My readers will judge for themselves of the correctness of this assertion. The reading of the Maya inscriptions and books, among other very interesting subjects, reveals the origin of many narratives that have come down to us, as traditions, in the sacred books of various nations, and which are regarded by many as inexplicable myths. For instance, we find in them the history of certain personages who, after their death, became the gods most universally revered by the Egyptians, Isis and Osiris, whose earthly history, related by Wilkinson and other writers who regard it as a myth, corresponds exactly to that of Queen Móo and her brother-husband Prince Coh, whose charred heart was found by me, preserved in a stone urn, in his mausoleum at Chichen. Osiris, we are told, was killed by his brother through jealousy, and because his murderer wished to seize the reins of the government. He made war against the widow, his own sister, whom he came to hate bitterly, after having been madly in love with her. In these same books we learn the true meaning of the tree of knowledge in the middle of the garden; of the temptation of the woman by the serpent offering her a fruit. This offering of a fruit, as a declaration of love, which was a common occurrence in the every-day life of the Mayas, Egyptians, and Greeks, loses all the seeming incongruity it presents in the narrative of Genesis for lack of a word of explanation. this shows how very simple facts have been, and still are, made use of by crafty men, such as the highpriest Hilkiah, to devise religious speculations and impose on the good faith of ignorant, credulous, and superstitious masses. It is on this story of the courting of Queen Móo by Prince Aac, the murderer of But her husband-purposely disfigured by the scheming Jewish priest Hilkiah, who made the woman appear to have yielded to her tempter, perhaps out of spite against the prophetess Huldah, she having refused to countenance his fraud and to become his accomplice in it1-that rests the whole fabric of the Christian religion, which, since its advent in the world, has been the cause of so much bloodshed and so many atrocious crimes. In these Maya writings we also meet with the solution of that much mooted question among modern scientists-the existence, destruction, and submergence of a large island in the Atlantic Ocean, as related by Plato in his "Timæus" and "Critias," in consequence of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Of this dreadful cataclysm, in which perished sixtyfour millions of human beings, four different authors have left descriptions in the Maya language. Two of these narratives are illustrated—that contained in the Troano MS., the other in the Codex Cortesianus. The third has been engraved on stone in relief, and placed for safe-keeping in a room in a building at Chicħen, where it exists to-day, sheltered from the action of the elements, and preserved for the knowledge of coming generations. The fourth was written thousands of miles from Mayach, in Athens, the brilliant Grecian capital, in the form of an epic poem, in the Maya language. Each line of said poem, formed by a composed word, is the name of one of the letters of the Greek alphabet, rearranged, as we have it, four hundred and three years before the Christian era, under the archonship of Euclydes. 12 Kings, chap. xxii., verse 14 et passim; also 2 Chronicles, chap. xxxiv., verse 24. 2 See Appendix, note iii. Fleeing from the wrath of her brother Aac, Queen Móo directed her course toward the rising sun, in the hope of finding shelter in some of the remnants of the Land of Mu, as the Azores, for instance. Failing to fall in with such place of refuge as she was seeking, she continued her journey eastward, and at last reached the Maya colonies that for many years had been established on the banks of the Nile. The settlers received her with open arms, called her the "little sister," ioin (Isis), and proclaimed her their queen. Before leaving her mother-country in the West she had caused to be erected, not only a memorial hall to the memory of her brother-husband, but also a superb mausoleum in which were placed his remains and a statue representing him. On the top of the monument was his totem, a dying leopard with a human head—-a veritable sphinx. Once established in the land of her adoption, did she order the erection of another of his totems-again a leopard with human head-to preserve his memory among her followers? The names inscribed on the base of the Egyptian sphinx seem to suggest this conjecture. Through the ages, this Egyptian sphinx has been the enigma of history. Has its solution at last been given by the ancient Maya archives? In the appendix are presented, for the first time in modern ages, the cosmogonic notions of the ancient Mayas, re-discovered by me. They will be found identical with those of the other civilized nations of antiquity. In them are embodied many of the secret doctrines communicated, in their initiations, to the adepts in India, Chaldea, Egypt, and Samothracia-the origin of the worship of the cross, of that of the tree and of the serpent, introduced in India by the Nagas, who |