the first precise date which scholars have yet been able to assign to
early American history; it probably occurred A.D. 174.

With the account of the invasion of the Aztec plateau by the Chichemees,
a barbarian tribe of the Toltec family, in the middle of the seventh
century, or of the establishment of the Toltec monarchy in Anahuac, we
will not delay our readers, as these events bring us down to the period
of authentic history, on which we have information from other sources.

"From the moment," says M. de Bourbourg, "in which we see the supremacy
of the cities of Culhuacan and Tollan rise over the cities of the Aztec
plateau dates the true history of this country; but this history is, to
speak the truth, only a grand episode in the annals of this powerful
race [the Toltec]. In the course of a wandering of seven or eight
centuries, it overturns and destroys everything in order to build on the
ruins of ancient kingdoms its own civilization, science, and arts; it
traverses all the provinces of Mexico and Central America, leaving
everywhere traces of its superstitions, its culture, and its laws,
sowing on its passage kingdoms and cities, whose names are forgotten
to-day, but whose mysterious memorials are found again in the monuments
scattered under the forest vegetation of ages and in the different
languages of all the peoples of these countries."--Vol. I. p. 209.

M. de Bourbourg fitly closes his interesting volumes--from which we have
here given a résumé of only the opening chapters--with a remarkable
prophecy, made in the court of Yucatan by the high-priest of Mani.
According to the tradition, this pontiff, inspired by a supernatural
vision, betook himself to Mayapan and thus addressed the king:--"At the
end of the Third Period, [A.D. 1518-1542,] a nation, white and bearded,
shall come from the side where the sun rises, bearing with it a sign,