Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/752

732 Usumacinta, yet they consist of a large number of nations, distinct in language, and differing greatly in culture, such as the Otomís, Zapotecs, Tarascos, and the representative Aztecs, forming a greater variety even than that which could be distinguished on the Iberian peninsula at the opening of the conquest. There was, therefore, no homogeneity of race which might prevent intermingling, while the geographic features of the country with its profound influence on race development presented similarities to the new-comers that brought involuntarily to their lips the name New Spain, by which term it was thereafter for a time known. Although the name was first pronounced upon the seaboard, these resemblances existed more particularly on the high table land where a temperate clime had lured to settlement and culture most of the nations referred to. Here flourished the cereals and fruits of Spain, wheat and barley by the side of maize and maguey, while the slopes of lofty ranges, under snow-crowned peaks, stood clad in rugged firs. In the sheltered valley grew the sugar-cane and indigo, and on either side of the plateau a fringe of heated coast line revelled in all the luxuriance of tropic nature. But this line was comparatively narrow, and so scantily occupied as to have little influence on Mexican development. A strange commingling truly of peoples and of climates to form a new race, with characteristics now modified, now intensified, the inheritor of past glories, the guardian of a transplanted culture. Even two of the earth's great divisions did not suffice to create it, for during early stages already a third element was infused by negroes from the dark continent, with a slight sprinkling from the fourth part of the world by Chinese and Malays. The latter have never been counted as an element however, and the recognized mixed breeds are mestizos, mulattoes, and zambos, or Indian zambos, with their degrees of admixture.