first settlement was at Chacnouitan, and subsequently, under Ahmekat Tutul-Xiu, at Balcalar. Whilst there, they heard of Chichen Itza, and later removed to this site, about the year 496. The fact that they are stated to have heard of Chichen Itza while they were at Balcalar seems to prove that some settlement already existed at the former place, and one version of the tradition represents them as setting out in search of it. For over a century they resided at Chichen Itza, and then removed to Champoton, probably owing to difficulties with their neighbours, since it is stated that Chichen was “destroyed.” Their stay at Champoton is estimated at about two centuries and a half, at the end of which period they wandered back to Chichen Itza and again established themselves there. Not long afterwards Uxmal was “founded” by one of the Xiu family, Ahzuitok Tutul-Xiu, about 989, and the famous “league” of Mayapan was formed. For some time, about two hundred years, a central government was maintained at Mayapan, the city associated so closely with Kukulkan, and no doubt the paramount chieftains were satisfied with little more than the bare recognition of suzerainty. But the centrifugal action so noticeable in the political history of the American peoples began to assert itself, the league split up and Mayapan fell. The exact circumstances which led to the downfall of the paramount city are obscure. The family of the Cocomes were the rulers of Mayapan at the time, and it would appear that they had begun to exercise a closer control over their vassals. To support the harsher methods which they introduced they commenced to employ the services of mercenaries, “Mexicans,” recruited in Tabasco and Xicalanco, and by their aid levied tribute upon the other members of the league to an extent which the latter were not prepared to suffer. The accounts of the Books of Chilan Balam are obscure, but they agree in the names of the personages who played the principal parts in the events which followed. Chac-Xib-Chac was the “Governor” of Chichen Itza, and it would appear that he conspired against the ruler of Mayapan, Hunac Ceel, who drove him out, according to the, no doubt, partisan account of the Xiu house, by “treachery.” This treachery probably implies the employment of the foreign mercenaries mentioned above, since Hunac Ceel’s agents are called the “seven men of Mayapan,” and their names, which are recorded, are Nahua rather than Maya. Ulil, the ruler of Itzamal, also appears to have been implicated in the conspiracy against the ruling house. But whatever was the exact course of events, the net result was that Chichen Itza was depopulated about the year 1187; meanwhile the Nahua mercenaries had influenced the ethnography of the country by the introduction of the bow as a weapon. But the end was not yet, the people of Chichen Itza nursed their revenge, and about a century later instigated a general rising which resulted in the sack of