Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/23

 Rh Rather, let us ask, when was this valley first populated? We are not the first who have asked this question; we are not the last who will ask it. Constantly, to the inquiring mind that searches into the history of our country, this question arises: "Whence came these people, and when?"

Even yet, with all the light shed by science, we go groping about in the dark, asking of ourselves and of one another: "When and whence?" The origin of the American people is enveloped in mystery; but our knowledge of that portion that resided in Mexico extends farther into the past than of any other, for they were more civilized when discovered than any others They had records extending back hundreds of years.

They had cities and white-walled temples and palaces, even so long ago as when Columbus sailed into this New World; yes, even when the Northmen coasted our northern shores, eight hundred years ago.

You may add yet another thousand years to those eight hundred, and yet not reach the period in which those cities were built and to which their records carry us.

Nobody knows whence came the first populators of Mexico. Some historians think that they came from a region in the north; others believe that they originated in the south; others say they came from the west, and yet others that they came from the east.

From the north might have come the Jews, the lost tribes of Israel, by the way of Behring's Straits to the northwest coast of America, and thence, gradually moving southward, have reached finally Mexico.

They might have come this way, and at that remote time the islands between Asia and America may have been nearer together, or the sea may have been frozen over and have given them a safe passage. They may have brought with them their flocks and herds, and also all those strange