362 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. XX. 



conquerors, would be tarnished with innumerable deeds 

 of violence and cruelty. 



The Pacific provinces of Nicaragua were inhabited by 

 a people closely related to the Mexicans, and, as has 

 already been mentioned, their language was nearly the 

 same. According to Squier, who has more than any 

 other traveller studied the different races, the Indians 

 living at the island of Omotepec at the present time are 

 of pure Mexican or Aztec stock. So many of the names of 

 towns in the central provinces are also of Aztec origin, that 

 they must have had a considerable footing there also. 

 They called the older inhabitants, whom, they had 

 probably dispossessed and driven back to the interior, 

 " Chontalli," which means "barbarians," and hence the 

 name of the province of Chontales, where these tribes 

 still existed in considerable numbers at the time of the 

 conquest. 



All these races, differing as they did in language and 

 in the degree of civilization at which they had arrived, 

 were closely affiliated. The eminent American archaeo- 

 logist, Mr. John D. Baldwin, is of opinion that they 

 were the descendants of indigenes. That at some very 

 remote period before they had attained a high degree of 

 civilization, they separated into two branches, one of 

 which occupied Peru, the other Central America and 

 Mexico. Both branches advanced greatly in civilization, 

 and both afterwards deteriorated by being conquered by 

 ruder but more warlike people belonging to the same 

 stock. From Mexico the ancient people spread north- 

 ward and southward. The northern emigrants peopled 

 the banks of the Mississippi, and were the mound builders. 

 The southern emigrants peopled Central America. Then 



