263 MEXICO. 
Besides these tribes, there were others in the country at the period of 
the conquest. The Tarascos who inhabited Michoacan, the barbarous 
Ottomites, the Ohnecs and Xicalancas, and Miztecas and Zapotecas ; — ^the 
latter of whom are held, by Humboldt, to have been even superior to the 
Mexicans in point of civilization, and were probably antecedent, in the 
date of their emigration, to the Toltecs. In addition to this, you must 
bear in mind that the ancient Mexican Empire did not cover (as is usually 
supposed,) the whole of what is now the Republic of M'exico, or formerly 
New Spain. On the east, it was bounded by the river Coatzacualco ; on 
the north, it did not extend farther than Tusapan ; on the west, it was 
washed by the Pacific ; and on the south, it reached, in all probability, to 
near the limits of what are now the provinces of Chiapas and Tobasco.* 
You will recollect, that after the " pestilence and famine" that thinned 
the numbers of the Toltecs, the greater portion of the survivors emi- 
grated to Yucatan and Guatemala ; these were a highly civilized people, 
— living in houses, and building temples — to whom, perhaps, the Mexicans 
were indebted for the germ of their subsequent refinement. Is it not, 
then, highly probable, that the ancient ruins found by Mr. Stephens, 
scattered over Guatemala, Yucatan and Chiapas, were the palaces and 
temples of this wandering race ? It strikes me, that no one can compare 
the unquestionably Toltec Vase found in the department of Tula, and 
described at page 108, the sculptures on the Stone of Sacrifice, at page 
119 j and in fact the general characteristics of all the sculpture, idols 
and figures heretofore represented, with those delineated by Mr. Cather- 
wood, and doubt the identity or close connection between the people. 
We have every evidence of high civilization among the Mexicans, as you 
have observed in the preceding pages. They had temples, gods, gardens, 
magnificent dwellings, and all the paraphernalia of a splendid Empire. 
This Empire was in full power and glory at the period of the Spanish 
conquest. Its southern limit nearly bounded on Guatemala and Yucatan, 
and, with the most distant portion, there was, unquestionably, a com- 
munication kept up by the Capital. Why, then, may not the palaces of 
Uxmal, Palenque and Chiapas, have been inhabited, and their altars and 
temples used, as places of sacrifice in the days of Cortez, as well as the 
heights of Chapultepec — or the Teocalli of Mexico ? 
The silence of contemporary historians in regard to the former cities of 
Yucatan and Guatemala, is no argument against their having been inhab- 
ited. The two best writers, Cortez and Bernal Diaz, were soldiers, not 
antiquarians. They came for conquest, not research ; and it is greatly 
to be regretted that a history of Guatemala, known to have existed a 
few years ago in that country, in the original manuscript of Diaz, (and 
which was once in the possession of Mr. Whitehead, of Mexico,) has been 
utterly lost in the turmoils and confusion of that country. 
It seems to me impossible to believe that the Valley of Mexica was 
the only seat of refinement, taste, and luxury on the isthmus, or that so 
* Vide Humboldt, Clavigero, and JktcCuUoh. 
