252 NATURAL HISTORY OP 



tains. Many of these nations have therefore occupied 

 a high northern latitude on the west coast ; regions now 

 mostly in the hands of Esquimaux tribes, who, as they 

 have replaced them, have evidently arrived after their 

 departure : the former tribes, not emphatically fish- 

 eaters, but hunters, when, from single families, or from 

 a race mixed with the indigenous Flatheads, they had 

 increased to tribes ; and when in that little productive 

 region, where game is rare, they could no longer re- 

 main stationary, must have sought subsistence in and 

 beyond the mountain chain ; for to the east only, with 

 the exception of the valleys of California, could they 

 find the bison, the elk, the white mountain goat, the 

 ahzata, argali, prong-horned antelope, and the wapiti 

 stag. In pursuit of game, they must have come upon 

 the sources and feeders of the great rivers that run to 

 the south-east, and fall into the Gulf of Mexico or the 

 Atlantic. They would naturally follow their course, or 

 crossing the Ohio and Mississippi to richer woody re- 

 gions beyond the Alleghanies, occupy the eastern pro- 

 vinces of the present United States and Canada. Other 

 tribes of the west, probably immigrants of later periods, 

 and possessed of higher attainments, even with a rem- 

 nant of nautical means, descended between the islands 

 and the coast, till they reached the rivers now signifi- 

 cantly denominated de los Martires, and de los Pira- 

 inides; and thence, crossing the Colorado, rested for 

 some ages in the valley of the Gila.* Here they gra- 

 dually multiplied, advanced in civilization, and raised 



* Surely these point out two or more of the Astecan 

 halting places. 



