That these people are the descendants of the ancient Mayas, there is hardly room to doubt. That tongue now pervades the whole peninsula, and is understood and spoken even by the whites. They were well known to be far advanced in civilization when first discovered, the strongest evidences of which are scattered throughout the province. Their calendars have been deciphered; and their astronomical symbols and hieroglyphical signs have been identified with those of the Mexicans. They had also their picture writings, called _analthes_, which were executed upon bark, and folded up in the same shape as books.[2] Waldeck says, and a residence of several years gives weight to his impressions, that the Maya now spoken partakes very little of the ancient language of the country; more especially in the neighborhood of large towns and cities. The continued intercourse that has existed between the Indians and Spaniards, since the conquest, has Castilianized their idiom to such an extent, that the original is nearly lost to those who are now held in vassalage. The affinity observable between the Maya and Tchole dialects proves them to be a complete medley; and that this mixture occurred at an early period, he was convinced from the proofs he held in his own possession of the ancient idioms. For instance, in referring to his vocabulary, he finds that those words ending in _un_, in the Tchole _tulum_, (a circle,) are _tulun_. The _x_ has the sound of _ch_ in _church_. The Mayas are indebted to Francis Gabriel Bonaventure, author of a work published in 1560, called _Arte del Idioma Maya;_ and to R. P. F. Pedro Beltran, who wrote in 1746,[3] two Franciscan monks, for this style of pronunciation. Waldeck affirms, that the language now spoken in Yucatan is not that for which those authors laid down the principles. It appears that these people had no written language other than their hieroglyphics. The idioms now used were put into their present shape by their conquerors, from sounds representing things, gathered from the lips of the Indians. Definitions of their figurative writing, so far as it can be ascertained, might lead to more satisfactory results. They might serve as guides to some knowledge of a race, which evidently practised the useful and the ornamental arts; but which probably had emigrated to this hemisphere previous to the invention of letters.