niards from Indians well acquainted with their own arts. The ftyle of painting in all these is the fame. They reprefent things, not words. They exhibit images to the eye, not ideas to the understanding. They may, therefore, be confidered as the earliest and most imperfect effay of men in their progrefs towards difcovering the art of writing. The defects in this mode of recording tranfactions must have been early felt. To paint every occurrence was, from its nature, a very tedious operation; and as affairs became more complicated, and events multiplied in any fociety, its annals must have fwelled to an enormous bulk. Befides this, no objects could be delineated but thofe of fenfe; the conceptions of the mind had no corporeal from, and as long as picture-writing could not convey an idea of thefe, it must have been a very imperfect art. The neceffity of improving it must have rouzed and fharpened invention, and the human mind holding the fame courfe in the New World as in the Old, might have advanced by the fame fucceffive steps, first, from an actual picture to the plain hieroglyphick; next, to the allegorical fymbol; then to the arbitrary character; until, at length, an alphabet of letters was difcovered, capable of expreffing all the various combinations of found employed in speech. In the paintings of the Mexicans we, accordingly, perceive, that this progrefs was begun among them. Upon an attentive inspection of the plates, which I have mentioned, we may obferve fome approach to the plain or fimple hieroglyphick, where fome principal part or circumftance in the fubject is made to ftand for the whole. In the annals of their kings, publifhed by Purchas, the towns conquered by each are uniformly reprefented in the fame manner by a rude delineation of a houfe; but in order to point out the particular towns which fubmitted to their. victorious arms, peculiar emblems, fome. times natural objects, and fometimes artificial figures, are employed. In the tribute-roll,› publifhed by the archbishop of Toledo, the houfe, which was properly the picture of the town, is omitted, and the emblem alone is. employed to reprefent it. The Mexicans feem: even to have made fome advances beyond this, towards the ufe of the more figurative and fanciful hieroglyphick. In order to defcribe a monarch, who had enlarged his dominions by force of arms, they painted a target ornamented with darts, and placed it between him and thofe towns which he fubdued. But it is on y in one inftance, the notation of numbers, that we difcern any attempt to exhibit ideas which had no corporeal form. The Mexican painters had invented artificial marks, or figns of convention, for this purpose. By means of these, they computed the years of their. kings reigns, as well as the amount of tribute to be paid into the royal treasury. The figure of a circle reprefented unit, and in fmall numbers, the computation was made by repeating it. Larger numbers were expreffed by a peculiar mark, and they had fuch as denoted all integral numbers, from twenty to eight thoufand. The fhort duration of their empire prevented the Mexicans from advancing farther in that long courfe which conducts men from the labour of delineating real objects, to the fimplicity and ease of alphabetick writing. Their records, notwithstanding some dawn of such ideas as might have led to a more perfect ftyle, can be confidered as nothing more than a species of picture-writing, fo far improved as to mark their fuperiority over the favage tribes of America; but ftill fo defective, as to prove that they had not proceeded far beyond the first stage in that progress which must be completed before any people can be ranked among polifhed nations. d) Their mode of computing time. Their mode of computing time may be confidered as a more decifive evidence of their progrefs in improvement. They divided their year into eighteen months, each confifting of d) See NOTE XXVI, twenty days, amounting in all to three hundred and fixty. But as they obferved that the courfe of the fun was not completed in that time, they added five days to the year. These, which were properly intercalary days they termed fupernumeray or wafte; and as they did not belong to any month, no work was done, and no facred rite performed on them; they were devoted wholly to feftivity and paftime. e) This near approach to philofophical accuracy is a remarkable proof that the Mexicans had beftowed fome attention upon inquiries and fpeculations, to which men in a very rude ftate never turn their thoughts. Facts indicating a small progress in civilization. Such are the most striking particulars in the manners and policy of the Mexicans, which exhibit them to view as a people confiderably refined. From other circumftances, one is apt to fufpect that their character, and many of their institutions, did not differ greatly from thofe of the other inhabitants of America. Their wars continual and ferocious. Like the rude tribes around them, the Mexicans were inceffantly engaged in war and the motives which prompted them to hoftility seem e) Acofta, lib. vi. c. 2. to have been the fame. They fought, in order to gratify their vengeance, by fhedding the blood of their enemies. In battle they were chiefly intent on taking prisoners, and it was by the number of these that they eftimated the glory of victory. No captive was ever ranfomed or fpared. All were facrificed without mercy, and their flesh devoured with the fame barbarous joy as among the fierceft favages. On fome occafions it rofe to even wilder exceffes. Their principal warriors covered themselves with the skins of the unhappy victims, and danced about the streets, boafting of their own valour, and exulting over their enemies. f) Even in their civil inftitu tions we difcover traces of that barbarous difpofition which their fyftem of war inspired. The four chief counfellors of the empire were diftinguifhed by atrocious titles, which could have been affumed only by a people who delighted in blood. g) This ferocity of character prevailed among all the nations of New Spain. The Tlafcalans, the people of Mechoacan, and other ftates at enmity with the Mexicans, delighted equally in war, and treated their prifoners with the fame cruelty. In proportion as mankind combine in focial union, and live under the influence of equal laws and f) Herrera, dec. 3. lib. ii, c, 15. Gom. Chron. 217. |