"No sé de donde tomó los fundamentos en que se apoya este sistema, quiza en el uso de su tiempo, que no ha llegado hasta este; aunque he visto en varios manuscritos antiguos, que los Indios de entonces como los de ahora, usaban el sistema que indico, y espresaban las unidades integras que numeraban, y para espresar el numero 65 dicen; _Oxkal catac hotul_ ù _hotu oxkal_, que usa el Padre Beltran por 45.[43-1] "Mas el metodo que explico esta apoyado en el uso y aun en el curso que se advierte en la 1ª y 2ª veintena é indican que asi deben continuar las decenas hasta la 20ª y no formar sistemas confusos que por ser mas ô menos análogos à la numeracion romana lo juzgaban mas ô menos perfectos, porque la consideraban como un tipo a que debia arreglarse cualquiera otra lengua, cuando en ellas todo lo que no este conforme con el uso recibido y corriente, es construir castillos en el aire y hacer reformas que por mas ingeniosas que sean, no pasan de inoficiosas." In the face of this severe criticism of Father Beltran's system, I cannot explain how it is that in Pio Perez's own Dictionary of the Maya, the numerals above 40 are given according to Beltran's system; and that this was not the work of the editors of that volume (which was published after his death), is shown by an autographic manuscript of his dictionary in my possession, written about 1846,[44-1] in which also the numerals appear in Beltran's form. Three other manuscript dictionaries in my collection, all composed previous to 1690, affirm the system of Beltran, and I am therefore obliged to believe that it was authentic and current among the natives long before white scholars began to dress up their language in the ill-fitting garments of Aryan grammar. Proceeding to higher numbers, it is interesting to note that they also proceed on the vigesimal system, although this has not heretofore been distinctly shown. The ancient computation was: 20 units = one _kal_ = 20 20 kal = one _bak_ = 400 20 bak = one _pic_ = 8,000 20 pic = one _calab_ = 160,000 20 calab = one _kinchil_ or _tzotzceh_ = 3,200,000 20 kinchil = one _alau_ = 64,000,000 This ancient system was obscured by the Spaniards using the word _pic_ to mean 1000 and _kinchil_ to mean 1,000,000, instead of their original significations.