126 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



their alliance by inter-marriages until they became one, 

 which taking its name from the mofl: noble party, was 

 called Acolhua, and the kingdom Acolhuacan ; the 

 name of Chechemecas being left to thofe who, prefer- 

 ring the exercife of the chace to the toil of agriculture, 

 or grown impatient of fubordination, went off to the 

 mountains, which are towards the north and the north- 

 weft of the vale of Mexico, where yielding themfelves 

 up to the impulfe of their barbarous liberty, without 

 a chief, without laws, without a fixed dwelling, or the 

 other advantages of fociety, they employed the day in 

 purfuit of animals for prey, and when fatigued funk 

 down to fleep wherever night overtook them. Thefe 

 barbarians mingled with the Otomies, a nation which 

 was attached to the fame courfe of life, occupied a tra^t 

 of more than three hundred miles of country, and the 

 Spaniards were harraffed by their defcendants for many 

 years after the conqueft of Mexico. 



When the nuptial feftivities were at an end, XolotI 

 divided his kingdom into feveral diftindl ftates, and 

 affigned the poflelTion of them to his fons-in-law, and 

 the other nobles of each nation. He granted to prince 

 Acolhuatzin the ftate of Azcapozalco, eighteen miles to 

 the weft of Tezcuco, and from him defcended the kings 

 under whofe government the Mexicans continued more 

 than fifty years. On Chiconquauhtli he conferred the 

 ftate of Xaltocan 5 and on TzontecomatI, that of Co- 

 atlichan. 



The population daily increafed, and with it the civili- 

 zation of the people; but at the fame time ambition 

 and other pafEons which had lain dormant from the 

 want of ideas, in times of a favage life, began to 

 awaken in their minds. XolotI, who, during the greats 



eft 



