e records of facts by means of
inscriptions, have, in all ages, and among all nations, been of this
character. At first, the inscriptions so made were strictly pictures,
in which the whole scene intended to be commemorated was represented,
in rude carvings. In process of time substitutions and abridgments
were adopted in lieu of full representations, and these grew at length
into a system of hieroglyphical characters, some natural, and others
more or less arbitrary, but all denoting _ideas_ or _things_, and not
the sounds of words. These characters are of the kind usually
understood by the word hieroglyphics; though that word can not now
with strict accuracy be applied as a distinctive appellation, since it
has been ascertained in modern times that a large portion of the
Egyptian hieroglyphics are of such a nature as brings them within the
second of the two classes which we are here describing, that is, the
several delineations represent the sounds and syllables of words,
instead of being symbols of ideas or things.

It happened that in some cases in this species of writing, as used in
ancient times, the characters which were employed presented in their
form some natural resemblance to the thing signified, and in other
cases they were wholly arbitrary. Thus, the figure of a scepter
denoted a king, that of a lion, strength; and two warriors, one with a
shield, and the other advancing toward the first with a bow and arrow,
represented a battle. We use in fact a symbol similar to the
last-mentioned one at the present day, upon maps, where we often see a
character formed by two swords crossed, employed to represent a
battle.

The ancient Mexicans had a mode of writing which seems to have been
symbolical in its character, and their characters had, many of them
at least, a natural signification. The different cities and towns were
represented by drawings of such simple objects as were characteristic
of them respectively; as a plant, a tree, an article of manufacture,
or any other object by which the place in question was most easily and
naturally to be distinguished from other places. In one of their
inscriptions, for example, there was a character representing a king,
and before it four heads. Each of the heads was accompanied by the
symbol of the capital of a province, as above described. The meaning
of the whole inscription was that in a certain tumult or insurrection
the king caused the governors of the four cities to b