336 THE AMERICAN MIGRATION. 



while a branch of them, traversing the whole length of Cuba and the great arch 

 of the Caribbean 'islands, descended finally to the banks of the Oronoco. This 

 fraction of the migratory population may, of course, have been small and its im- 

 petus inconsiderable, since the necessity of maritime transport, though only from 

 island to island, would naturally impair its force. In the opinion of others, and 

 among them Humboldt, even the Rocky mountains in their extension north- 

 ward may have led similar branches of emigrants to adopt a different path in 

 their progress towards the south. Whether these branches originally issued 

 from the lake regions, though it is not impossible, is difficult to determine. 

 They must at any rate, in departing from their homes, have taken a directly 

 west or at least southwest direction. Although no substantial reasons can be 

 assigned why any race of those latitudes should have given a preference to the 

 toilsome defiles of the Rocky mountains, when the fair and commodious plains 

 and prairies of the south lay before them, yet too many points of apparent con- 

 nexion present themselves to admit of our consigning their adoption of such a 

 route to the category of impossibilities. 



It is from the Rio Gila onwards that we are first enabled to perceive definite 

 traces of ihe course of the migration into the regions of the south; the indica- 

 tions of the different stages of its progress increase with its entrance upon Mexi- 

 can territory, but we yet possess only sparingly the means of identification. 

 The first immigrants who appeared in the north of Mexico brought with them 

 the so-called Toltecatl civilization, the work of the races of the great Nahoa 

 family.* The space which this mode of culture gradually occupied is shown 

 by the two great casas on the Rio Gilat and in Chihuahua, by el Zape in Du 

 rango and la Quemada in Zacatecas. Whether all these tribes maintained at 

 the same time a separate or subordinate condition cannot now be ascertained; 

 but in proportion to the genera growth and improvement would be the pro- 

 vection of their boundaries to the south and the inducements offered to further 

 migrations, f 



By the term immigration of a race we are not generally to understand a single 

 immigration only ; we should rather comprehend under the common name, for 

 example, of the Nahoa immigration, all expeditions of the branches belonging to 

 that family. These expeditions took place successively at intervals, and there- 

 fore, from first to last, suppose a considerable length of time, within which a 

 large number of these branches successively arrived on the banks of the Rio 

 Grande and Rio Gila. This consideration is of the more weight, since, through 

 an improper conception of such terms, which involve, as we see, an idea of 

 multitude, a source of confusion is introduced into the already sufficiently ob- 

 scure history of the American migration. 



Over the Nahoas floats still much mystical obscurity; the epoch of their 

 appearance in the northern parts of Mexico admits as yet of no accurate de- 

 termination ; it must have taken place, however, at a much earlier time than 

 the commencement of our Christian era. Our knowledge respecting these 

 partially mythical people amounts to little more than enough to justify us in 

 regarding them as perhaps the founders of (he stone-works in northern Mexico. 

 If we admit that the age of the civilization indicated in the region of the Missis- 

 sippi reaches back 2,000 years, it is not impossible that the Nahoas were also 

 the builders of the earth-mounds in North America, or at least belonged to the 

 race from which these Avorks proceeded. As regards the stone structures of the 



* The first volume of the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg's Histoire des Nations Civiliz&es du 

 Mexigue et de V Ameriqiie Ce>-tralc, (Paris 1857-'59, 4 vols.,) treats at leng'th of the Nahoas. 

 This work is very full and authoritative, though scarcely written with all the discrimination 

 and clearness which was desirable. 



t At the confluence of the Rio San Pedro with the Rio C4ila, which is itself an affluent of 

 the Rio Colorado, emptying into the Gulf of California, (Mar Vermeio. ) 



t Ovozco y Berra ; Geogr. d. las leng. de Mexico, p. 125. 



