to
introduce into her wigwam, and to inculcate upon the minds of her
children, a few of the primary ideas of civilization. It is the
commonly received notion that the Toltecs abandoned the table-land
about the time of the arrival of the Aztecs, but continued to flourish
in the region of the Gulf coast and in other parts of the hot country;
that the vast ruins which abound in those regions were inhabited cities
till within a few generations of the coming of the Spaniards; and that
in Yucatan, the part most distant from Mexico, that civilization
continued quite down to that period; that for a great portion of the
one hundred and seventy years of their national existence, the Aztecs
kept up predatory excursions into the Toltec region, and out of its
dense population derived an inexhaustible supply of slaves and the
plunder of civilization, included in which may have been the best
wrought of the stone idols that are still preserved. So that the Aztec
civilization resolves itself into the very ancient civilization of the
Toltecs.

PYRAMID OF PAPANTLA.

We have removed to a greater antiquity, but have not got rid of the
question of the origin of Mexican civilization. The year 600, named by
Humboldt, may be considered as the time of their appearance on the
table-land; out many of the ruins in the hot country might claim a
thousand years earlier antiquity. These massive remains must have
stood, abandoned as they are now, in the midst of the forest, for a
long time before the Conquest, as their very existence was unknown to
the Spaniards until near the close of the last century. The close
resemblance between the apparently most ancient of these works, and
those of the Egyptianss and other Eastern civilizations, does not
involve the idea of a common origin or of intercourse, but only leads
to the suggestion that the human race, in its progress, naturally
follows the same path, whether upon the eastern or western continent,
and that it is separated by a cycle of thousands of years from the
civilization of our day. As a specimen of the works of the Toltecs, I
insert a sketch of the pyramid of Papantla.

[Illustration: PYRAMID OF PAPANTLA.]

"The pyramid of Papantla," says Humboldt,[44] "is not constructed like
the pyramids of Cholula and Mexico. The only materials employed are
immense stones. Mortar is distinguished in the seams. The edifice,
however, is not so remarkable for its size as for its symmetry, the
polish of the