They kept their records in hieroglyphics.
"They had a year made up of eighteen months of twenty days each,
the other five and a fraction being chucked into the calendar
any old way. They knew about the stars and eclipses, and built
great cities.
"When they build their temples, it is said, they found ruins of
other temples beneath them. And the ones who built the temples,
the ruins of which the Toltecs found, doubtless found ruins of
temples when they began to dig. It is wonderful. The ages and
ages that have gone by, with new civilizations growing up and dying out."
"I feel like I was in a land older than the solar system," said Jimmie.
"What became of the Toltecs?"
"They were crowded out by the Aztecs somewhere about the twelfth century.
The Aztecs were warlike and cruel. It is said that they murdered twenty
thousand victims a year on the altars of their gods. They were able people,
too, but murderous in all their instincts. They were cultivated to a
degree far above the other peoples of the North American continent at
that time, but they lacked the feelings of humanity as expressed to-day.
"They built temples--mounds of clay faced with brick, surmounted by
great towers where the priests dwelt. It was at the summits of these
mounds, on a sacrificial stone, before all the people who could get
in view, that the victims of their religious frenzy were slain.
"Then Cortes came, in fifteen hundred and something, and the deluge
of blood began.
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