OF THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 73 



population will be divided into cities, towns, villages and rural 

 districts, as in our own Province of Ontario to-day. 



With this division will begin their architectural era, and here, 

 too, the parent land will find transcript. The buildings, monuments, 

 public halls and temples erected by them, will be in copy of those 

 erected by their forefathers. They may have architects who will 

 enlarge or modify preconceived ideas or designs, but in the case of 

 emblematical monuments, or temples consecrated to religious 

 purposes, the original conception will be faithfully followed. More 

 particularly would this be the case among races of an earlier day, 

 when the schools of architecture were unknown, and the era was one 

 of darkness and superstition. 



Hence, appropriate to our subject, if we could gain a knowledge 

 of the customs of the early American races, together with a detailed 

 examination and comparison of the American ruins, we might 

 through these channels locate in what nation the early civilization of 

 the New World took its birth. For this purpose we will again turn 

 to the Toltecs, as these were probably the most authentic descend- 

 ants of the early colonizers of whom we have any record. As we 

 have said before, they are described as having been a fair, robust, 

 bearded race, who preceded the Aztecs in Mexico centuries prior to 

 the advent of the Spaniards. Prescott says that " through pestilence, 

 famine, and unsuccessful wars, they disappeared from the land as 

 silently and mysteriously as they had entered it, the greater number 

 spreading over Central America and the neighboring isles. They 

 were the true civihzers of the Aztecs themselves, the latter borrowing 

 their most useful arts, as well as their complex arrangement of time." 



This nation, according to their Mexican chronicler, located 

 their origin " across the sea, in the distant East, the fabulous Hue 

 Hue Tlapalan. Their leader was Quetzalcoatl, a white man, with a 

 strong formation of body, broad forehead, large eyes, and floiving 

 beard. He wore a mitre on his head, and was dressed in a long 

 white robe reaching to his feet and covered with crosses. In his 

 hand he held a sickle. His habits were ascetic, he never married, 

 and was most chaste and pure in life. He condemned sacrifice, 

 except fruits and flowers, and was known as the god of peace ; for, 

 when addressed on the subject of war he shut his ears with his 

 fingers." Of the first home of the great Toltec race— the mysterious 



