At the period of the discovery of America, not a single tribe west of
the Rocky Mountains possessed the least agricultural skill. Whether the
superiority of the Central American and Mexican tribes was due to
more favorable circumstances and a more genial climate, or to the
instructions of foreign legislators, as their traditions relate, our
author does not decide. In his view, American agriculture originated in
Central America, and was not one of the sciences brought over by the
tribes who first emigrated from Asia.

Of the architectural ruins found in Central America M. de Bourbourg
says: "Among the edifices forgotten by Time in the forests of Mexico and
Central America are found architectural characteristics so different
from one another, that it is as impossible to attribute their
construction to one and the same people, as it is to suppose that they
were built at the same epoch.... The ruins that are the most ancient and
that have the most resemblance to one another are those which have been
discovered in the country of the Lacandous, the foundations of the city
of Mayapan, some buildings of Tulha, and the greater part of those
of Palenque; it is probable that they belong to the first period of
American civilization."--Vol. I. p. 85.

The truly historical records of Central America go back to a period but
little before the Christian era. Beyond that epoch, we behold through
the mists of legends, and in the defaced pictures and sculptures, a
hierarchical despotism sustained by the successors of the mysterious
Votan. The empire of the Votanides is at length ruined by its own vices
and by the attacks of a vigorous race, whose records and language have
come down even to our day,--the only race on the American continent
whose name has been preserved in the memory of the peoples after the