60 TRANSACTIONS OP THE TEXAS ACADEMY OP SCIENCE. 
Tollantzinco, and Tollan or Tula can at present be examined in the State 
of Hidalgo. 
The starting point of the Toltecs in their pilgrimage is summarily 
treated by EUSTAQUIO BUELNA* in a recent study. This writer 
traces such a point as far north as the territories traversed by the Col¬ 
orado and Gila rivers, an opinion entertained by other ancient and mod¬ 
ern writers. He believes that the tribes in their wanderings must have 
passed by the Tulare lake found between the modern cities of San Fran¬ 
cisco and Los Angeles, in Upper California. Singularly enough the same 
name Tulare is still retained by a small town, in the county which also 
bears the same appellation, in that State. Nay, could not these wonder¬ 
ful people have come from farther north? I find that in the State of 
Nevada, in Elko county, on the northeastern portion, there is a little 
town called Tulasco. Be this as it may, again, in New Mexico, we come 
across with another place that bears the name of Tularosa . 
All these terms have in common the prefix tula , which is neither of 
English nor Spanish origin. Tula is a nahoac or Toltec term, and comes 
from tollin , or tule , a name applied to a marshy plant, presumably 
abundant in the neighborhood of the first Tollan or Tula. The plant 
here referred to is not found about the Mexican Tula, and it is but fair 
to infer that the modern city derived its name from the ancient town. 
Traveling South, then, the Toltecs must have arrived at the confluence 
or thereabouts of the two rivers mentioned, the Colorado and the Gila. 
Now, the word Gila is undoubtedly derived from Xilla , itself composed 
of xilotl , which drops the particle otl and takes that of tla or la , meaning 
“a country abundant in green corn.” Once more, it may be inferred 
that somewhere in this vicinity the first Huehuetlapallam or Tlapallam 
must have been built, from the fact that this last term, tlapallam , signi¬ 
fies in the Toltec language “ a place near the red soil.” 
The character of the ruins of ancient towns, discovered later in the 
regions just alluded to, points strongly to the probability of said towns 
having been the work of cultured races, and not of the numerous North 
American Indian tribes which have never shown any tendency to progress 
or civilization. 
In the course of years, of centuries perhaps, the Toltecs in their pass¬ 
age from Gila to Anahuac must have followed a route by way of Sonora 
and Sinaloa, along the coast, until they reached the high tablelands of 
Mexico, founding the city of Tula first and of Texcoco afterwards. 
Tula or Tollan, situated about forty miles north of the actual Capital 
of the Republic, and almost perfect as regards the excellency of the 
climate and the fertility of the soil, was looked upon by the Toltec fam¬ 
ily as their promised land. Indeed, Tula was the realization of their 
* Peregrination de los Aztecas, Mexico, 1887. 
