in refulgence? Gone, gone, we know not whither.

The original home of the Toltecs was said to have been in Tlapallan--the
very same Red Land to which Quetzalcoatl was fabled to have returned; only
the former was distinguished as Old Tlapallan--Hue Tlapallan--as being
that from which he and they had emerged. Other myths called it the Place
of Sand, Xalac, an evident reference to the sandy sea strand, the same
spot where it was said that Quetzalcoatl was last seen, beyond which the
sun rises and below which he sinks. Thither he returned when driven from
Tollan, and reigned over his vassals many years in peace.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Se metió (Quetzalcoatl) la tierra adentro hasta Tlapallan ó
segun otros Huey Xalac, antigua patria de sus antepasados, en donde vivió
muchos años." Ixtlilxochitl, _Relaciones Historicas_, p. 394, in
Kingsborough, vol. ix. Xalac, is from _xalli_, sand, with the locative
termination. In Nahuatl _xalli aquia_, to enter the sand, means to die.]

We cannot mistake this Tlapallan, new or old. Whether it is bathed in the
purple and gold of the rising sun or in the crimson and carnation of his
setting, it always was, as Sahagun tells us, with all needed distinctness,
"the city of the Sun," the home of light and color, whence their leader,
Quetzalcoatl had come, and whither he was summoned to return.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Dicen que caminó acia el Oriente, y que se fué á la ciudad
del Sol, llamada Tlapallan, y fué llamado del sol." Libro. viii, Prologo.]

The origin of the earthly Quetzalcoatl is variously given; one cycle of
legends narrates his birth in Tollan in some extraordinary manner; a
second cycle claims that he was not born in any country known to the
Aztecs, but came to them as a stranger.