of this court shall pass away.” When he had spoken they sacrificed him, and paid little attention to his prophecy. Warring here and there, suffering defeat seldom, but troubled with diseases and epidemics, a plague came at last which nearly depopulated the city of Tecpan, and was especially fatal among the nobility, both kings dying. So great was the mortality that there was not time to bury the dead, and they were often left to the vultures. When this scourge had passed, Achi-Balam and Belehé-Qat were called to the throne, and during their reign came the news of the terrible work of the Spaniards in Mexico. These young kings decided to send an embassy to the mighty chief of the invaders, begging his protection and aid against their enemies. We have to-day the letter of Cortez to Charles V., dated in Mexico, Oct. 15, 1524, describing this embassy of Guatemalans to surrender their country and countrymen to the foreign devils who had destroyed their neighbors beyond the forests of the North. One almost feels that these wretched Cakchiquels deserved the miseries they brought upon themselves. Whether by any combination the tribes of Central America could have resisted the invaders, as did the Lacandones, no man can say. Probably their time had come, and no human or divine influence could change the event; but it is sad to see these many tribes, while the storm was gathering over their devoted heads, fighting among themselves in the most headstrong way: and so they fought until the coming of Pedro Alvarado. Guatemala held three hostile camps,—the Quichés at Utatlan; the Cakchiquels at Iximché or Tecpan Quauhtemalan; and the Tzutohiles at Atitlan. December 6, 1523, the greatest general and most trusted friend of Cortez, Pedro de Alvarado, departed from the City of Mexico at the head of three hundred infantry (of whom one hundred and thirty were archers and gunners), and one hundred and twenty cavalry. He took four small cannon, in which were used stone balls, forty reserve horses, and his native allies were two hundred Tlaxcaltecas and one hundred Mexicans, besides a large number of _tlamenes_ to carry the baggage. With this warlike array went two ministers of the Prince of Peace, Juan Godinez and Juan Diaz. The conquest of Guatemala was the end to be attained.