m are attributed the remarkable pyramids of Teotihuacan, Cholula,
and other structures. Tula is some fifty miles to the north of the
modern city of Mexico, and it formed the centre of the powerful empire
and civilisation of this cultured people. Eleven monarchs reigned, but
the Toltec Empire was overthrown; the people dispersed, and they
mysteriously disappeared at the beginning of the twelfth century A.D.,
after some 450 years of existence. None of these dates, however, can be
looked upon as really belonging to the realm of exact history.

[Illustration: PREHISTORIC MEXICO: TOLTEC PYRAMID OR TEOCALLI OF THE
SUN AT SAN JUAN, TEOTIHUACAN. (Exploration and restoration work being
carried on.)]

Tradition also has it that the Toltecs were dispersed by reason of a
great famine due to drought, followed by pestilence, only a few people
surviving. Banished from the scene of their civilisation by these
disasters, the few remaining inhabitants made their way to Yucatan and
Central America; and their names and traditions seem to be stamped
there. Beyond this little is known of the Toltecs. Possibly some of
them found their way still further south to Ecuador and Peru, and
influenced the Inca civilisations of the South American continent. To
the Toltecs is ascribed the most refined civilisation of prehistoric
America, a culture which was indeed the source of the far inferior one
of the Aztecs, which we shall presently observe. The Toltecs wrought
cleverly in gold and silver, and in cotton fabrics; whilst the
remarkable character of their buildings and structures is shown by the
ruins of these to-day, as at Cholula and Teotihuacan. The art of
picture-writing is attributed to them; and the famous Calendar stone of
Mexico has also been ascribed to these people. From amid the shadowy
history of the Toltecs the traditions of the deity which so largely
influenced prehistoric Mexican religion arose: the mystic Quetzalcoatl,
the "god of the air," "the feathered serpent." This strange personage
was impressed upon the people's mind as a white man of a foreign race,
with noble features, long beard, and flowing garments; and he taught
them a sane religion, in which virtue and austerity were dominant, and
the sacrifice of human beings and animals forbidden. This singular
personage, runs the fable, disappeared after twenty years' sojourn
among them, in the direction of the rising sun, having promised to
return. When the Spaniards came out of the