7, 3), who relates that "the walls of the temples look
towards the 4 quarters of heaven and each side should be painted
with its particular colour, viz.: north=green, east=white,
south=yellow, west=red, but this rule is not strictly adhered to;
most, indeed, are painted red." As a parallel to this I refer to
Sahagun's description of the temple of the high-priest Quetzalcoatl
at Tula, which held four chambers facing the cardinal points; "The
east chamber was termed the golden house and was lined with plates
of gold; the west chamber was termed the house of emeralds and
turquoises; the south chamber was inlaid with silver and mother of
pearl and the north chamber with red jasper and shells." Sahagun
describes also a second building of the same kind, in which the
decoration of the four rooms was carried out in the same colors, in
feather-mosaic (_op. cit._ Book X, chap. XXIX).

84 The alligator-altar of Copan and the "Great Turtle" of Quirigua, on
which four limbs may be discerned, are the most remarkable examples
of the native employment of the quadruped figure as a symbol of
clan-organization and the great Quadruplicate Plan. An interesting
instance of the association, in China, of the form of a four-footed
animal with numerical divisions is furnished by the following
passage from the Book of Yu, Shoo-King, ed. Legge. Khung-she has
said that "Heaven conferred on Yue the divine tortoise bearing a book
out of the river; on its back were various numbers, up to nine. Yue
arranged them and completed the 9 species. On the head of the
tortoise was 9, on the tail 1, on the left side 3, on the right 7.
The shoulders were formed by 2 and 4, the thighs by 6 and 8."

85 As Prof. E. B. Taylor has aptly pointed out: "By accident the
[Mexican] Calendar may be exactly illustrated with a modern pack of
cards laid out in rotation of the four suits, as an ace of hearts, 2
of spades, 3 of diamonds, 4 of clubs, 5 of hearts, etc.... This
system [of combining signs with numerals] is similar to that of
central southwestern Asia where, among the Mongols, Tibetans and
Chinese, etc., series of signs are thus combined to reckon years,
months and days.... Humboldt makes this comparison in his Vue des
Cordilleres, p. 212".... (Article "Mexico," Ency. Brit.)