t great cities.

"When they build their temples, it is said, they found ruins of other
temples beneath them. And the ones who built the temples, the ruins of
which the Toltecs found, doubtless found ruins of temples when they
began to dig. It is wonderful. The ages and ages that have gone by,
with new civilizations growing up and dying out."

"I feel like I was in a land older than the solar system," said Jimmie.
"What became of the Toltecs?"

"They were crowded out by the Aztecs somewhere about the twelfth
century. The Aztecs were warlike and cruel. It is said that they
murdered twenty thousand victims a year on the altars of their gods.
They were able people, too, but murderous in all their instincts. They
were cultivated to a degree far above the other peoples of the North
American continent at that time, but they lacked the feelings of
humanity as expressed to-day.

"They built temples--mounds of clay faced with brick, surmounted by
great towers where the priests dwelt. It was at the summits of these
mounds, on a sacrificial stone, before all the people who could get in
view, that the victims of their religious frenzy were slain.

"Then Cortes came, in fifteen hundred and something, and the deluge of
blood began. If you have read up on the subject at all, you doubtless
know how merciless the Spaniards were in their attitude toward the
Aztecs. They killed them by thousands, in open battle and by
treacherous means, and they tortured Aztec priests to force them to
reveal the places where the vessels of gold used in worship were hidden.

"It is easy to see where the modern Mexican gets his ideas of
amusement, as shown in the bull fight. The Aztec-Spanish blood is
still in his veins. Of course there are cultured and refined Mexicans,
but the great mass of the people are pretty primitive. Outside the
cities, in many instances, old tribal relations continue, and the
people are unsettled in habitation as well as in spirit, selfish and
cruel, too.

"One revolution after another--brought about by unscrupulous leaders in
the hope of personal gain--has devastated the country. It seems easy
to stir up a revolution in Mexico, for the people are volcanic in
temperament, like the earth under their feet, and their eruptions do
not always follow usual lines, either, but break out in unexpected
places and for unheard of reasons--just as the volcanoes refuse to
follow the central mountain chains, but break out in un