invasion of the Aztec plateau by the Chichemees,
a barbarian tribe of the Toltec family, in the middle of the seventh
century, or of the establishment of the Toltec monarchy in Anahuac, we
will not delay our readers, as these events bring us down to the period
of authentic history, on which we have information from other sources.

"From the moment," says M. de Bourbourg, "in which we see the supremacy
of the cities of Culhuacan and Tollan rise over the cities of the Aztec
plateau dates the true history of this country; but this history is, to
speak the truth, only a grand episode in the annals of this powerful
race [the Toltec]. In the course of a wandering of seven or eight
centuries, it overturns and destroys everything in order to build on the
ruins of ancient kingdoms its own civilization, science, and arts; it
traverses all the provinces of Mexico and Central America, leaving
everywhere traces of its superstitions, its culture, and its laws,
sowing on its passage kingdoms and cities, whose names are forgotten
to-day, but whose mysterious memorials are found again in the monuments
scattered under the forest vegetation of ages and in the different
languages of all the peoples of these countries."--Vol. I. p. 209.

M. de Bourbourg fitly closes his interesting volumes--from which we have
here given a resume of only the opening chapters--with a remarkable
prophecy, made in the court of Yucatan by the high-priest of Mani.
According to the tradition, this pontiff, inspired by a supernatural
vision, betook himself to Mayapan and thus addressed the king:--"At the
end of the Third Period, [A.D. 1518-1542,] a nation, white and bearded,
shall come from the side where the sun rises, bearing with it a sign,
[the cross,] which shall make all the Gods to flee and fall. This nation
shall rule all the earth, giving peace to those who shall receive it in
peace and who will abandon vain images to adore an only God, whom these
bearded men adore." (Vol. II. p. 594.) M. de Bourbourg does not vouch
for the pure origin of the tradition, but suggests that the wise men of
the Quiche empire already saw that it contained in itself the elements
of destruction, and had already heard rumors of the wonderful white race
which was soon to sweep away the last vestiges of the Central American
governments.

[NOTE.--We cannot but think that our correspondent receives the
traditions reported by M. de Bourbourg with too undoubting faith. Some
of them se