There are only two or three small papers published at Merida. These are mostly filled with stories, local news, and markets, an incomplete marine list, and a collection of advertisements, that too plainly indicate the fallen condition of trade. At Campeachy there is a single small periodical, devoted to literature, and very poorly patronised. These represent the whole editorial strength of Yucatan. These papers never pretend to differ in opinion with the government upon any question of public policy. They do not aspire to control public opinion, except that opinion may be at variance with the wishes of the “powers that be.” There is no freedom of discussion about the policy of the government or the religious establishments of the country, allowed or ever asked. What of interest these papers possess, therefore, arises from the stories which they occasionally publish, and the local news. It is obvious that the full force and efficacy of the newspaper have never been realized in any part of Mexico. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIV. Remarks on American Languages in general—Conflicting Opinions of Philologists—Religious Zeal a Stimulus that has produced the Grammars and Vocabularies of the American Languages—Sketch of the Grammar of the Maya Tongue—Concluding Observations respecting its Origin. The origin and the mutual relations of the American languages have long been favorite topics of discussion among philologists; but their researches and speculations have led to results so contradictory and utterly irreconcilable, that we are left, after a thorough perusal of the leading works upon the subject, in the same state of doubt and uncertainty with which we commenced it. Mr. Gallatin, in the prefatory letter to his learned and profound essay, entitled “A Synopsis of the Indian Tribes within the United States, East of the Rocky Mountains, and in the British and Russian Possessions in North America,” remarks, that “amid the great diversity of American languages, considered only in reference to their vocabularies, the similarity of their structure and grammatical forms has been observed and pointed out by the American philologists. The substance of our knowledge in that respect will be found, in a condensed form, in the appendix. The result appears to confirm the opinions already entertained on that subject by Mr. Du Ponceau, Mr. Pickering, and others; and to prove that all the languages, not only of our own Indians, but of the native inhabitants of America, from the Arctic Ocean to Cape Horn, have, as far as they have been investigated, a distinct character common to all, and apparently differing from those of the other continent with which we are the most familiar.” Mr. Gallatin, however, in a note appended to this paragraph, qualifies it by stating that “the grammar of the language of Chili is