HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



119 



require to have the Divine Book^ cited by Boturini, and 

 by Sig. D. Ferdinand d'Alba Ixtlilxohitl in his moil va- 

 luable manufcripts to throw greater light on the hiflory 

 of this celebrated nation. 



After the deilru6lion of the Toltecas, for the fpace of ^ 

 one century, the land of Anahuac remained folitary, and 

 almoft entirely depopulated, until the arrival of the Che- 

 •chemecas (jji). 



The Chechemecas, like the Toltecas who preceded 

 them, and other nations which came after them, were 

 originally from the northern countries, as we may call 

 the North of America, like the North of Europe, the 

 feminary of the human race. From both, in fwarms, 

 have iffued numerous nations to people the countries in 

 the South. Their native country, of the lituation of 

 which we are ignorant, was called Amaquemecan^ where, 

 according to their account, different monarchs ruled their 

 nation for many years (n). The chara£ler of the Che- 

 chemecas 



fad-looking devil appeared to them in a gigantic fize, with immenfe arms, and in 

 the midft of the entertainment he embraced and fuffocated them ; that then he 

 appeared in the figure of a child with a putrid head, and brought the plague; 

 and firjj^lly, at the perfuafion of the fame devil they abandoned the country of 

 Tula. But this good author underftood thefe fymbolical figures literally ; 

 whereas they were meant only to reprefent the famine and peftilence which 

 had befallen them, at the time when they were in the height of their profperity. 



{m) In our fecond differtation, we differ from Torquemada, who does not 

 allow more than eleven years of interval between the deftrudlion of the Toltecas 

 and the arrival of the Chechemecas. 



(«) Torquemada names thefe Chechemecan kings of Amaquemecan, and to 

 the firft he gives one hundred and eighty years of reign; to the fecond, one hun- 

 dred and fifty-fix; and to the third, one hundred and thirty-three. See our fe- 

 cond differtation on the abfurd chronology of this author. He alfo confidently 

 affirms, that Amaquemecan Vv^as fix hundred miles diilant from the fpot where 

 the city of Guadalaxara is at prefent, but in more than one thoufand two hun- 

 dred miles of inhabited country beyond that city, there is not the leafl trace or 

 memory of the kingdom of Amaquemecan; from whence we believe it to be a 

 country flill undifcovered, and greatly farther to the northward than Torque- 

 mada imagined. 



