83 
I 
Cholollan^ and of Papantla. They attributed 
these great edifices to the Toltecks, a powerful 
and civilized nation^ who inhabited Mexico five 
hundred years earlier, who made use of hiero- 
glyphical characters, who computed the year 
more precisely, and had a more exact chronot- 
logy than the greater part of the people of the 
old continent. The Aztech s knew not with 
certainty what tribe had inhabited the country of 
Anahuac before the Toltecks ; and conse- 
quently the belief, that the houses of the deity 
of Teotihuacan and of Cholollan was the work 
of the Toltecks, assigned them the highest anti- 
quity they could conceive. It is however pos- 
sible, that they might have been constructed 
before the invasion of the Toltecks ; that is, 
before the year 648 of the vulgar era. We 
ought not to be astonished, that no history of 
any American nation should precede the seventh 
century ; and, that the annals of the Toltecks 
should be as uncertain as those of the Pelasgi 
and the Ausonians. The learned Mr. Schloezer 
has clearly proved, that the history of the North 
of Europe reaches no higher than the tenth 
century, an epocha when Mexico was in a more 
advanced state of civilization than Denmark, 
Sweden, and Russia. 
The teocalli of Mexico was dedicated to Tez- 
catlipoca, the first of the Azteck divinities after 
Teotl, who is the supreme and invisible Being ; 
G 2 
