DAVID CERNA-PILGRIMAGE AND CIVILIZATION OF THE TOLTECS. 71 
especially are immortal proofs of the existence of the first civilized na¬ 
tion of America. 
It has been maintained by some, let me repeat, that the Mayas and the 
Maya-Quiches, the races peculiar to Yucatan and Chiapas, perhaps the 
most ancient of the American peoples, proceeded either directly or in¬ 
directly from Egypt and other Eastern nations; that the Mayas and the 
Maya-Quiches gave origin to the Toltecs, and that thus the series of other 
tribes came gradually into existence. But be this as it may, certain it 
is that the Mayas and the Maya-Quiches differed in many essential char¬ 
acteristics from the rest of the Anahuac nations. Other tribes may have 
existed during and even prior to the time of the Toltecs, but none have 
left the brilliant records of this great people. 
Undoubtedly the Toltecs were the first race to disseminate over the 
virgin regions of the American continent the true germs of civilization. 
If nothing else, it was the first historical race, the representative of the 
most primitive nations of Mexico, the same race, in point of fact, that 
was met by the Spaniards under the great Aztec monarchy. But the 
Toltec, all in all, and embracing as it does the sum of all the knowledge 
found in the most ancient human history of the American continent— 
the Toltec, may be regarded as the golden era of ancient Mexican civilza- 
tion. 
