The origin of the prevalence of that number SEVEN amongst all the nations of earth, even the most remote from each other, has never been satisfactorily explained, each separate people giving it a different interpretation, according to their belief and to the tenets of their religious creeds. As far as the Mayas are concerned, I think to have found that it originated with the _seven_ members of CAN’S family, who were the founders of the principal cities of _Mayab_, and to each of whom was dedicated a mound in Uxmal and a turret in their palace. Their names, according to the inscriptions carved on the monuments raised by them at Uxmal and Chichen, were--CAN (serpent) and [C]OZ (bat), his wife, from whom were born CAY (fish), the pontiff; AAK (turtle), who became the governor of Uxmal; CHAACMOL (leopard), the warrior, who became the husband of his sister MOÓ (macaw), the Queen of _Chichen_, worshiped after her death at Izamal; and NICTÉ (flower), the priestess who, under the name of _Zuhuy-Kuk_, became the goddess of the maidens. The Egyptians, in expressing their ideas in writing, used three different kinds of characters--phonetic, ideographic and symbolic--placed either in vertical columns or in horizontal lines, to be read from right to left, from left to right, as indicated by the position of the figures of men or animals. So, also, the Mayas in their writings employed phonetic, symbolic and ideographic signs, combining these often, forming monograms as we do to-day, placing them in such a manner as best suited the arrangement of the ornamentation of the façade of the edifices. At present we can only speak with certainty of the monumental inscriptions, the books that fell in the hands of the ecclesiastics at the time of the conquest having been destroyed. No truly genuine written monuments of the Mayas are known to exist, except those inclosed within the sealed apartments, where the priests and learned men of MAYAB hid them from the _Nahualt_ or _Toltec_ invaders.