CHAPTER III

and silver and buried many precious things in the mountains and ravines. He turned the cocoa-trees into mezquites and dispatched all the birds of brilliant plumage in Anahuac, three hundred miles away. On his journey to the coast he came to the hill Quauhtitlan, where he found a great tree, under which he rested. Gazing into a mirror, as he reclined under its shade, he said, “I am very old,” named the place Ueuequauhtitlan after his saying,⁷⁸ and stoned the tree. The stones he cast at it sank into its trunk, and were to be seen remaining there for long afterwards. Preceded by flute-players, he recommenced his journey, but once more became weary, and rested on a stone by the wayside. Looking towards Tollan, he wept, and his tears pitted the stone on which he sat, and the imprints of his hands and thighs also remained thereon. That place he called Temacpalco. Reaching a great river, he halted until a stone bridge was built over it, and having crossed, he called the place Tepanaoya. Certain sorcerers now met him, and asked him whither he was bound, why he had left his city of Tollan, and who would now do penance there. Quetzalcoatl replied that he must go, that he was called to Tlapallan by the Sun. The sorcerers requested him to leave behind his knowledge of the mechanical arts, the smelting of silver, the working of precious stones, and masonry, painting, and feather-work. These he left with them perforce. But his treasure of jewels he cast into the fountain of Cozcaapan hard by. Another magician whom he met insisted upon his drinking a draught which he could give “to none of the living.” Intoxicated, he slept, and when he awoke, tore his hair. That place was called Cachtoca. Pursuing his journey, he passed between a mountain of