“No,” replied Quetzalcoatl, “not so much as a sip.”

“You must taste a little of it,” said the sorcerer, “even if it is by force.  To no living person would I give to drink freely of it.  I intoxicate them all.  Come and drink of it.”

Quetzalcoatl took the wine and drank of it through a reed, and as he drank he grew drunken and fell in the road, where he slept and snored.

Thus he passed from place to place, with various adventures.  His servants were all dwarfs or hunchbacks, and in crossing the Sierra Nevada they mostly froze to death.  By drawing a line across the Sierra he split it in two and thus made a passage.  He plucked up a mighty tree and hurling it through another, thus formed a cross.  At another spot he caused underground houses to be built, which were called Mictlancalco, At the House of Darkness.

At length he arrived at the sea coast where he constructed a raft of serpents, and seating himself on it as in a canoe, he moved out to sea.  No one knows how or in what manner he reached Tlapallan.[1]

[Footnote 1:  These myths are from the third book of Sahagun’s Historia de las Cosas de Nueva Espana.  They were taken down in the original Nahuatl, by him, from the mouth of the natives, and he gives them word for word, as they were recounted.]

The legend which appears to have been prevalent in Cholula was somewhat different.  According to that, Quetzalcoatl was for many years Lord of Tollan, ruling over a happy people.  At length, Tezcatlipoca let himself down from heaven by a cord made of spider’s web, and, coming to Tollan, challenged its ruler to play a game of ball.  The challenge was accepted, and the people of the city gathered in thousands to witness the sport.  Suddenly Tezcatlipoca changed himself into a tiger, which so frightened the populace that they fled in such confusion and panic that they rushed over the precipice and into the river, where nearly all were killed by the fall or drowned in the waters.

Quetzalcoatl then forsook Tollan, and journeyed from city to city till he reached Cholula, where he lived twenty years.  He was at that time of light complexion, noble stature, his eyes large, his hair abundant, his beard ample and cut rounding.  In life he was most chaste and honest.  They worshiped his memory, especially for three things:  first, because he taught them the art of working in metals, which previous to his coming was unknown in that land; secondly, because he forbade the sacrifice either of human beings or the lower animals, teaching that bread, and roses, and flowers, incense and perfumes, were all that the gods demanded; and lastly, because he forbade, and did his best to put a stop to, wars, fighting, robbery, and all deeds of violence.  For these reasons he was held in high esteem and affectionate veneration, not only by those of Cholula, but by the neighboring tribes as well, for many leagues around.  Distant nations maintained temples in his honor in that city, and made pilgrimages to it, on which journeys they passed in safety through their enemy’s countries.