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teques, the Chichimeques, and the Azteques, pretended to 

 have issued successively, from the 6th to the 12th century, 

 from three neighbouring countries situated towards the 

 north, and called Huehuetlapallan or Tlalpallan, Amaque- 

 mecan, and Aztlan or Teo-Alcohuacan. These nations 

 spoke the same language, they had the same cosmogonic 

 fables, the same propensity for the sacerdotal congre- 

 gations, the same hieroglyphic paintings, the same divisions 

 of time, the same taste (Chinese and Japanese) for noting 

 and registering every thing. The names given by them to 

 the towns built in the country of Anahuac, were those of 

 the towns they had abandoned in their ancient country. The 

 civilization on the Mexican table land was regarded by the 

 inhabitants themselves as the copy of something which had 

 existed elsewhere, as the reflection of the primitive civiliza- 

 tion of Aztlan. Where, it may be asked, must be placed 

 that parent land of the colonies of Anahuac, that officina 

 gentium, which during five centuries, sends nations to- 

 wards the south, who understand each other without diffi- 

 culty, and recognize each other for relations ? Asia, north 

 of Amour, where it is nearest America, is a barbarous 

 country ; and, in supposing (which is geographically possible) 

 a migration of southern Asiatics by Japan, Tarakay 

 (Tchoka), the Kurile and the Aleutian isles, from south- 

 west towards the north-east, (from 40° to 55° of lati- 

 tude), how can it be believed that in so long a migration, 

 on a way so easily intercepted, the remembrance of the in- 

 stitutions of the parent country could have been preserved 

 with so much force and clearness ! The cosmogonic fables, 

 the pyramidal constructions, the system of the calendar, the 

 animals of the tropics found in the catasterim of days, the con- 

 vents and congregations of priests, the taste for statistic enu- 

 merations, the annals of the empire held in the most scrupu- 

 lous order, lead us towards oriental Asia ; while the lively re- 

 membrances of which we have just spoken, and the peculiar 

 Y 2 



