Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/361

Rh leaving the ancient cities of Uxmal, Palenque, Utatlan, and the others in the southern region, in ruins. What devastating influences produced this movement in an entire people is not known, and the length of time occupied by it, is problematical, though it must have extended over centuries, ebbing and flowing intermittently. The conflicting traditions as to the direction from which tribes, law-givers, and priests arrived in Anáhuac are doubtless owing to distinct movements at different times of the southern peoples in their wandering search for a new and permanent abiding place. These early migrations from south to north, were succeeded during the period commonly termed the Middle Ages, by a counter movement, and the descendants of the first Maya emigrants began to return southwards, conquering or absorbing the different peoples they encountered. Although some of the peoples had preserved much of the culture bequeathed them by their forefathers, there was no uniform civilisation existing among them, save in the case of the Toltecs, who seem still to have been in the full enjoyment of their Maya heritage.

The Toltecs left their country, called Huehuetlalpallan, in the vague north-west, in the year 554 and, after one hundred and four years of migratory life, they founded the city of Tollantzinco in 648, whence they again moved in 667 to Tula, or Tollan, from which date, their monarchy, which lasted three hundred and eighty-four years, is reckoned (Clavigero, vol. iv.). According to Torquemada, the Chichimecas followed within nine years after the extinction of the Toltec sovereignty, but Clavigero's calculation shows the improbability of this, for several reasons, the most convincing of which is the incredible chronology of their kings. Torquemada says that Xolotl reigned 113 years, his son lived to be 170, and his grandson 104 years old, while another king, Tezozomoc reigned 180 years! It is obvious that the Chichimeca period must either be shortened, or the number of kings increased. After the Chichimecas came the six tribes of Tlascala, Xochimilco, Acolhua (Texcoco), Tepanec, Chalco, and Tlahuichco, closely followed by the Colhuans or Mexicans, who first arrived at Tula in 1196, and, after several shorter migrations, finally founded Mexico-Tenochtitlan in 1325, as is related in Appendix II. of this letter. The last tribe to come was that of the Otomies in 1420. Boturini believed that the tribes of Xicalango and the Olemchs antedated the Toltecs, but says that no records or picture-writings explaining their origin were discoverable in his time. From the foundation of Mexico in 1325, the form of government was aristocratic till 1352, when according to Torquemada's interpretation of their picture-writings, the first King Acamapatzin, eighth predecessor of Montezuma II., was elected, and reigned for thirty-seven years.

The Aztec civilisation, which attained its highest development in Tenochtitlan and Texcoco, never reached the level of the Maya culture, nor did its cities contain any such admirable buildings as those whose ruins still delight and mystify the traveller in Yucatan and Central America.