Page:Romance of History, Mexico.djvu/80

 from the Old World to the New? Curiously alike were many of their legends and customs to those of the Egyptians, the Hebrews, the Chinese, and the Tartars. Did they perchance cross from the coasts of Africa ere the mighty earthquake in one fatal day and night engulfed for ever beneath the billows Atlantis, that vast island which stretched, so the Greeks believed, across the ocean from Libya west-ward? Or was Asia, the great mother of nations, their ancient homeland? The wild wars of the Tartars may have driven many a tribe across the Behring Strait. This seems perhaps the most probable of theories. There is certainly something of the Mongol in the Mexican physique.

In the land of Anahuac settled a roaming people whose story we can only dimly guess. If they came from the wintry north, this country, which is now called Mexico, must have seemed a paradise on earth. Between two high mountain ranges stretches a lofty plateau, beautiful alike in scenery and climate. Lying a bare twenty degrees north of the equator, it would be hot as the plains of India if it were not for its altitude. Such a height, indeed, in the latitude of New York would mean an Arctic climate, but to Mexico it gives almost perpetual spring. Midway across the plateau is a valley with five fair lakes, while from the snow-capped mountains rivers flow eastward to the Atlantic and westward to the Pacific.

Almost all early civilisations have taken their rise in warm, well-watered lands, not too enervating in climate. In Egypt, China, Chaldea, the people gained an easy livelihood from the rich alluvial soil, 58