began bis history with an account of these pralayas. The
three first ages -comprised severally 1716, 1715,jl347 years,'
The first (Jestruetion w^s eaiised ;by a© universal delage, the
second by earthquake^, the third by hurricanes. During the
second age the earth was inhabited ;hy giants-:; .during the
third byrthe bilrnacsc or Qlmecas and the Xicalangues. -Aq*
cordingto their own accounts these people came from; the,
east in vessels or canoesi they landed at Potopefean and
extended their settlements towards Choloian. They,enjoyed
great prosperity when.Quetzaleoatl appeared among them*
and having taught them he disappeared towards the -east,
where he had appeared, near
Immediately afterwards the place.
Those who escaped built a temple to Quetsfalcoatl, or god
of ajr. According tathe^anuals and l^sb>ries the .appearanoe;
of Quetzaleoatl synchronised with that of Christ.
The arrival of the Tolteeas belongs to thOffimrth or preseiit
age of the world. Driven from their native l&nd, after. a lfng
navigation along the- coast o f . California, :they. arrisfdj*^
Huehuetlapallan, a . d . 387. Thence sailing along Xalise©,
they reached Tochtepee on the South Sea* They afterwards
colonised Tollantzineo, and finally the city of Tollan, where
they elected their first king a . p. 540. Nine kings ruled
©ver them, in whose reigns they erected, many splendid cities ;
the.last was Topiltzin a . d . §82, in whose reign wars, plagues,
and famine ^destroyed nearly the whole nation. v The Toltecs
were idolatora and worshipped the sun and moon. In th©
wars between them and their enemies more than eight millions,
on both sides perished, and their final overthrow was in
a . d. 959.
Five years after the- destruction of the Toltecs, the great
Chichimec, Xolotl, arrived in 963 with an army of more than
a million of men from a northern country called Cbicomoztoc,
and, occupying the whole valley of Mexico, subdued the few
Toltecs who, under the name of Culhuas, had remained on
the borders of the lake. The residue of the Toltecs had fled
into other countries,' some of them to Nicaragua and beyond
it. Forty-seven years, after Xolotl’s settlement in Abahuac,
the Aculhuas came from the most remote pert of Michoacan
and united They had
the same origin and consisted of three hands, the Tecpanecs,
the Otoinites, and the Aculhuas proper, speaking different
languages and having*1 different chiefs. Aculhua, prince of
the Tecpanecs,1 married a daughter^ of Xolotl, and had three
sons, ono of!iwhom, named Acarnapichtli, reigned over the
Tenucheas or/Mexicans : these-were the last people whocame
and settled* in, Anahuac: they came^from the borders of the
provinceOf Xahsco^fiud it appears that they were of the tame
race-‘as; the Toltecs, and of a family which at the destruction
of the rTolteean empire had fled through Michoa'cahito Aztlam
The following history cotoprises'a series'of kings who reigned
fropi this time t© Montezuma, some of whom held the sceptre
two o r three hundred years. Their warlike achievements and
the steps of advancement in arts and civilisation■ made during
their reign^are recorded.
It has been * remarked by Mr. Gallatin* that many'impossible
and absurd things are recorded in this* narrative. • Xolotl,
who was a mythical5person,| is;taken for a man, and dates; are
given with precision in times for -which no records'are known
to have -been 'preserved. 1
Paragraph 4.—Of the extant Mexican Pictorial Records and
^thcir'Contents. jj^
It cannot be imagined that a long train of events minutely
narrated could be represented with all their circteufetaneeS in
pictures so imperfectly descriptive -as the'{ttctorial manuscripts
of tfie Mexicans. Such documents could only furnish aids
to memory-—pictures or symbols^ of which the meaning might
ba.‘preeerw8d^"trttdififl^i' But whatever rday have Ifeen the
value of theSe; documents, they are with very few exceptions
lost. The Spaniards sought for them and destroyed them
with the., most barbarous zeal- and perseverances^ “Even in
comparatively late times Botfcrini, *>wh& was a great collector
of Mexican antiquities, underwent a severe persecution. Qf
the yet extant relics of this description one specimen was
published and illustrated by M. de Humboldt in his 1 Vues