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divisions, sometimes a cycle of fifty-two years, at 
others a tlalpilli of thirteen years, and at others a 
single year of two hundred and sixty days, con- 
tained in twenty small periods of thirteen days, 
according as the history was more or less mi- 
nute. Along with the periodical series of the 
hieroglyphics of the years and the days, the 
migrations of the nations, their battles, and the 
events which had rendered the reign of each 
king illustrious, were represented in paintings 
brilliant in colouring, hideous from the form and 
the extreme imperfection of the drawing, but 
often natural in the composition. It could not 
be denied, but that Valades, Acosta, Torquema- 
da, and in these latter times Siguenza, Boturini, 
and Gama, have gained information from paint- 
ings which went back as far as the seventh cen- 
tury. I have had in my own hands paintings, in 
which the migrations of the Toltecks were re- 
cognised ; but I doubt whether the first Spanish 
conquerors found, as Gomara asserts, annals 
that traced events, year hy year, through eight 
centuries. The Toltecks had disappeared four 
hundred and sixty-five years before the arrival of 
Cortez ; the nation which the Spaniards found 
settled in the valley of Mexico was of the Az- 
tech race : what he knew of the Toltecks he 
could have learnt only from paintings, which 
they had left in the country of Anahuac ; or from 
