92 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



fince, befides the lofs of the greater part of the hiftori- 

 cal monuments of thofe nations, as they did not know 

 how to adjuft the Mexican years with ours, they fre- 

 quently committed grofs anachronifms ; but they who 

 had procured greater abundance of the ancient and fe- 

 lect paintings, and knew a little better how to trace 

 the chronology of thofe people, fuch as Siguenza and 

 Ixtlilxochitl, found records certainly more ancient, and 

 ufed them in their valuable manufcripts. 



We do not doubt that the population of America has 

 been very ancient, and more fo than it may feem to 

 have been to European authors, i. Becaufe the Ame- 

 ricans wanted thofe arts and inventions, fuch, for ex- 

 ample, as thofe of wax and oil for light, which, on the 

 one hand, being very ancient in Europe and Afia, are 

 on the other moft ufeful, not to fay neceffary, and when 

 once difcovered, are never forgotten. 2. Becaufe the 

 poliflied nations of the new world, and particularly 

 thofe of Mexico, preferve in their traditions and in 

 their paintings the memory of the creation of the world, 

 the building of the tower of Babel, the confufion of 

 languages, and the difperfion of the people, though 

 blended with fome fables, and had no knowledge of the 

 events which happened afterwards in Afia, in Africa, or 

 in Europe, although many of them were fo great and re- 

 markable, that they could not eafily have gone from 

 their memories. 3. Becaufe neither was there among 

 the Americans any knowledge of the people of the old 

 continent, nor among the latter any account of the 

 paffage of the former to the new world. Thcfe reafons, 

 we prefume, give fome probability to our opinion. 



SECT. 



