the verses, but
they would be perfectly useless without a commentary or without a
previous knowledge of the text.

We are told that the famous Testera, brother of the chamberlain of
Francois I, who came to America eight or nine years after the taking
of Mexico, finding it impossible to learn the language of the natives,
taught them the Bible history and the principal doctrines of the
Christian religion, by means of pictures, and that these diagrams
produced a greater effect on the minds of the people, who were
accustomed to this style of representation, than all other means
employed by the missionaries. But here again, unless these pictures
were explained by interpreters, they could by themselves convey no
meaning to the gazing crowds of the natives. The fullest information
on this subject is to be found in a work by T. Baptiste, 'Hieroglyphes
de la conversion, ou par des estampes et des figures on apprend aux
naturels a desirer le ciel.'

There is no evidence to show that the Indians of the North ever
advanced beyond the rude attempts which we have thus described, and of
which numerous specimens may be found in the voluminous work of
Schoolcraft, published by authority of Congress, 'Historical and
Statistical Information respecting the History, Condition, and
Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States,' Philadelphia,
1851-1855. There is no trace of anything like literature among the
wandering tribes of the North, and until a real 'Livre des Sauvages'
turns up to fill this gap, they must continue to be classed among the
illiterate races.[97]

[Footnote 97: 'Manuscrit Pictographique,' pp. 26, 29.]

It is very different if we turn our eyes to the people of Central and
South America, to the races who formed the population of Mexico,
Guatemala, and Peru, when conquered by the Spaniards. The Mexican
hieroglyphics published by Lord Kingsborough are not to be placed in
the same category with the totems and the pictorial scratches of the
Red-skins. They are, first of all, of a much more artistic character,
more conventional in their structure, and hence more definite in their
meaning. They are coloured, written on paper, and in many respects
quite on a level with the hieroglyphic inscriptions and hieratic
papyri of Egypt. Even the conception of speaking to the ear through
the eye, of expressing sound by means of outlines, was familiar to the
Mexicans, though they seem to have applied their phonetic signs to the
w