such written characters some of the ancient national documents. Those versions of native myth and history survive, and attention is now being directed to them. The most recent contribution from this source is _The Annals of the Cakchiquels_, by Dr. D. G. Brinton, a carefully edited and annotated translation of a native legal document or _titulo_, in which, soon after the Conquest, the heir of an ancient Maya family set forth the evidence of his claim to the inheritance. Along with this may be noted another work of the same class: _Titre Généalogique des Seigneurs de Totonicapan. Traduit de l’Espagnol par M. de Charencey._ These two works independently illustrate the same great national event. In one, a prince of the Cakchiquel nation, tells of the overthrow of the Quiché power by his people; and in the other a Quiché seignior, one of the “Lords of Totonicapan,” describes it from his own point of view. Both were of the same Maya stock, in what is now the State of Guatemala. Each nation had a capital adorned with temples and palaces, the splendour of which excited the wonder of the Spaniards; and both preserved traditions of the migration of their ancestors from Tula, a mythical land from which they came across the water. Such traditions of migration meet us on many sides. Captain Cook found among the mythological traditions of Tahiti, a vague legend of a ship that came out of the ocean, and seemed to be the dim record of ancestral intercourse with the outer world. So also, the Aztecs had the tradition of the golden age of Anahuac; and of Quetzalcoatl, their instructor in agriculture, metallurgy and the arts of government. He was of fair complexion, with long dark hair, and flowing beard: all, characteristics foreign to their race. When his mission was completed, he set sail for the mysterious shores of Tlapallan; and on the appearance of the ships of Cortes, the Spaniards were believed to have returned with the divine instructor of their forefathers, from the source of the rising sun.