HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



97 



guages, and forae fimilarity in their rites, cuftoms, and 

 manners. Such are the foundations of the above mention- 

 ed opinions, collected and illuftrated with a great (hew of 

 erudition, by the Dominican Garcia, and thofe learned 

 Spaniards who reprinted his work with additions : which 

 thofe who pleafe may confult, as we have no time to re- 

 fute them. 



We cannot, however, difpenfe with the mention of 

 the opinions of D. Siguenza, adopted alfo by the famous 

 bifhop F. P. Daniel Huet, as it appears to us to be 

 the beft founded. Siguenza was perfuaded, that the 

 nations which peopled the Mexican empire belonged to 

 the pofterity of Naphtuhim, and that their anceftors, 

 having left Egypt not long after the confufion of tongues, 

 travelled towards America. The reafons on which he 

 grounds this opinion are mentioned only in the Biblio- 

 theca Mexicana. As we are deprived of his excellent 

 manufcripts, we can only cite them, as Eguiara did, in 

 the Bibliotheca above mentioned. 



Thofe reafons, from what appears, are firft, the con- 

 formity of thofe American nations with the Egyptians in 

 the conftruclion of pyramidal edifices, and the ufe of 

 hieroglyphics in the method of computing time, in their 

 drefs, and in fome of their cuftoms; and, Iaftly, the re- 

 femblance of the word Teotl of the Mexicans to the 

 Theuth of the Egyptians, which occafioned bifhop Huet 

 to adopt the fame fentiment with Siguenza. If this 

 opinion is propofed as a conjecture, we ftiall not contra- 

 dict it; but if it is offered as a truth on which we are to 

 depend, the proofs do not appear fufficient. 



Siguenza conceived that the children of Naphtuhim 

 fet out from Egypt towards America not long after the 

 confufion of tongues; it would therefore be necelTary to 



Vol. III. O make 



