and fifty-eight years after the great hurricane and 4994 from the creation of the world, there was another destruction of this land, which was of the Quinametin, giants who lived in New Spain, which destruction was a great trembling of the earth, which swallowed up and killed them, the mountains and volcanoes burst upon them, that for a certainty none should escape. At the same time many of the Toltecs perished and the Chichimecs their neighbors. That was in the year Ce Tecpatl; and this age they call Tlachilonatnip, that is to say, sun [or age] of earth.”[376] Here follows an account of the construction of the calendar by the assembly of Lords in Hue hue Tlapalan in the year 5097 of the creation of the world and 104 after the destruction of the giants. The singular agreement of this account with the Mosaic description, in some of its details, such as the height attained by the waters above the mountains, the escape of certain persons in an ark, and the erection of a high tower, together with the subsequent confusion of tongues, Lord Kingsborough is convinced furnishes proof that the Toltecs were of Jewish descent.[377] While we are not prepared to believe the sanguine speculations of that eminent author in this case, still one of two views must be true: either the Toltecs were of old world origin, and at a remote period treasured up among their traditional histories notices of the Mosaic deluge, traditions of which are so generally current among the Asiatic nations, or the Mexican traditions of local inundation were warped by the teachings of the Spanish priests in a degree beyond any precedent in history or reasonable expectation, and that within a comparatively few years after the conquest. Our authority in this case is a native of Tezcuco, a son of the queen; and because of his acquaintance with both the hieroglyphic writings and the Castilian, served as interpreter to the viceroy. His _Relacions_ were composed from the archives of his family and compared with the testimony of the oldest and best informed natives. It does not seem to us that the sense of historic integrity cultivated to so nice a point at Tezcuco, where the censorial council, just prior to the advent of the conquerors, punished with death any who should willfully pervert the truth, could have so sadly degenerated that Ixtlilxochitl and the venerable natives who were conscious of the representations contained in his work, should proclaim a falsehood which would not meet with contradiction.[378] We are aware that this author’s chronology is an inextricable maze of contradictions which cannot be unravelled or reconstructed. The Toltec families, seven in number, are, however, said to have reached Hue hue Tlapalan five hundred and twenty years after the flood. The journey, however, occupied only one hundred and four years of that time. Their wanderings, attended with severe experiences, nakedness, and hunger and