Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/577

Rh of Mexico a great and preponderating influence. These characteristics extend, with some local modifications, to the inhabitants of the whole country formerly denominated the Western Internal Provinces (Provincias Internas Occidentales), which now comprise the States of Durango, Chihuahua, and Sonora and Cinaloa (forming one State), with the "Territories" of New Mexico and Californias. In all of these the white population predominates, and the Indians, where any remain (as in Sonora), continue unmixed with their conquerors, residing in towns and villages of their own (as the Mayo tribes), or hovering (like the Apaches and other barbarous nations) around the settled lands, seeking a precarious livelihood by the chace.

South of Chĭhūāhuă few of the aborigines are to be found, except in the Bŏlsōn de Măpĭmī, which communicates with the Indian hunting-lands in Cŏăhūilă and Texas, tenanted by the Cŏmañchĕs, and other Indios Bravos, who occupy the whole of the unsettled country between the Rio Bravo del Norte and the frontiers of the United States. In Durango there is hardly a single individual of the copper coloured race. At the time of the Conquest they all retired North upon the advance of the whites; and although some tribes of more settled habits remained in Sonora and Cinaloa, the great mass of the Indian