worst that the boding words of the oracle foretold
was as nothing to the dire event which overtook them,--the destruction
of their nation, their temples and their freedom, 'neath the iron heel
of the Spanish conqueror. As the wise Goethe says:

"_Seltsam ist Prophetenlied,
Doch mehr seltsam was geschieht._"

As to the supposed reference to the cross and its worship, it may be
remarked that the native word translated "cross," by the missionaries,
simply means "a piece of wood set upright," and may well have had a
different and special signification in the old days.

By way of a specimen of these prophecies, I quote one from "The Book of
Chilan Balam of Chumayel," saying at once that for the translation I
have depended upon a comparison of the Spanish version of Lizana, who
was blindly prejudiced, and that in French of the Abbe Brasseur de
Bourbourg, who knew next to nothing about Maya, with the original. It
will be easily understood, therefore, that it is rather a paraphrase
than a literal rendering. The original is in short, aphoristic
sentences, and was, no doubt, chanted with a rude rhythm:

"What time the sun shall brightest shine,
Tearful will be the eyes of the king.
Four ages yet shall be inscribed,
Then shall come the holy priest, the holy god.
With grief I speak what now I see.
Watch well the road, ye dwellers in Itza.
The master of the earth shall come to us.
Thus prophesies Nahau Pech, the seer,
In the days of the fourth age,
At the time of its beginning."

Such are the obscure and ominous words of the ancient oracle. If the
date is authentic, it would be about 1480--the "fourth age" in the Maya
system of computing time being a period of either twenty or twenty-four
years at the close of the fifteenth century.

It is, however, of little importance whether these are accurate copies
of the ancient prophecies; they remain, at least, faithful imitations of
them, composed in the same spirit and form which the native priests were
wont to employ. A number are given much longer than the above, and
containing various curious references to ancient usages.

Another value they have in common with all the rest of the text of these
books, and it is one which will be properly appreciated by any student
of languages. They are, by common consent of all competent authorities,
the genuine productions of native minds, cast in the idiomatic forms of
the native tongue by t