they are called "The Master of the Mountain," "The Heart of the Lake,"
"The Master of the Azure Surface," and the like. Even in the native
traditions, the questions are often asked: "Whence came these men?"
"Under what climate were they born?" One authority answers thus
mysteriously: "They have clearly come from the other shore of the
sea,--from the place which is called 'Camuhifal,'--_The place
where is shadow."_ Why may not this singular expression refer to a
Northern country,--a place where is a long shadow, a winter-night?

A singular characteristic of the ancient Indian legends is the mingling
of two separate courses of tradition. In their poetic conceptions, and
perhaps under the hands of their priests, the old myths of the Creation
are constantly confused with the accounts of the first periods of their
civilization.

The following is the most ancient legend of the Creation, from the MSS.
of Chichicastenango, in the Quiche text: "When all that was necessary to
be created in heaven and on earth was finished, the heaven being formed,
its angles measured and lined, its limits fixed, the lines and parallels
put in their place in heaven and on earth, heaven found itself created,
and Heaven it was called by the Creator and Maker, the Father and
Mother of Life and Existence, ... the Mother of Thought and Wisdom, the
excellence of all that is in heaven and on earth, in the lakes or the
sea. It is thus that he called himself, when all was tranquil and calm,
when all was peaceable and silent, when nothing had movement in the void
of the heavens."--Vol. I. p. 48.

In the narrative of the succeeding work of creation, says M. de
Bourbourg, there is always a double sense. Creation and life are
civilization; the silence and calm of Nature before the existence of