Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/340

Rh and the vow or the worship that were once offered in the recesses of groves, in the silence of dark woods, or on the mountain-top,—were here poured forth on the lofty pyramid, built by human hands and fashioned by human art.

Although we are left in this mystery as to the peopling of America, I think there is not so much doubt in regard to the inhabitants of Uxmal, Palenque, Copan, Chichen-Itza, and the various cities that have been described by Mr. Stephens.

According to Clavigero, a tribe, known as the Toltecs, left their home in the north, and, after a journey of emigration that lasted 104 years, (during which time they frequently tarried in certain places for years and months, erecting edifices and partially establishing themselves,) they, at length, reached the vale of Anahuac, a territory that subsequently became the seat of the Mexican Empire. At Tollan, or Tula, they founded the Capital of a dynasty, which lasted 384 years;—celebrated for its wisdom, knowledge, and extensive civilization. About 1051, (the tradition runs,) famine and pestilence nearly desolated the kingdom, and a great portion of those who escaped the ravages of disease emigrated immediately to Yucatan and Guatemala, leaving but a scattering remnant of this once flourishing empire in Tula and Cholula.

For one hundred years afterward Anahuac was nearly depopulated.

Then came an emigration of the Chichimecas, from the north, like the Toltecs, and from a place which they called Amaquemecan. These, too, intermingling with the Toltec remnants, had their reign among the ruins of the former empire,—dwelling, however, in small villages, and lacking all the elements of civilization.

Eight years after their advent to Anahuac, six tribes called the Nahuatlacks arrived, having left, at a short distance, a seventh, called Aztecs. Shortly afterward, they were joined by their missing tribe and by the Acolhuans, who are said to have emigrated from Teoacolhucan, near the original country of the Chichimecas. These were, undoubtedly, the most enlightened of all the wandering tribes who had penetrated these valleys since the days of the Toltecs, and they speedily formed an alliance with their ancient neighbors.

Of all these wanderers, however, we have now no traditions, except in relation to the Aztecs, who, departing from Azatlan in the north about the year 1160, continued their singular and weary pilgrimage, with frequent delays, until 1325; when, finding on a rock in a lake, the "Eagle on the Prickly Pear," (the omen to which they had been prophetically directed for the foundation of their future Capital,) they gathered together among the marshes of Tezcoco, and built the city of Tenochtitlan,—the Mexico of Cortéz. It is believed, both by Clavigero and Humboldt, that all these tribes of the Toltecs, Acolhuans, Chichimecas and Nahuatlacks, spoke the same language, and therefore, in all probability, emigrated from about the same degree of northern latitude.