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fare, that of the people, if necessary. Prompted by such evil passions, he put himself at the head of his own vassals and attacked those who had remained faithful to Queen Móo and to Prince Coh's memory.

Here, then, we have the origin of the enmity between the woman and the serpent, to which we find allusion in Genesis; and of that of the sun and the serpent, prevalent in all countries where vestiges of Maya civilization are found.

At first, Queen Móo's adherents successfully opposed her foes. The contending parties, forgetting in the strife that they were children of the same soil, blinded by their prejudices, let their passions have the best of their reason. Fortune favored now one side, now the other. At last Queen Móo fell a prisoner in the hands of her enemy.1 (Plate LII.)

Let us hear what the author of the Troano says: "The people of Mayach, having been whipped into submission and cowed, no longing opposing much resistance, the lord seized her by the hair and, in common with others, caused her to suffer from blows. This happened on the ninth day of the tenth month of the year Kan;" that is, on the seventh Eb, of the month Yax, of the year Kan.

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Being completely routed, she passed to the opposite seacoast, toward the east. Seeking refuge, the queen went to the seacoast in the southern parts of the country, which had already suffered much injury. This event took place on the first day of the sixth month of the year Muluc;" that is to say, on the tenth of the month Xul, in the year Muluc, or eight months and twelve days after she had been made a prisoner.

"The northern part of the country being subjected, he con1 Troano MS., part ii., plates xvi. and xvii.

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quered the others one by one, and also those which had aided the queen, reunited the severed parts, and again made the country whole under his sway. This happened on the eighth day of the fourth month of the year Ix;" that is, on the third Imix, of the month Zoɔ, of the year Ix, or ten months and eight days after Queen Móo's departure for Zinaan.

An explanation of the illustrations accompanying the text of the Maya author may serve to show that we have correctly apprehended his narrative.

Beginning with the picture on the right of the chapter, we see the queen on her knees, her hands joined as in supplication. Her foe holds her by the hair and kicks her. This explains sufficiently the text "he caused her to suffer from blows."

south) of the empire.
political condition of
She is in full flight

Next she is portrayed as a bird, a macaw, Móo, with black plumage, typical of her misfortunes. Her leg is hanging; the claw half open, as having just lost hold of the hindquarter of the deer-another symbol of the country. This is emblematic of her losing the last grasp on that part (the The deer is severed in two, to show the the country divided into two factions. toward Zinaan, a figure of which the bird holds in its beak. The line joining it to the deer indicates that the West Indies were a dependency of the Maya Empire. The last picture represents Aac carrying away triumphantly the country of which he is now sole master, whose several parts, reunited, are under his sway. We shall leave for another occasion the recital of the events that took place in Mayach after Móo's departure from the country, and follow her in her journey eastward. Enough to say that Aac, left alone in the government, became so tyrannical that the people uprose against him. and expelled him from the country. That event ended the

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Can dynasty, and brought about the dismemberment of the empire.

As far as our present knowledge of American records concerning Queen Móo goes, her history comes to an end with her flight to Zinaan. Not feeling safe in that country, she continued to travel toward the rising sun, in the hope of reaching some of the isles, remnants of the Land of Mu. It was known that that country, once the "pride of the sea," had greatly suffered in consequence of an awful cataclysm caused by earthquakes. She was well aware that a few islands had escaped the general destruction, and remained above the waters the only vestiges of that place, once so populous and so rich that in their writings the Maya authors styled it “the Life,” "the Glory of the Ocean," and of which, in his "Timæus,” 1 Plato has given so glowing a description. In one night it had suddenly disappeared, engulfed by the waves, with the majority of its inhabitants, some time previous to the happening of the political events in Maya history which we have just related. To one of those islands Queen Móo resolved to go to seek shelter.

'Plato, Dialogues, "Timæus," ii. 20.

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