GROWTH AND DECLINE OF CULTURE. 151 



and dead, or even etymology, allusion, fancy, are their only 

 basis, from Sol, the son of Oceanus, who found out how to 

 mine and melt the brilliant, sun-like gold, and Pyrodes, the 

 " Fiery," who discovered how to get fire from flint, and the 

 merchants who invented the art of glass-making (known in 

 Eg}^t in such remote antiquity) by making fires on the sandy 

 Phoenician coast, with their kettles set to boil over them on 

 lumps of natron, brought for this likely purpose from their 

 ship, — across the world to Kahukura, who got the fairies' 

 fishing-net from which the New Zealanders learnt the art of 

 netting, and the Chinese pair, Hoei and Y-meu, of whom the 

 one invented the bow, and the other the arrow. 



As the gods Ceres and Bacchus become the givers of corn 

 and wine to mortals, so across the Atlantic there has grown 

 out of a simple mythic conception of nature, the story of the 

 great enlightener and civilizer of Mexico. When the key 

 which Professor Miiller and Mr. Cox have used with such suc- 

 cess in unlocking the Indo-European mythology is put to the 

 mass of traditions of the Mexican Quetzalcohuatl, collected by 

 the Abbe Brasseur,^ the real nature of this personage shows 

 out at once. 



He was the son of Camaxtli, the great Toltec conqueror 

 who reigned over the land of Anahuac. His mother died at 

 his birth, and in his childhood he was cared for by the virgin 

 priestesses who kept up the sacred fire, emblem of the sun. 

 While yet a boy he was bold in war, and followed his father on 

 his marches. But while he was far away, a band of enemies 

 rose against his father, and with them joined the Mixcohuas, 

 the " Cloud- Snakes,^' and they fell upon the aged king and 

 choked him, and buried his body in the temple of Mixcoate- 

 petl, the "Mountain of the Cloud- Snakes." Time passed on, 

 and Quetzalcohuatl knew not what had happened, but at last 

 the Eagle came to him and told him that his father was slain 

 and had gone down into the tomb. Then Quetzalcohuatl rose 

 and went with his followers to attack the temple of the Cloud- 

 Snakes' Mountain, where the murderers had fortified them- 

 selves, mocking him from their battlements. But he mined in 

 ' Brasseur, ' Histoii-e,' vol. i. books ii. and iii. See vol. iii. book xii. chapter iii. 



