more teachable race. But with these the difficulty for the new
law-givers is that they find nothing corresponding to the
productions of the country from which they had come. Fruits are
in abundance, but there is no grain which requires culture, and
which would give origin to a continued industry. The legend
relates, somewhat naively, the hunger and distress of these
elevated beings, until at length they discover the maize, and
other nutritious fruits and grains in the county of Paxil and
Cayala. Our author places these latter in the state of Chiapas,
and the countries watered by the Usumasinta. The provinces of
Mexico and the Atlantic border of Central America he supposes to
be those where the first legislators of America landed, and
where was the cradle of the first American civilization. In
these regions, the great city attributed to Votan,--Palenque,--
the ruins of whose magnificent temples and palaces even yet
astonish the traveller, was one of the first products of this
civilization. With regard to