_Tabasco_ is said by Bernal Diaz to have been the name of the principal chief of the eight provinces or tribes, who together opposed the Spaniards. For this reason I would reject the derivation from the Nahuatl, proposed by Rovirosa,--_tlalli_, earth, _paltic_, wet or swampy, _co_, in,[6-2]--however appropriate it would be geographically; and also that from the Maya, _tazcoob_, "deceived," referring to the deceptions practiced on the Spaniards,--which is defended by Orozco y Berra[6-3]; and I should accept that which I find suggested by Dr. Berendt in his manuscript work on Mayan geographical names. He reads _Tabasco_ as a slightly corrupt form of the Maya _T'ah-uaxac-coh_, "our (or the) master of the eight lions," referring to the eight districts or gentes of the tribe. This is significant and appropriate, the jaguar, the American lion, being a very common emblem in the ruins of Cintla. The branch of the Mayan stock which occupied the litoral of the province of Tabasco at that time were those later known as the Tzentals (otherwise spelled Zendal or Tzeltal). By some writers they have been called the Chontals of Tobasco, _chontal_, as is well known, being merely a common noun in Nahuatl to express foreigners or barbarians. Their identity with the modern Tzentals of Chiapas has been established by the researches of Dr. Berendt. The Tzental is a dialect closely akin to pure Maya, though it was believed by Dr. Berendt to present nearer relations than the Maya proper to the dialect of the Huastecas, a segregated idiom of the Mayan family, spoken near Tampico. _The Locality._--Until M. Desire Charnay brought out the results of the Lorillard expedition in his handsome work, "The Ancient Cities of the New World,"[6-4] no one, so far as I know, had expressed any doubt that Cintla was situated near the mouth of the great river, the Rio de Tabasco, formed by the confluence of the Usumacinta and the Rio de Grijalva, and emptying into the bay of Campeche, 18 deg. 35', north latitude. M. Charnay did not visit the ruins of Cintla nor the site of Potonchan, which I am about to describe; but he did make an examination of the ruins of Comalcalco, about thirty miles west of Cintla; and as they are of notable magnitude, he proceeds to argue that they represent the ancient Cintla, of the victory of Cortes.