During these years of uncertainty respecting the Boturini collection, a certain hold upon it seems to have been shared successively by Pichardo and Sanchez, by which in the end some part came to the Museo Nacional, in Mexico.[902] It was also the subject of lawsuits, which finally resulted in the dispersion of what was left by public auction, at a time when Humboldt was passing through Mexico, and some of its treasures were secured by him and placed in the Berlin Museum. Others passed hither and thither (a few to Kingsborough), but not in a way to obscure their paths, so that when, in 1830, Aubin was sent to Mexico by the French government, he was able to secure a considerable portion of them, as the result of searches during the next ten years. It was with the purpose, some years later, of assisting in the elucidation and publication of Aubin’s collection that the Société Américaine de France was established. The collection of historical records, as Aubin held it, was described, in 1881, by himself,[903] when he divided his Mexican picture-writings into two classes,—those which had belonged to Boturini, and those which had not.[904] Aubin at the same time described his collection of the Spanish MSS. of Ixtlilxochitl,[905] while he congratulated himself that he had secured the old picture-writings upon which that native writer depended in the early part of his _Historia Chichimeca_. These Spanish MSS. bear the signature and annotations of Veytia. [Illustration: FRONTISPIECE OF BOTURINI’S IDEA.] We have another description of the Aubin collection by Brasseur de Bourbourg.[906] If we allow the first place among native writers, using the Spanish tongue, to Ixtlilxochitl, we find several others of considerable service: Diego Muñoz Camargo, a Tlaxcallan Mestizo, wrote (1585) a _Historia de Tlaxcallan_.[907] Tezozomoc’s _Crónica Mexicana_ is probably best known through Ternaux’s version,[908] and there is an Italian abridgment in F. C. Marmocchi’s _Raccolta di Viaggi_ (vol. x.). The catalogue of Boturini discloses a MS. by a Cacique of Quiahuiztlan, Juan Ventura Zapata y Mendoza, which brings the _Crónica de la muy noble y real Ciudad de Tlaxcallan_ from the earliest times down to 1689; but it is not now known. Torquemada and others cite two native Tezcucan writers,—Juan Bautista Pomar, whose _Relacion de las Antigüedades de los Indios_[909] treats of the manners of his ancestors, and Antonio Pimentel, whose _Relaciones_ are well known. The MS. _Crónica Mexicana_ of Anton Muñon Chimalpain (b. 1579), tracing the annals from the eleventh century, is or was among the Aubin MSS.[910] There was collected before 1536, under the orders of Bishop Zumárraga, a number of aboriginal tales and traditions, which under the title of _Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas_ was printed by Icazbalceta, who owns the MS., in the _Anales del Museo Nacional_ (ii. no. 2).[911] [Illustration: ICAZBALCETA.