tradition than was the north-western origin, so long implicitly accepted. There are no data by which to fix the period of the original Maya empire, or its downfall or breaking-up into rival factions by civil and foreign wars. The cities of Yucatan, as is clearly shown by Mr Stephens, were, many of them, occupied by the descendants of the builders down to the conquest, and contain some remnants of wood-work still in good preservation, although some of the structures appear to be built on the ruins of others of a somewhat different type. Palenque and Copan, on the contrary, have no traces of wood or other perishable material, and were uninhabited and probably unknown in the sixteenth century. The loss of the key to what must have been an advanced system of hieroglyphics, while the spoken language survived, is also an indication of great antiquity, confirmed by the fact that the Quiché structures of Guatemala differed materially from those of the more ancient epoch. It is not likely that the Maya empire in its integrity continued later than the third or fourth century, although its cities may have been inhabited much later, and I should fix the epoch of its highest power at a date preceding rather than following the Christian era. A Maya manuscript fixes the date of the first appearance in Yucatan of the Tutul Xius at 171 A. D. The Abbé Brasseur therefore makes this the date of the Nahua dispersion, believing, on apparently very slight foundation, the Tutul Xius to be one of the Nahua fragments. With the breaking-up of this empire into separate nations at an unknown date, the ancient history of Central America as a whole ceases, and down to a period closely preceding the conquest we have only an occasional event preserved in the traditions of two or three nations.
MAYA NATIONS OF YUCATAN.
Yucatan was occupied in the sixteenth century by the Mayas proper, all speaking the same language, and living under practically the same institutions, religious and political. The chief divisions were the
