Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/284

 *chas), and the Peruvians, are connected. Quetzalcoatl, bearded, clothed in black, a high priest of Tula, subsequently a penance-performing anchorite on a mountain near Tlaxapuchicalco, comes to the highlands of Mexico from the coast of Panuco; therefore from the eastern coast of Anahuac. Botschica, or rather Nemterequeteba[8] (a Buddha of the Muyscas), a messenger sent by the Deity, bearded and wearing long garments, arrives in the high plains of Bogota from the grassy steppes east of the chain of the Andes. Before Manco Capac a degree of civilisation already prevailed on the picturesque shores of the Lake of Titicaca. The strong fort of Cuzco, on the hill of Sacsahuaman, was formed on the pattern of the older constructions of Tiahuanaco. In the same manner the Aztecs imitated the pyramidal structures of the Toltecs, and these, those of the Olmecs (Hulmecs); and gradually ascending, we arrive, still on historic ground in Mexico, as far back as the sixth century of our Era. According to Siguenza, the Toltec step-pyramid (or Teocalli) of Cholula is a repetition of the form of the Hulmec step-pyramid of Teotihuacan. Thus as we penetrate through each successive stratum of civilisation we arrive at an earlier one; and national self-consciousness not having awoke simultaneously in the two continents, we find in each nation the imaginative mythical domain always immediately preceding the period of historic knowledge.

Notwithstanding the tribute of admiration which the first Conquistadores paid to the roads and aqueducts of the Peruvians, not only did they neglect the repair and preservation of both these classes of useful works, but they even wantonly