150 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



mentioned nations as thefe hiftorians believe ; the Su- 

 preme Power who watches, with benign providence, over 

 all his creatures, commits to no fuch enemies of the 

 human race any powers to hurt it. Our readers, there- 

 • fore, who may have read of like events in other authors, 

 ought not to wonder if they do not find us equally cre- 

 dulous. We are not difpofed to afcribe any efFeft to the 

 demon, on the bare teftimony of fome Mexican hiftori- 

 ans, as they may eafily have fallen into errors, from the 

 fuperftitious ideas with which their minds were darkened, 

 or the impofitions of priefts that are common among ido- 

 latrous nations. 



The migration of the Aztecas, however, which is cer- 

 tain, whatever might have been their motive for under- 

 taking it, happened, as near as we can conje6lure, about 

 the year n6o of the vulgar era. Torquemada fays he 

 has obferved an arm of the fea (e)^ or a great river re- 

 prefented in all the ancient paintings of this migration. 

 If any river was ever reprefented in fuch paintings, it 

 muft have been the Colorado or Red River, which dif- 

 charges itfelf into the gulf of California, in latitude 324, 

 as this is the moft confiderable river of thofe which lie 

 in the route they travelled. Having palTed, therefore, 

 the Red River from beyond the latitude of 35, they pro- 

 ceeded 



(tf) I believe this pretended arm of the fea is no other than the reprefenta- 

 tion of the univerfal deluge painted in the Mexican pidlures before the begin- 

 ning of their migration, as appears from the copy, publiflied by Gemelli, of a 

 pidure fhewn to him by the celebrated Dott. Siguenza. Boturini alleges this 

 arm of the fea to be the gulf of California, as he is perfuaded that the Mexicans 

 paffed from Aztlan to California, and from thence crofling the gulf tranfported 

 themfelvcs to Culiacan : but there being remains found of the buildings con- 

 ftruAed by the Mexicans in their migration, on the river Gila, and in Pimcria, 

 and not in California, there is no reafon to believe that th^ croffed the fea, but 

 catne by land to Culiacan. 



