large force of Aztec soldiers must have lived
in Yucatan at one time.

Other interesting monuments at Chichen-Itza deserve a passing mention. Mr.
Teobert Maler (Yukatekische Forschungen, Globus, 1895, p. 284) relates
that there are two pyramid-temples in the terraces of which the remains of
great stone tables have been found. He states that one of these tables was
originally supported by two rows of seven sculptured caryatids and by a
central row of plain columns with flat, square tops. Traces of paint
showed that the figures had been painted, that a yellow-brown color had
predominated, but that all ornaments or accessories were either blue or
green. The caryatids exhibited a variety of costume and of size and each
showed a marked individuality. The second table standing in a larger
temple, was originally painted red and supported by twenty-four caryatid
figures which resemble each other closely, show no individuality and which
seem to have been disposed in two rows of twelve each. Mr. Maler infers
from this that, being more highly conventionalized, they were of a later
date than the previous examples. If it were not for the circumstance that
both tables had the same number of supports their numeral 24 might pass
unobserved. As it is, I shall recur to it on mentioning other monuments
with figures yielding the same number and disposed, in one case, as 6x4.
In connection with these stone tables I recall the fact that, in the Maya
language, they were called Mayac-tun.

Mr. W. H. Holmes (_op. cit._, p. 134) tells us that in one case the
continuous table had been formed by a series of limestone tablets
averaging three feet square and five or six inches thick, each slab having
been supported by two of the dwarfish figures which stand with both hands
aloft, giving a broad surface of support. He ascertained that "these slabs
were wonderfully resonant and when struck lightly with a hammer or stone,
give out tones closely resembling those of a deeply resonant bell, and the
echoes awakened in the silent forest are exceedingly impressive." Mr.
Holmes' account of these resonant stone tables is of particular value to
me because it throws an interesting light upon the following Maya words: I
have already stated that the native name for table is Mayac, and that a
stone table is Mayac-tun. The word _tun_, however, not only signifies
stone, but also sound and noise. From this it would seem that stone tables
such as Mr. Holmes describes