The truly historical records of Central America go back to a period but little before the Christian era.  Beyond that epoch, we behold through the mists of legends, and in the defaced pictures and sculptures, a hierarchical despotism sustained by the successors of the mysterious Votan.  The empire of the Votanides is at length ruined by its own vices and by the attacks of a vigorous race, whose records and language have come down even to our day,—­the only race on the American continent whose name has been preserved in the memory of the peoples after the ruin of its power, the only one whose institutions have survived its own existence,—­the Xahoa, or Toltec.

Of all the American languages, the Nahuatl holds the highest place, for its richness of expression and its sonorous tone,—­adapting itself with equal flexibility to the most sublime and analytic terms of metaphysics, and to the uses of ordinary life, so that even at this day the Englishman and the Spaniard employ its vocabulary for natural objects.

The traditions of the Nahoas describe their life in the distant Oriental country from which they came:—­“There they multiplied to a considerable degree, and lived without civilization.  They had not then acquired the habit of separating themselves from the places which had seen them born; they paid no tributes; and all spoke a single language.  They worshipped neither wood nor stone; they contented themselves with raising their eyes to heaven and observing the law of the Creator.  They waited with respect for the rising of the sun, saluting with their invocations the morning star.”

This is their prayer, handed down in Indian tradition,—­the oldest piece extant of American liturgy:—­“Hail, Creator and Former!  Regard us!  Listen to us!  Heart of Heaven!  Heart of the Earth! do not leave us!  Do not abandon us, God of Heaven and Earth!...  Grant us repose, a glorious repose, peace and prosperity! the perfection of life and of our being grant to us, O Hurakan!”

What country and what sun nourished this worship and gave origin to this great people is as uncertain as all other facts of the early American history.  They came from the East, the tradition says; they landed, it seems certain, at Panuco, near the present port of Tampico, from seven barks or ships.  Other traditions represent them as accompanied by sages with venerable beards and flowing robes.  They finally settled somewhere on the coast between Campeachy and the river Tabasco, and founded the ancient city of Xicalanco.  Their chief, who in the reverent affection of the nation became afterwards their Deity, was Quetzalcohuatl.  The myths which surround his name reveal to us a wise legislator and noble benefactor.  He is seen instructing them in the arts, in religion, and finally in agriculture, by introducing the cultivation of maize and other cereals.