finds no earlier fixed date than the founding of Tenochtitlan (Mexico) in A.D. 1325. “What lies beyond the twelfth century can occasionally be rendered of value for ethnological purposes, but it admits of no definite historical use.” Bancroft (v. 360) speaks of the sources of disagreement in the final century of the native annals, from the constant tendency of such writers as Ixtlilxochitl, Tezozomoc, Chimalpain, and Camargo, to laud their own people and defame their rivals. * * * * * In the latter part of the sixteenth century the viceroy of Mexico, Don Martin Enriquez, set on foot some measures to gather the relics and traditions of the native Mexicans. Under this incentive it fell to Juan de Tobar, a Jesuit, and to Diego Duran, a Dominican, to be early associated with the resuscitation of the ancient history of the country. To Father Tobar (or Tovar) we owe what is known as the _Codex Ramirez_, which in the edition of the _Crónica Mexicana_[868] by Hernando de Alvarado Tezozomoc, issued in Mexico (1878), with annotations by Orozco y Berra, is called a _Relacion del origen de los Indios que habitan esta nueva España segun sus historias_ (José M. Vigil, editor). It is an important source of our knowledge of the ancient history of Mexico, as authoritatively interpreted by the Aztec priests, from their picture-writings, at the bidding of Ramirez de Fuenleal, Bishop of Cuenca. This ecclesiastic carried the document with him to Spain, where in Madrid it is still preserved. It was used by Herrera. Chavero and Brinton recognize its representative value.[869] To Father Duran we are indebted for an equally ardent advocacy of the rights of the natives in his _Historia de las Indias de Nueva-España y islas de Tierra-Firme_ (1579-81), which was edited in part (1867), as stated elsewhere[870] by José F. Ramirez, and after an interval completed (1880) by Prof. Gumesindo Mendoza, of the Museo Nacional,—the perfected work making two volumes of text and an atlas of plates. Both from Tobar and from Duran some of the contemporary writers gathered largely their material.[871] [Illustration: SAHAGUN. After a lithograph in Cumplido’s Mexican edition of Prescott’s _Mexico_.]