Maguey) ruled at first with prudence and practical wisdom, but his habits deteriorated little by little; he became vicious, and revealed himself to be an insupportable tyrant. The honey in the maguey had begun to ferment.

The Toltecs thenceforth deteriorated in the most disastrous manner. Famines and pests fell upon the land, and invasions of strange peoples. The population was thinned, harried, scattered. Its last chieftain was Topiltzin-Meconetzin (Son of Maguey), who, with his wife, Xochitl, was slain in a sanguinary battle against overpowering enemies. And this was the end of the Toltecs. This may have been in the year 1116 of our era, after a duration of about five hundred and fifty years.

Some historians consider that the Toltecs were not a great race, but simply a tribe of sedentary Indians, more advanced than their neighbors, whose traditions have become with time exaggerated into the tale of a great and powerful nation. How this may be, the tourist at Tula may judge, according to his disposition, romantic or prosaic, by the importance of the ruins left by the vanished race.

The excellent compendios of history written by Payne and Zarate for the use of schools in Mexico still give the dynasties of the kings of Tula, as well as of the other early tribes, as if they were sovereigns of a well-established monarchy, accompanied by a list of the royal succession. According to this, the kingdom of the Toltecs lasted from 720 A.D., the date fixed for the end of their wanderings from Huehue-Tlapallan to Tollan, until 1116 A.D., when their destruction was accomplished and their people dispersed.

ACCORDING to the old version of Anahuac story, the proud, brilliant dynasty of the Toltecs shone like a jewel upon the background of the savage tribes surrounding it, who remained during the period it flourished in the same condition as when the Toltecs came. It was from one of these less cultivated races that the Toltecs took their first chief, Chalchiuhtlatonac, son of the so-called Emperor of the Chichimecs, to whose account is attributed a line of fourteen monarchs, and a duration of over two hundred years, but all this is very uncertain and vague; on the other hand, Baudelier is of opinion that there was no Chichimecan period in Mexico. The word Chichimecatl signifies indiscriminately a savage, a good hunter, or a brave warrior. The far-off region from which they immigrated like the other tribes upon Anahuac, called by them Amaquemecan, like the Huehue-Tlapallan of the Toltecs, was a fertile country of their dreams, pleasant to work in, and free from earthly disasters.

Probably they came from the same region as the Toltecs; their language is classed with the Nahuatl, though their dialect was their own. They called

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themselves the Eagles. They not only had no culture, but scorned it, preferring the advantages of barbarism. Their occupation was hunting, which was fully furnished them by the game in the mountain regions, which they found unclaimed, and took possession of. They lived upon the flesh of wolves and pumas,—their smaller dishes were weasels, moles, and mice, without objecting to lizards, snakes, grasshoppers, and earthworms.

The Chichimecs seem to have wandered about completely naked, with skins of beasts to protect them from the occasional cold of their mild climate. Their houses were, for the most part, caves or cracks in the rocks, but they knew how to build rude huts, roofed with palm leaves. Gourds were their drinking vessels, and they could make a rude sort of pottery, out of which they fashioned jugs, and also little balls used for bullets in war, which could make dangerous wounds. They were always at war with their neighbors, and protected their own territory from incursions with their bows and arrows, and clubs, which they handled with great vigor.

Each warrior of the Chichimecs wore a bone at his waist, which carried a mark for every enemy he had killed. Competition was sure to keep these bones well marked, as it was a distinction to bear the record of the most victims. Their battles were bloodthirsty. Prisoners were scalped upon the field of battle, and their heads carried in triumph back to camp, while dances of victory were performed. They had the reputation of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of their victims.

The several tribes of the Chichimecs acknowledged no authority, other than obedience to the warrior they themselves selected to lead them to battle. Their wives were their slaves; and though they limited themselves to one wife at a time, they reserved to themselves the liberty of changing one for another at any moment. The women prepared the food, cut down trees, brought wood and water, and made the pottery-bullets as well as pots and pans. The Chichimecs feared and worshipped the sun as a supreme deity, and the spirit of the thunder and lightning, whom they rudely depicted with bolts in his hands, like Jupiter, and called Nixcoatl, (the Serpent of the Clouds).

These were the people who lived side by side with the Toltecs, their better-behaved neighbors, despised as inferiors, and regarded with disgust for their coarseness and horror for their bloody practices. By these, the Toltecs were conquered and destroyed.

Xolotl, the leader of the Chichimecs, to use the greatly exaggerated reports gathered from historic paintings, which depicted these things, came to invade the realm of the Toltecs with a million warriors under six great chiefs, and twenty thousand or so of inferior officers. He had under his command more than three million men and women, not counting the children who came along with their mothers. The Toltecs were much deteriorated since their proud days. Allies whom they had oppressed had deserted them; a religious sect which differed from the prevailing belief had sought elsewhere a place of independent worship; the sovereign and his favorites

were delivered over to dissipation.

But even the

royal family gave proof of energy and resolution when the hour of danger came.

An old chief, named Ayaxitl, called the country to arms, inspiring them with tales of the deeds of their ancestors. Old men and young boys took up arms; and old Xochitl herself, the mother of the inefficient king, led forth to battle a legion of Amazons, and was slain at their front. But all this show of bravery came too late. The Toltecs were entirely defeated after a prolonged conflict, which was renewed for several days. Tollan was taken, the whole country surrendered, and its ruling race entirely exterminated.

The Toltecs were no more, and the Chichimecs ruled in their stead. But these people, recovering from their barbarism in a measure, took on the advanced customs of their conquered enemies, entered into their palaces, and enjoyed the fruits of their civilization.

Xolotl took the title of Chichimecatl Tecuhtli, the great chief of the Chichimecs; and his descendants. added to this the name Huactlatohani (Lord of the Whole World). The territory claimed for him included a large part of the present Mexico, the states Morelos and Puebla, a portion of Vera Cruz, the greater part of Hidalgo, the whole of Tlaxcalla, and the valley of Mexico. He strengthened his power by marrying his son to a daughter of the late Toltec sovereign, saved from the destruction of the race, and altogether showed wisdom and judgment not to be expected from the antecedents of his people. Such conduct inclines students of this re