it rained night and day. And men went and came, out of themselves, as if
struck with madness. They wished to mount upon the roofs, and the houses
fell beneath them; when they took refuge in the caves and the
grottoes, these closed over them. This was their punishment and
destruction."--Vol. I. p. 55.

In the Mexican tradition, instead of the rain we find a violent eruption
of the volcanoes, and men are changed into fishes, and again into
_chicime_,--which may designate the barbarian tribes that invaded
Central America.

In still another tradition, the Deity and his associates are more
plainly men of superior intelligence, laboring to civilize savage
races; and finally, when they cannot inspire two essential elements of
civilization,--a taste for labor, and the religious idea,--a sudden
inundation delivers them from the indocile people. Then--so far as the
mysterious language of the legend can be interpreted--they appear to
have withdrawn themselves to a more teachable race.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