Far away from some distant home, early in the dim traditional annals of Anahuac, men came to settle upon its plains. They found there a race of giants--strange, fierce men, of immense strength,--whose ancestors perhaps had struggled with prehistoric beasts, of which the bones lie buried deep below the present surface. This race of giants was wild and rude; they lived by hunting, and devoured raw the flesh of the game they secured with bows and arrows; they were brave, daring, and agile, but were given over to the vice of drunkenness. We cannot stop to be very much interested in this rudimentary people, called Quinames, who have left us scarcely more than a name, and little even of legend to charm us. The pyramid of Cholula and that of Teotihuacan are ascribed to them, rather by way of pushing back these monuments to an ancient period. Their conception and execution show ambition, perhaps veneration, as well as determination and perseverance. Whence they came, therefore, it is vain to speculate: how long they were there, what manner of men they were. A wave of life more civilized swept down upon them from the north and exterminated the whole race, so that we have nothing more to tell about them. The tribes which have the credit of destroying the giants bear the names of Xicalancas and Ulmecas. They paused a while upon the plateau, and passed on to people the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico. Next came the Mayas, still always from the north. Although they left some traces upon Anahuac, they too moved farther on, to establish in Yucatan and the territory between Chiapas and Central America their greatly advanced civilization. Of this great family the many different branches speak dialects varying from the mother tongue, but allied to each other. The Otomis, still with the same northern origin, spread themselves very early over the territory which is now occupied by the states of San Luis, Potosi, Guanajuato, and Querétaro, reaching Michoacan, and spreading still farther. These were a rough people who lurked among the mountains, avoiding the life of large communities. They have left no record of progressive civilization. Their descendants are still traced in the regions which they chiefly occupied, by peculiarities of dialect. Mixtecas and Zapotecas are names of other peoples who came to occupy Anahuac, but the Toltecs are the first of these ancient tribes distinguished for the advancement of their arts and civilization, of which their monuments and the results of excavation give abundant proof.