The Maya was the sole language spoken throughout the peninsula of Yucatan, and the northern portion of Guatemala, at the time of the first settlement of the Spaniards in Campeachy. The difficulty of opening an intercourse with the Indians, and of mastering their language, was at first exceedingly great; but was finally surmounted by the learning and religious zeal of the Catholic priesthood, who, after years of incessant labor and self-denial, under the most discouraging circumstances, succeeded not only in acquiring a knowledge of the Maya tongue, sufficient to enable them to converse with and preach to the natives, but to invent a written language, and to compose a grammar and a vocabulary. It is impossible to reflect upon the physical and mental exertions of the Catholic missionaries among the Indians of America, without admiration. The Jesuits in Paraguay, Chili, Peru, and, in truth, throughout the whole of South America, animated by an unextinguishable zeal in the cause of religion, buried themselves in the most remote districts, in the midst of the most appalling dangers, and quietly and undauntedly set about the task of conquering the Indian, not with the sword, but with the pen; and they ceased not until they had obtained that key to his heart, in the shape of an embodied language, which all the political changes of the continent, during the lapse of centuries, have not been able to wrest from them. The Indian in Yucatan and Guatemala, as well as in South America, acknowledges no authority but that of the priest, and it is through the influence of the Church alone, that the temporal power is enabled to keep up even the semblance of government. The Padre is to the Indian a guide, father, and friend; he consults him on all occasions. We hazard little in saying that throughout nine tenths of the peninsula of Yucatan, if we except the seaport towns, the entire control of the Indians is in the hands of the priesthood, and that the political relations now existing as between the government and the governed, would be instantly dissolved were the clergy to withhold their co-operation; and that the result would be the same, whatever mutations may take place among the parties which may now or hereafter contend for political supremacy.