364 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. XX. 



who were turned back on their ancient home, of which 

 they had lost all recollection, and where they appeared as 

 immigrants and invaders. In the subjugation of the 

 ancient Choluans by the Toltecs, and afterwards the 

 Toltecs by the Aztecs, we see what has often occurred in 

 the world's history a highly civilized race conquered by 

 a ruder people, who had advanced farther in the arts of 

 war, and so overcame the people who had advanced farther 

 in the arts of peace. Therefore the Choluans were re- 

 placed by the more warlike Toltecs, the Toltecs by the 

 ruder Aztecs, and those who look at the miserable towns 

 and villages of the present inhabitants alongside of the 

 ruins of the grand edifices, the roads and aqueducts of 

 ancient Mexico and Peru, may say, the Aztecs by the 

 less civilized Spaniards. 



The term Brown Indians has been proposed to dis- 

 tinguish the races of Mexico, Central and South America, 

 from the red Indians of the north ; but it is a too general 

 term, as it includes not only the highly-civilized Aztecs, 

 Mayas, and Peruvians, but the much ruder Caribs of the 

 eastern coasts of South America and the Antilles, who 

 were widely removed from, them in race and language. 

 Squier has proposed the term Nahuatls for the people 

 of Mexico and Central America, and if it might be 

 strained to include the Peruvians also, and all the peoples 

 descended from that ancient civilized race that had 

 spread northward and southward, it would supply a 

 want that I have greatly felt in studying these peoples. 

 The Nahuatls I use the term in the extended sense 

 are one of three great Indian races that occupy the 

 greater part of North and South America. They had 

 the Red Indians to the north of them, the savage Caribs 



