snow and a volcano, where his hump-backed and dwarfish servants perished from the excessive cold. Bitterly he bewailed their death in song. Passing on, leaving signs of his progress on every hand, and sliding down the mountains, he tarried here and there, building a tlachtli court at one place, the markings of which were visible in deep gashes on the hills. Once he transfixed a tree with a dart or with another tree, so that it resembled a cross. In other localities he constructed subterranean houses (mictlancalco), and elsewhere balanced a great rolling-stone, and on all these spots he conferred names. At length he came to the sea-shore, where he commanded that a raft of snakes (coatapochtli) should be constructed for him. In this he seated himself as in a canoe, put out to sea, and set out for Tlapallan.79
Torquemada’s account of the Quetzalcoatl myth somewhat resembles that of Sahagun, due, no doubt, to the circumstance that he had access to the unpublished MS. of that author, from which he borrowed in a wholesale manner. The points of difference are these: Quetzalcoatl was high-priest of Tollan, whence he migrated to Cholula. The ruler of Tollan was one Huemac, but Quetzalcoatl was its chief in spiritual and ecclesiastical matters. In drinking the magic potion of Tezcatlipocâ, Quetzalcoatl desired to render himself immortal. He left the impress of his body on a stone situated on a mountain near the city of Tlalnepantla (or Temacpalco), two leagues from Mexico, as the natives declared to Torquemada himself. Met by the sorcerers Tezcatlipocâ and the others who tried to hinder his going, he refused to stay his progress, and said that he must pass on to the sun-land. Father Sahagun, remarks Torquemada, when at Xochimilco, was asked by the natives, who were keenly desirous of