224 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



downwards by the right. When this method of the 

 Mexicans is underftood, it is eafy to difcover at firfl 

 fight, which is the beginning and which is the end of 

 any hiftorical painting. 



It cannot be denied that this method of exprefling 

 things was imperfect, perplexed, and equivocal; but 

 praife is due to the attempt of thofe people to perpetu- 

 ate the memory of events, and to their induftryin fup- 

 plying, though imperfectly, the want of letters, which 

 it is probable they would have invented, in their pro- 

 grefs to refinement, had their empire been of longer du- 

 ration; at leaft they would have abridged and improved 

 their paintings by the multiplication of characters. 



Their paintings ought not to be confidered as a re- 

 gular full hiftory, but only as monuments and aids of 

 tradition. We cannot exprefs too flrongly the care 

 which parents and matters took to inftrucl: their children 

 and pupils in the hiftory of the nation. They made 

 them learn fpeeches and difcourfes, which they could 

 not exprefs by the pencil ; they put the events of their 

 anceftors into verfe, and taught them to fing them. 

 This tradition difpelled the doubts, and undid the am- 

 biguity which paintings alone might have occafioned, 

 and by the affiftance of thofe monuments perpetuated 

 the memory of their heroes, and of virtuous examples, 

 their mythology, their rites, their laws, and their cuf- 

 toms. 



Nor did that people make ufe only of tradition, of 

 paintings, and fongs, to preferve the memory of events, 

 but alfo of threads of different colours, and differently 

 knotted, called by the Peruvians Quipu, and by the 

 Mexicans Nepohualtzitzin. This curious method of the 

 reprefentation of things, however much ufed in Peru, 



does 



