454 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



food ; the air, infected with mortal contagion, filled 

 the graves with dead ; a great part of the nation per- 

 ished of famine or sickness ; the last king was among 

 the number, and in the year 1052 the monarchy end- 

 ed. The wretched remains of the nation took ref- 

 uge, some in Yucatan and others in Guatimala, 

 while some lingered around the graves of their kin- 

 dred in the great vale where Mexico was afterward 

 founded. For a century the land of Anahuac lay 

 waste and depopulated. The Chechemecas, follow- 

 ing in the track of their ruined cities, reoccupied it, 

 and after them the Acolhuans, the Tlastaltecs, and 

 the Aztecs, which last were the subjects of Monte- 

 zuma at the time of the invasion by the Spaniards. 



The history of all these tribes or nations is misty, 

 confused, and indistinct. The Toltecans, represent- 

 ed to have been the most ancient, are said to have 

 been also the most pohshed. Probably they were 

 the originators of that peculiar style of architectm*e 

 found in Guatimala and Yucatan, which was adopt- 

 ed by all the subsequent inhabitants ; and as, accord- 

 ing to their own annals, they did not set out on their 

 emigration to those countries from the vale of Mex- 

 ico until the year 1052 of our era, the oldest cities 

 erected by them in those countries could have been 

 in existence but from four to five hundred years at 

 the time of the Spanish conquest. This gives them 

 a very modern date compared with the Pyramids and 

 temples of Egypt, and the other ruined monuments 

 of the Old World ; it gives them a much less antiqui- 



