HISTORY OF MEXICO. 107 



land on the fuppofltion of the union of the two conti- 

 nents. 3. They might alfo make that paffage over the 

 ice of fome frozen arm of the fea. No perfon is igno- 

 rant how vaft and durable the frozen parts of the north- 

 ern feas are : it would not therefore be wonderful, that 

 a ftrait of the fea between the two continents fhould have 

 been frozen for fome months, and that men had palled 

 over ir, either in fearch of new countries or in purfuit of 

 wild beafts. We are, however, only mentioning what 

 could have happened, not what pofitively dicl happen. 



III. The anceftors of the nations which peopled the 

 country of Anahauc, of which alone we are treating, 

 might pafs from the northern countries of Europe into 

 the northern parts of America, or rather from the moll 

 eaftern parts of Afia to the moft wefterly part of Ameri- 

 ca. This conclufion is founded on the conftant and ge- 

 neral tradition of thofe nations, which unanimoufly fay 

 that their anceftors came into Anahuac from the coun- 

 tries of the north and north- weft. This tradition is con- 

 firmed by the remains of many ancient edifices built by 

 thofe people in their migrations, which we have already 

 mentioned, and the common belief of the people in the 

 north. Befides, from Torquemada and Betancourt we 

 have a clear proof of it. In a journey made by the Spa- 

 niards, in the year 1606, from New Mexico unto the 

 river which they call Tizon, fix hundred miles from that 

 province, towards the north-weft, they found there 

 fome large edifices and met with fome Indians who fpoke 

 the Mexican language, from whom they were told, that 



a few 



was of Bifcay, and others that he was a Portuguefe ; others deny the fa& en- 

 , tirely. However the cafe was, it is certain that hiftory records many inftances 

 of veffels having been driven by winds and carried many degrees out of their 

 courfe. 



