Such are the monuments of the Mayan people, of whom not many facts are to be disentangled from the early legends. Like the traditions of the Mexican tribes, the Mayas tell of a supernatural being, who came from the other side of the Caribbean seas, from a land of shadows. His name was Votan, in the Mayan tradition. He found a people in the extreme of barbarism living in caves, feeding upon the bloody flesh of animals they killed in hunting; he taught them many things, so that by his example, and for generations after he left them by his precepts, they advanced to high civilization. According to his instructions, the only sacrifices offered to the gods were the flowers and incense, sometimes birds and animals. Votan is described as a great warrior, leading his people to one triumph after another. Votan, it would seem, had a companion and disciple called Zamna, to whom also the inhabitants of Yucatan ascribe their ancient progress. It was he, they say, who invented hieroglyphics, and he was the first to attach names to men and things. He was buried, according to the account of the natives, at Izamal, one of the sacred towns of Yucatan, beneath three different pyramids. Under one is his right hand, the head under another, and the heart is beneath the third. A huge head carved in stone has been found at Izamal, which perhaps represents the Prophet Zamna. [Illustration: ZAMNA.] The Mayas used copper and gold. Their weapons were slings, spears, and arrows with points made of obsidian or bone. Their warriors wore armor of well-padded cotton, their shields were round and decorated with feathers, or the skins of animals. They made boats by hollowing out the trunks of trees, large enough to hold fifty people, which they guided with great skill. Votan was regarded as a god after his death, like Quetzalcoatl, with the Toltecs. Fierce wars waged between votaries of the two as time went on. The Mayan legends and the few manuscripts preserved tell of nothing but wars and conquests, struggles and defeats. The confederation invaded by other tribes who triumphed over it declined. Their religion deteriorated, as the traditions of Votan and his precepts faded away, and the people returned to the custom of human sacrifice, as bloody and terrible with them as with the other American races. In their monuments we can trace these evidences of their civilization; they are remarkable for number and dimension, and the taste and skill shown in their ornamentation implies a condition above that of savage tribes warring against each other to defend the necessities of mere existence. IX. AZTECS. We now come to the tribe best known among those who lived on the great plateau of Anahuac, the Aztecs, also called Mexicans. The latter name has come so generally to include the inhabitants of the whole country, that a distinction must be made.