Baron Humboldt’s celebrated argument to prove the Asiatic origin of the Mexicans is principally founded upon the remarkable resemblance of this system of cycles in reckoning years to those found in use in different parts of Asia. For instance, we may take that described by Hue and Gabet as still existing in Tartary and Thibet, which consists of one set of signs, _wood, fire, earth_, &c., combined with a set of names of animals, _mouse, ox, tiger_, &c. The combination is made almost exactly in the same way as that in which the Aztecs combine their signs and numbers, as for instance, the year of the fire-pig, the iron-hare, &c. If these were simple systems of counting years, or even if, although difficult, they had some advantages to offer, we might suppose that two different races in want of a system to count their years by, had devised them independently. But, in fact, both the Asiatic and the Mexican cycles are not only most intricate and troublesome to work, but by the constant liability to confound one cycle with another, they lead to endless mistakes. Hue says that the Mongols, to get over this difficulty, affix a special name to all the years of each king’s reign, as for instance, “the year Tao-Kouang of the fire-ram;” apparently not seeing that to give the special name and the number of the year of the reign, and call it the 44th year of Tao-Kouang, would answer the same purpose, with one-tenth of the trouble. Not only are the Mexican and Asiatic systems alike in the singular principle they go upon, but there are resemblances in the signs used that seem too close for chance.[21] [21] It is curious that these latter resemblances (as far as I have been able to investigate the subject) disappear in the signs of the Yucatan calendar, though its arrangement is precisely that of the Mexican. Any one interested in the theory of the Toltecs being the builders of Palenque and Copan will see the importance of this point. If the Toltecs ever took the original calendar, with the traces of its Asiatic origin fresh upon it, down into Yucatan with them, it is at any rate not to be found there now.