — and 

 that the fourth age will terminate by fire. (Friedrich 

 Maier, Mythologisches Taschenbuch, torn, ii, p. 299 ; 

 and Allgemeines Mythol. Lexicon, torn, ii, p. 471.) 

 This doctrine, except in the order of the catastrophes, 

 offers a striking analogy with the Mexican tradition. 



Page 46. Tlacahuepancuexcotzin. Nothing strikes 

 Europeans more in the Azteek, Nahuatl, or Mexican 

 language, than the excessive length of the words. This 

 length does not always depend, as some learned men 

 have pretended, on the circumstance, that the words 

 are compounded, as in the Greek, the German, and the 

 Sanscrit, but on the manner of forming the substantive, 

 the plural, or the superlative. A kiss is called teten- 

 namiquiliztli, a word formed from the verb tennamiqui, 

 to embrace, and the additive particles te and Ihtli. In 



