these are the work of this race, or of one still older, is entirely
uncertain.

The most ancient language of Central America, the ground on which all
the succeeding languages have been planted, is the Maya. Even the Indian
languages of to-day are only combinations of their own idioms with this
ancient tongue. Its daughter, the Tzendale, transmits many of the oldest
and most interesting religious beliefs of the Indian tribes.

All the traditions, whether in the Quiche, the Mexican, or the Tzendale,
unite in one somewhat remarkable belief,--in the reverent mention of an
ancient Deliverer or Benefactor; a personage so enveloped in the halo
of religious sentiment and the mist of remote antiquity, that it is
difficult to distinguish his real form. With the Tzendale his name is
Votan;[A] among the many other names in other languages, Quetzalcohuatl
is the one most distinctive. Sometimes he appears as a wise and
dignified legislator, arrived suddenly among an ignorant people from an
unknown country, to instruct them in agriculture, the arts, and even in
religion. He bears suffering in their behalf, patiently labors for them,
and, when at length he has done his work, departs alone from amid the
weeping crowd to the country of his birth. Sometimes he is the mediator
between Deity and men; then again, a personification of the Divine
wisdom and glory; and still again, the noble features seem to be
transmuted in the confused tradition into the countenance of Divinity.
Whether this mysterious person is only the American embodiment of
the Hope of all Nations, or whether he was truly a wise and noble
legislator, driven by some accident to these shores from a foreign
country, and afterwards glorified by the gratitude of his people,
is uncertain, though our author inclines naturally to the latter
supposition. The expression of the Tzendale tradition, "Votan is