teresting document will be translated for the public press as soon as
the necessary consent of its present proprietor can be obtained, the
writer of this pamphlet the less regrets the very limited use of it to
which he is now restricted--which is but little more than that of making
a mere abridgement and connexion of such incidents as may serve to
explain the origin and possession of those _sui generis_ specimens of
humanity, the Aztec brother and sister, now exhibiting to the public, in
the United States. From the introductory paragraphs, we take the
liberty to quote the following without abridgement:--

"Our latitude and longitude were now 16 deg. 42' N. and 91 deg. 35' W; so
that the grand amphitheatre of hills, forming three fourths of an
oval outline of jagged summits, a few leagues before us, most
probably inclosed the mysterious object of our anxious and
uncertain labors. The small groups of Indians through which we had
passed, in the course of the day, had evidently been startled by
sheer astonishment, into a sort of passive and involuntary
hospitality, but maintained a stark apprehensive reserve in most of
their answers to our questions. They spoke a peculiar dialect of
the Maya, which I had never heard before, and had great difficulty
in comprehending, although several of the Maya Indians of our
party understood it familiarly and spoke it fluently. From them we
learned that they had never seen men of our race before, but that a
man of the same race as Senor Hammond, who was of a bright-florid
complexion, with light hair and red whiskers, had been sacrificed
and eaten by the Macbenachs, or priests of Iximaya, the great city
among the hills, about thirty moons ago. Our interpreters stated
that the word "Iximaya" meant the "Great Centre," and that
"Macbenach" meant the "Great Son of the Sun." I at once resolved to
make the most of my time in learning as much as possible of this
dialect from these men, because they said it was the tongue spoken
by the people of Iximaya and the surrounding region. It appeared to
me to be merely a provincial corruption, or local peculiarism, of
the great body of the Maya language, with which I was already
acquainted; and, in the course of the next day's conversation, I
found that I could acquire it with much facility."

To this circumstance the writer is