rns the life of the ancient Nahuas. He collected a
number of their sacred hymns, translated them into Spanish, and
inserted them into the Appendix to the Second Book of his _History of
New Spain_; but this portion of his work was destroyed by order of
the Inquisition, as a note in the original MS. expressly states.[44]

A certain number, however, were preserved in the original tongue,
and, as already noted, we find the able grammarian Horatio Carochi,
who published his Grammar of the Nahuatl in 1645, quoting lines from
some as furnishing examples of the genuine ancient forms of
word-building. He could not, therefore, have doubted their antiquity
and authenticity.

A number of these must have come to the knowledge and were probably
in the possession of the eminent mathematician and antiquary Don
Carlos de Siguenza y Gongora, who lived in the latter half of the
same century (died 1700). It was avowedly upon the information which
he thought he gleaned from these ancient chants that he constructed
his historical theory of the missionary labors of St. Thomas in
Mexico in the first century of our era. The title of the work he
wrote upon this notion was as follows:--

_Fenix del Occidente San Thomas Apostol, hallado con el nombre de
Quetzalcoatl entre las cenizas de antiguas tradiciones, conservadas
en piedras, en Teoamoxtles Tultecas, y en cantares Teochichimecas y
Mexicanos."_

For many years this curious work, which was never printed, was
supposed to be lost; but the original MS. is extant, in the
possession of the distinguished antiquary Don Alfredo Chavero, of the
City of Mexico.[45] Unfortunately, however, the author did not insert
in his work any song in the native language nor a literal translation
of any, as I am informed by Senor Chavero, who has kindly examined
the work carefully at my request, with this inquiry in view.

Half a century later, when Boturini was collecting his material, he
found but very few of the old poems. In the catalogue of his MSS. he
mentions (XIX, 1) some fragments of ancient songs, badly written, on
European paper, but he does not say whether in the original or
translated. The same doubt might rest on the two songs of
Nezahualcoyotl named in his Catalogue (V, 2). He does not
specifically state that they are in the original. The song of
Moquihuix, King of Tlatilulco, in which he celebrated his victory
over the Cuextla, which Boturini states in his text (p. 91) as in his
possession, is