show an older form of the language, which at present can not be
deciphered. Brasseur de Bourbourg's "Rosetta Stone," discovered in
Landa's manuscript, will not serve him here. Another more potent must
be found before these old inscriptions can be made to give up their
secrets.[197-*]

THE ANCIENT HISTORY SKETCHED.

It is impossible to know what was contained in the books of annals
written by the official chroniclers of these ancient American countries,
for these books are lost. They existed at the time of the Conquest; some
of them were seen and described by Las Casas; but, so far as is known,
not one of these books of regular annals, such as he described, has
escaped destruction; therefore it is impossible to know any thing
certainly of their character as histories.

The books preserved furnish little more than vague outlines of the past,
with obscure views of distinct periods in the history, created by
successive dominations of different peoples or different branches of the
same people. What they enable us to know of the old history resembles
what is known of the early times of the Greeks, who had no ancient
histories excepting such as were furnished by their "poets of the
cycle." In one case we are told of Pelasgians, Leleges, Cadmeans,
Argives, and Eolians very much as in the other we are told of Colhuas,
Chichimecs, Quinames, and Nahuas.

But the outline is not wholly dark; it does not exclude the possibility
of a reasonable attempt at hypothesis. When Cortez entered Mexico, the
Aztecs, Montezuma's people, had been in power more than two centuries.
Most of the ancient history, of which something is said in these books,
relates to ages previous to their time, and chiefly to their
predecessors, the Toltecs. According to these writings, the country
where the ruins are found was occupied in successive periods by three
distinct peoples, the Chichimecs, the Colhuas, and the Toltecs or
Nahuas. The Toltecs are said to have come into the country about a
thousand years before the Christian era. Their supremacy appears to have
ceased, and left the country broken up into small states, two or three
centuries before the Aztecs appeared. They were preceded by the Colhuas,
by whom this old civilization was originated and developed. The most
ancient people, those found in the country by the Colhuas, are called
Chichimecs. They are described as a barbarous people who lived by
hunting and fishing, and had neither towns nor ag