4 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



fweet fmging birds, and thofe of the nobler quadrupeds ; 

 while the fouls of inferior perfons were fuppofed to pafs 

 into weazles, beetles, and fuch other meaner animals. 

 Whence we fee that the abfurd fyftem of the Pythago- 

 rean tranfmigration, which has been fo firmly fettled, and 

 fo widely propagated throughout the countries of the 

 Eaft, has not wanted its advocates in thofe of the 

 Weft (£). The fouls of thofe that were drowned, or 

 ftruck by lightning, of thofe who died by dropfy, tu- 

 mors, wounds, and other fuch difeafes, went, as the 

 Mexicans believed, along with the fouls of children, at 

 leaft of thofe which were facrificed to Tlaloc the god of 

 water, to a cool and delightful place, called TIalocan, 

 where that god refided, and where they were to enjoy 

 the moft delicious repafts, with every other kind of plea- 

 fure. In the inner part of the greater temple of Mexico 

 there was a particular place where they fuppofed that on 

 a certain day of the year all the children which had been 

 facrificed to Tlaloc, came, and invifibly aflifted at the ce- 

 remony. The Miztecas had a perfuafion, that a great 

 cavern in a lofty mountain, in their province, was the 

 entrance into paradife ; and their nobles and great men, 

 therefore, always took care to be buried near the ca- 

 vern, in order to be nearer that place of delight. Laftly, 

 the third place allotted for the fouls of thofe who fufFered 

 any other kind of death, was the Mifllan, or hell, which 

 they conceived to be a place of utter darknefs, in which 

 reigned a god, called Miflilanteuttli (lord of hell), and a 



goddefs 



(b) Who would believe that a fyftem fo prepofterous and improbable as 

 that of the Pythagorean tranfmigration, mould be fupported by a philofopher 

 of the enlightened eighteenth century. Yet it has been ferioufly maintained, 

 lately, by a Frenchman, in a book printed at Paris, under the title of " The 

 Year Two thoufand four hundred and forty." 



