[314] “They are doubtless,” says Mr. Latrobe, speaking of what he calls “these inexplicable ruins,” “rather of Toltec than Aztec origin, and, perhaps, with still more probability, attributable to a people of an age yet more remote.” (Rambler in Mexico, Let. 7.) “I am of opinion,” says Mr. Bullock, “that these were antiquities prior to the discovery of America, and erected by a people whose history was lost even before the building of the city of Mexico.—Who can solve this difficulty?” (Six Months in Mexico, ubi supra.) The reader who takes Ixtlilxochitl for his guide will have no great trouble in solving it. He will find here, as he might, probably, in some other instances, that one need go little higher than the Conquest for the origin of antiquities which claim to be coeval with Phœnicia and ancient Egypt.
[315] Zurita, Rapport, p. 12.
[316] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 43.
[317] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 43.
[318] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 43.
[319] “En traje de cazador (que lo acostumbraba á hacer muy de ordinario), saliendo á solas, y disfrazado para que no fuese conocido, á reconocer las faltas y necesidad que havia en la república para remediarlas.” Idem, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 46.
[320] “Un hombresillo miserable, pues quita á los hombres lo que Dios á manos llenas les da.” Ixtlilxochitl, loc. cit.
[321] Ibid., cap. 46.
[322] “Porque las paredes oian.” (Ixtlilxochitl, loc. cit.) A European proverb among the American aborigines looks too strange not to make one suspect the hand of the chronicler.
[323] “Le dijo, que con aquello poco le bastaba, y viviria bien aventurado; y él, con toda la máquina que le parecia que tenia arto, no tenia nada; y así lo despidió.” Ixtlilxochitl, loc. cit.