Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/484

476 and enclosure are well worth a visit, even in this land of churches and chapels.

The Tula River runs near, half around the town, and where the road reaches it a bridge is thrown across,—a bridge of stone, arched, and with a parapet, and with an inscription on a tablet stating that it was built in 1772,

Ancient Tula must be regarded as one of the most interesting groups of ruins in Mexico, the seat of the people who gave

to the country an advanced civilization, of which evidences yet exist. Above the city, on a hill overlooking two valleys, a ridge about a mile in length, are the ruins of buildings said to have been erected before even the Aztecs came to this country. In the year 648, according to Prescott, who follows the native historian, Clavigero, the Toltecs arrived in this valley and commenced their city; they abandoned it in the year 1051, and the Chichimecs took possession in 1170, and eventually the Mexicans, in 1196. Here the last tarried for one hundred and