art of the Earth! do not leave us! Do
not abandon us, God of Heaven and Earth!... Grant us repose, a glorious
repose, peace and prosperity! the perfection of life and of our being
grant to us, O Hurakan!"

What country and what sun nourished this worship and gave origin to this
great people is as uncertain as all other facts of the early American
history. They came from the East, the tradition says; they landed, it
seems certain, at Panuco, near the present port of Tampico, from seven
barks or ships. Other traditions represent them as accompanied by sages
with venerable beards and flowing robes. They finally settled somewhere
on the coast between Campeachy and the river Tabasco, and founded the
ancient city of Xicalanco. Their chief, who in the reverent affection of
the nation became afterwards their Deity, was Quetzalcohuatl. The
myths which surround his name reveal to us a wise legislator and noble
benefactor. He is seen instructing them in the arts, in religion, and
finally in agriculture, by introducing the cultivation of maize and
other cereals.

Whether he had become the object of envy among the people, or whether he
felt that his work was done, it appears, so far as the vague traditions
can be understood, that he at length determined to return to the unknown
country whence he had come. He gathered his brethren around him and thus
addressed them:--"Know," said he, "that the Lord your God commands you
to dwell in these lands which he hath subjected to you this day. For
him, he returns whence he has come. But he goes only to return later;
for he will visit you again, when the time shall have arrived in which
the world shall have come to an end.[C] In the mean while wait, ye
others, in these countries, with the hope of seeing him again!...Thus
farewell, while we depart with our God!"

[Footnote C: This is the expression of the legend, and certainly points
to the ideas of the Eastern hemisphere. The coincidence with the legends
of Hiawatha and the Finnish Wainamoinen will be remarked.--EDD.]

We will not follow the interesting narrative of the destruction of
the ancient empire of the Votanides by the Nahoas or Toltecs; nor the
account of the dispersion of these latter over Guatemala, Yucatan, and
even among the mountains of California. This last revolution presents
the first precise date which scholars have yet been able to assign to
early American history; it probably occurred A.D. 174.

With the account of the