GENERAL SUEVEY. 3 



a climate analogous to that of temperate Europe, has enabled Spanish and other 

 immigrants to occupy the land. Flourishing European colonies have been 

 founded on these uplands, where they have acquired sufficient influence to impart 

 their usages, language and culture to the great mass of the aboriginal populations. 

 Within 100 miles of the coast Citlaltepetel, the " Star Mountain," which passing 

 seafarers beheld glittering at sunset and sunrise like a flaming beacon above the 

 arid and swampy j)lains of the seaboard, seemed to invite them to scale the inter- 

 vening heights and take possession of the breezy inland tablelands. They under- 

 stood the language of nature which attracted them to these uplands, where were 

 afterwards founded Orizaba, Cordoba, and other flourishing cities of "New Spain." 



Fig. 1. — Central American Isthmuses and Inland Seas. 

 Scale 1 : 40,000,000. 



to 500 

 Fathoms. 



Depths. 



500 to 2,000 

 Fathoms. 



2.000 Fathoms 

 and upwards. 



620 Miles. 



While physically distinct from the continental masses of north and south. 

 Central America itself is divided into secondary regions presenting such differ- 

 ences that the inhabitants, grouped in separate tribes and nations, remained 

 formerly almost completely isolated. Communications were rare and difficult, and 

 no ethnical cohesion had been developed amongst these isolated elements. Before 

 the conquest few migrations or intcrminglings took place, except in the Mexican 

 regions, which lay broadly open in the north towards the, plains of Texas, the pla- 

 teaux and intermediate valley's of the Rocky Mountains and the Califoruian slope. 



In the Mexican legends or annals are commemorated the peaceful or conquering 

 movements of the populations following in successive waves of migration from 



