It is impossible to know what was contained in the books of annals written by the official chroniclers of these ancient American countries, for these books are lost. They existed at the time of the Conquest; some of them were seen and described by Las Casas; but, so far as is known, not one of these books of regular annals, such as he described, has escaped destruction; therefore it is impossible to know any thing certainly of their character as histories. The books preserved furnish little more than vague outlines of the past, with obscure views of distinct periods in the history, created by successive dominations of different peoples or different branches of the same people. What they enable us to know of the old history resembles what is known of the early times of the Greeks, who had no ancient histories excepting such as were furnished by their “poets of the cycle.” In one case we are told of Pelasgians, Leleges, Cadmeans, Argives, and Eolians very much as in the other we are told of Colhuas, Chichimecs, Quinames, and Nahuas. But the outline is not wholly dark; it does not exclude the possibility of a reasonable attempt at hypothesis. When Cortez entered Mexico, the Aztecs, Montezuma’s people, had been in power more than two centuries. Most of the ancient history, of which something is said in these books, relates to ages previous to their time, and chiefly to their predecessors, the Toltecs. According to these writings, the country where the ruins are found was occupied in successive periods by three distinct peoples, the Chichimecs, the Colhuas, and the Toltecs or Nahuas. The Toltecs are said to have come into the country about a thousand years before the Christian era. Their supremacy appears to have ceased, and left the country broken up into small states, two or three centuries before the Aztecs appeared. They were preceded by the Colhuas, by whom this old civilization was originated and developed. The most ancient people, those found in the country by the Colhuas, are called Chichimecs. They are described as a barbarous people who lived by hunting and fishing, and had neither towns nor agriculture. This term Chichimecs appears to have been a generic appellation for all uncivilized aborigines. Brasseur de Bourbourg says, “Under the generic name Chichimecs, which has much embarrassed some writers, the Mexican traditions include the whole aboriginal population of the New World, and especially the people by whom it was first occupied at the beginning of time.”