The legends of those tribes who came to Mexico over the broad path leading down from the north refer to an ancient home, of which they retained a sad, vague longing, as the Moor still dreams of the glories of Granada. They preserved the tradition of their long migrations in their hieroglyphics and pictured writings. These traditions bear a strong resemblance to each other, and the dialects of the successive races which appeared in Mexico are so similar that it is probable they all belong to the same language, which is called Nahuatl. All these races are generalized as the Nahuas. One of the traditions relates that seven families alone were saved from the Deluge. Their descendants, after long and weary wanderings, fixed themselves at Huehue-Tlapallan (the Old, Old, Red Rock), a fertile country and agreeable to live in, near a broad and endless river, flowing from mountains far away to an ever distant sea. On the shore of the river were broad plains where cattle grazed. The mountains, with summits reaching to the heavens, were full of game. The winters were long, but the summers mild and agreeable. There the parents of the Nahuas dwelt long and happily, but at last enemies, whose attacks they had been obliged from time to time to resist, overcame them, and drove them from their homes. It was then they descended towards the south, seeking a land which should remind them of their favored home. Only when they reached the plateau of Anahuac, near the great lakes which reminded them of their mighty river, could they rest. Such legends as these, and the forms of the pyramids found in Mexico and Yucatan, lead naturally to the guess that these races were the descendants of the Mound Builders of the Mississippi Valley, Ohio, and Missouri. The monuments of these prehistoric men are not unlike the teocallis and pyramids of the Nahuas. The "mounds" are artificial hills of earth, constructed with mathematical regularity, round, oval, or square. They are finished at the top by platforms, destined, apparently, to religious rites. Like those in Mexico, the Mounds, in their form and the great number of them, bear evidence to the prolonged existence of the race who built them, to long years of labor, and thousands of workmen employed in their construction. Excavation has brought to light implements of war and household use, which show both taste and skill, and these objects are much alike in their general aspect, whether found in the valley of the Mississippi or of Mexico. Such conjectures are full of attraction; but they have, as yet, no solid foundation. As for the Mound Builders, their name, by which we now designate them, is but a modern label. Their own is effaced from the memory of men. Their origin is equally lost, and the time of their existence, the date of their monuments, are vanished in a vague past.