It is not our purpose to go back to the several traditions of the creation of man, preserved in as many localities in Mexico, each with its own variations, but simply to take up tradition where it first relates to the Toltec families. We are fully aware of the wide range of opinion with reference to what properly constitutes this tradition, and of the irreconcilable variations in dates and numeric details among the several Spanish writers. Probably all will agree that the native writer Ixtlilxochitl, who inherited the rich collection of royal archives and hieroglyphic paintings belonging to his ancestors (and which fortunately escaped the wholesale vandalism of the conquerors), though both contradictory and negligent, has furnished us the most reliable narrative which has yet been brought to light. Without attempting to correct or unravel his chronology, we simply translate his account of the origin of the Toltecs. Speaking of the first age of the world, the pre-diluvial period, he says: “It is found in the histories of the Toltecs that this age and first world as they call it, lasted 1716 years; that men were destroyed by tremendous rains and lightning from the sky, and even all the land without the exception of anything, and the highest mountains, were covered up and submerged in water ‘caxtolmoletlti,’ or _fifteen cubits_, and here they add other fables of how men came to multiply from the few who escaped from this destruction in a ‘toptlipetlacali,’ that this word nearly signifies a close chest; and how after men had multiplied they erected a very high ‘zacuali,’ which is to say a tower of great height, in order to take refuge in it, should the second world (age) be destroyed. Presently their languages were confused; and not able to understand each other, they went to different parts of the earth. The Toltecs, consisting of seven friends with their wives, who understood the same language, came to these parts, having first passed great land and seas, having lived in caves, and having endured great hardships in order to reach this land, which they found good and fertile for their habitation; and relate that they wandered one hundred and four years through different parts of the world before they reached Hue hue Tlapalan, which was in Ce Tecpatl, five hundred and twenty years after the flood. Seventeen hundred and fifteen years after the flood, there was a terrible hurricane that carried away trees, mounds, houses and the largest edifices, notwithstanding which many men and women escaped principally in caves and places where the great hurricane could not reach them. A few days having passed, they set out to see what had become of the earth, when they found it all covered and populated with monkeys. All this time they were in darkness without seeing the light of the sun nor the moon that the wind had brought them. The Indians invented a fable which says that men were changed into monkeys. * * * One hundred