TOLTEC KING AND HIS THRONE.
"According to the historians, the Toltecs founded Tula, or Tollan, in the year 648. We have told elsewhere how the discovery of pulque brought about the ruin of the nation, but whether this is really so or not the historians cannot say positively. At any rate, the ruins of Tula are of great antiquity, and as we walked and stood among them we tried to make a mental picture of what was to be seen here a thousand years ago.
RUINS OF A TOLTEC PALACE.
"We imagined that we saw a long line of soldiers, armed with spears, light javelins, bows and arrows, and also with clubs studded with copper or silver nails. They were protected by cotton tunics thickly quilted, that must have been very warm when the wearers were marching, but evidently made an excellent armor. They had leggings of the same material, and they had wadded capes over their shoulders, but kept their arms bare for greater facility in handling their weapons. We pictured their king wrapped in a thick mantle knotted across his breast, with his hands bare, and his feet protected by sandals. These sandals were held in place by a thong passing between the first and second toes—exactly after the style of the foot-gear worn by the Japanese at the present time. His head was covered with a conical cap resembling that of the Persians, and his ears were ornamented with heavy rings that glistened through his long hair.
"At one side of the field where the soldiers are standing in battle-array we see some buildings which they tell us are storehouses where grain is laid away in times of abundance as a provision against a period of famine. This was a custom of the Toltecs, and on several occasions saved them from great suffering.
"One building which we cannot clearly make out is a tennis-court, so M. Charnay says, and if we have any doubt about it now we can be convinced, as one of the tennis-rings is still in place. Then there is a temple on the top of a hill, and the procession that is going towards the temple is in honor of a warrior who is receiving the honor of knighthood.