Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/758

738 the large number of castes that by intermarriage seem to return gradually to the mother race. We find no such withering influence on the aboriginal population as in the north, and this must be due partly to the similarity between them and the invaders in their settled condition, which demanded no radical change for adaptation. While making few efforts to increase the population with emigrants, the government certainly did all to foster a natural growth by promoting early marriages, by introducing seeds and live-stock, and by other measures. Following in the wake of Las Casas early foreign writers have indulged in lamentations over the havoc inflicted by the conquerors and later by encomenderos, notably in working the natives to death in the mines. The disturbances ever accompanying war could not have failed in effect, as shown at the fall of Mexico, and the mines entombed vast numbers, less, however, by overtaxing strength than by the effect of climatic changes on persons suddenly transferred from a warm district to cold and rugged mountain regions. To this was added the change from quiet plantation life to rough mining toil. Nevertheless the losses by these means were comparatively small, and the great ravages that took place must be ascribed almost wholly to the diseases following the new civilization, such as small-pox, measles, and probably syphilis.

Endemics and famines also ruled periodically, and different districts had their special afflictions. The former, however, had less effect, since the people either became inured to or avoided the pestiferous regions. There remains no doubt that their total has fallen greatly from what it was in the time of Montezuma, when Tezcuco, Cholula, and a number of other cities