[170] _Teoamoxtli_, “the divine book,” as it was called. According to Ixtlilxochitl, it was composed by a Tezcucan doctor, named Huematzin, towards the close of the seventeenth century. (Relaciones, MS.) It gave an account of the migrations of his nation from Asia, of the various stations on their journey, of their social and religious institutions, their science, arts, etc., etc., a good deal too much for one book. _Ignotum pro mirifico._ It has never been seen by a European.{*} A copy is said to have been in possession of the Tezcucan chroniclers on the taking of their capital. (Bustamante, Crónica Mexicana (México, 1822), carta 3.) Lord Kingsborough, who can scent out a Hebrew root be it buried never so deep, has discovered that the _Teoamoxtli_ was the Pentateuch. Thus, _teo_ means “divine,” _amotl_, “paper” or “book,” and _moxtli_ “appears to be Moses;”--“Divine Book of Moses”! Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi. p. 204, nota. {*} [It must have been seen by many Europeans, if we accept either the statement of the Baron de Waldeck, in 1838 (Voyage pittoresque et arçhéologique dans la Province d’Yucatan), that it was then in his possession, or the theories of Brasseur de Bourbourg, who identifies it with the Dresden Codex and certain other hieroglyphical manuscripts, and who believes himself to have found the key to it, and consequently to the origin of the Mexican history and civilization, in one of the documents in Boturini’s collection, to which he has given the name of the Codex Chimalpopoca. Quatre Lettres sur le Mexique (Paris, 1868).--K.] [171] [Such a supposition would require a “stretch of fancy” greater than any which the mind of the mere historical inquirer is capable of taking. To admit the probability of the Asiatic origin of the American races, and of the indefinite antiquity of Mexican civilization, is something very different from believing that this civilization, already developed in the degree required for the existence and preservation of its own records during so long a period and so great a migration, can have been transplanted from the one continent to the other. It would be easier to accept the theory, now generally abandoned, that the original settlers owed their civilization to a body of colonists from Phœnicia. In view of so hazardous a conjecture, it is difficult to understand why Buschmann has taken exception to the “sharp criticism” to which Prescott has subjected the sources of Mexican history, and his “low estimate of their value and credibility.”--K.] [172] Boturini, Idea, pp. 90-97.--Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. pp. 174-178. [173] “Los cantos con que las observaban Autores muy graves en su modo de ciencia y facultad, pues fuéron los mismos Reyes, y de la gente mas ilustre y entendida, que siempre observáron y adquiriéron la verdad, y esta con tanta razon, quanta pudiéron tener los mas graves y fidedignos Autores.” Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., Prologo. [174] See chap. 6 of this Introduction.