Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/190

 America as originally peopled from Asia, the Asiatic having crossed over, perhaps, at Behring's Straits, and made their way south. One Mexican writer stoutly maintains that Mexico was the cradle of the race, and the migration was in the opposite sense. This accords at any rate, with Buckle's general theory, that the thickly settled portions of the earth were at first those where climate and a natural food-supply made the maintenance of life easy. In these places, too, civilization began. The warm and fertile area of Central America, therefore, would have teemed with humanity before the vast North was peopled. There may have been sculptured cities, one upon another, long before even Uxmal and Palenque, the origin of which was lost in obscurity to the Aztecs.

However this may be, the Aztecs themselves, whether descendants of a race expatriated from the South and become rugged in the North, or having crossed over from Asia, came down from the colder regions, like the Goths and Vandals upon Italy. The tradition on this point is clear. One day two leading personages, Huitziton and Tecpultzin, in their far-off northern regions, wherever they were, heard a small bird singing in the branches ''ti-hui! ti-hui!''—let us go! They listened intently and took counsel together. "This is really very singular," we may suppose Huitziton saying, while Tecpultzin sagely laid a finger beside his nose and listened again. One would like a historic picture by some competent humorist of these two simple worthies deciding the fate of their nation. ''Ti-hui! ti-hui!'' piped the little songster inexorably, and that there seemed nothing for it but that the Aztec people should move southward, which they proceeded to do.

They overwhelmed the civilized Toltec capital at Tula