By way of a specimen of these prophecies, I quote one from "The Book of Chilan Balam of Chumayel," saying at once that for the translation I have depended upon a comparison of the Spanish version of Lizana, who was blindly prejudiced, and that in French of the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, who knew next to nothing about Maya, with the original. It will be easily understood, therefore, that it is rather a paraphrase than a literal rendering. The original is in short, aphoristic sentences, and was, no doubt, chanted with a rude rhythm: "What time the sun shall brightest shine, Tearful will be the eyes of the king. Four ages yet shall be inscribed, Then shall come the holy priest, the holy god. With grief I speak what now I see. Watch well the road, ye dwellers in Itza. The master of the earth shall come to us. Thus prophesies Nahau Pech, the seer, In the days of the fourth age, At the time of its beginning." Such are the obscure and ominous words of the ancient oracle. If the date is authentic, it would be about 1480--the "fourth age" in the Maya system of computing time being a period of either twenty or twenty-four years at the close of the fifteenth century. It is, however, of little importance whether these are accurate copies of the ancient prophecies; they remain, at least, faithful imitations of them, composed in the same spirit and form which the native priests were wont to employ. A number are given much longer than the above, and containing various curious references to ancient usages. Another value they have in common with all the rest of the text of these books, and it is one which will be properly appreciated by any student of languages. They are, by common consent of all competent authorities, the genuine productions of native minds, cast in the idiomatic forms of the native tongue by those born to its use. No matter how fluent a foreigner becomes in a language not his own, he can never use it as does one who has been familiar with it from childhood. This general maxim is ten-fold true when we apply it to a European learning an American language. The flow of thought, as exhibited in these two linguistic families, is in such different directions that no amount of practice can render one equally accurate in both. Hence the importance of studying a tongue as it is employed by natives; and hence the very high estimate I place on these "Books of Chilan Balam" as linguistic material,--an estimate much increased by the great rarity of independent compositions in their own tongues by members of the native races of this continent.