from the recitals of his friends. The work of 
Gemelli Carreri, like that of a celebrated travel- 
ler^ who, in our own times, has been treated with 
so much severity, seems to contain an inextrica- 
ble mixture of errors and well observed facts. 
The sketch of the migration of the Aztecks 
formerly made part of the distinguished collec- 
tion of Dr. Siguenza, who inherited the hiero- 
glyphic paintings of a noble Indian, Juan de 
Alba Ixtlilxochitl. This collection, as Abb6 
Clavigero affirms, was preserved, till 1759, in 
the college of the Jesuits at Mexico. We are 
ignorant of its fate after the destruction of the 
order. I turned over the leaves of the Azteck 
paintings preserved in the library of the Uni- 
versity, without being able to find the original 
of the drawing represented in the 32d plate ; 
but several old copies exist at Mexico, which 
certainly were not made from the engraving of 
Gemelli Carreri. If we compare all that is 
symbolical and chronological in the painting of 
the migrations with the hieroglyphics contained 
in the manuscripts of Rome and Veletri, and in 
the collections of Mendoza and Gama, no one cer- 
tainly would give credit to the hypothesis, that 
the drawing of Gemelli is the fiction of some 
Spanish monk, who has attempted to prove, by 
apocryphal documents, that the traditions of the 
Hebrews are found among the indigenous na- 
tions of America. All that we know of the 
