[27] [It is difficult to reconcile the two statements that the Toltecs “were the true fountains of the civilization which distinguished this part of the continent in later times,” and that they “disappeared from the land as silently and mysteriously as they had entered it,” leaving an interval of more than a century before the appearance of the Aztecs and the Acolhuans. If the latter received from the former the knowledge of those arts in which they speedily rivalled them, it must have been by more direct communication and transmission than can be inferred from the mention of a small fraction of the Toltec population as remaining in the country,--a fact which has itself the appearance of having been invented to meet the difficulty. Orozco y Berra compares this transitional period with that which followed the overthrow of the Roman Empire; but if in the former case there was, in his own words, “no conquest, but only an occupation, no war because no one to contend with,” the analogy altogether fails. Brasseur de Bourbourg reduces the interval between the departure of the Toltecs and the arrival of the Chichimecs to a few years, and supposes that a considerable number of the former inhabitants remained scattered through the Valley. If, however, it be allowable to substitute probabilities for doubtful relations, it is an easier solution to believe that no interval occurred and that no emigration took place.--K.] [28] The historian speaks, in one page, of the Chichimecs burrowing in caves, or, at best, in cabins of straw, and, in the next, talks gravely of their _señoras_, _infantas_, and _caballeros_!{*} Ibid., cap. 9, et seq.--Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 2, cap. 1-10.--Camargo, Historia de Tlascala, MS. [29] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 9-20.--Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 2, cap. 29-54. [30] [Some recent writers have contended that Mexico must have been peopled originally by migrations from the South. Aztec names and communities, and traces of Toltec settlements long anterior to the occupation of Anahuac by the same people, are found in several parts of Central America. The most primitive traditions, as well as the remains of the earliest civilization, belong also to the same quarter. This latter fact, however, is considered by Orozco y Berra as itself an evidence of the migrations having been from the North, the first comers having been naturally attracted southward by a warmer climate and more fertile soil, or pushed onward in this direction by successive invasions from behind. Contradictory inferences have in like manner been drawn from the existence of Aztec remains and settlements in New Mexico and Arizona. All that can be said with confidence is that neither of the opposing theories rests on a secure and sufficient basis.--K.] [31] These were the Colhuans, not Acolhuans, with whom Humboldt, and most writers since, have confounded them.{*} See his Essai politique, tom. i. p. 414; ii. p. 37.