s and slurs which have been cast on Bishop Landa's work and
vindicate for it a very high degree of accuracy.

The hieroglyphics for the months are quite complicated, and in the
"Books of Chilan Balam" are rudely drawn; but, for all that, two or
three of them are evidently identical with those in the calendar
preserved by Landa. Some years ago, Professor de Rosny expressed himself
in great doubt as to the fidelity in the tracing of these
hierogylphs[TN-2] of the months, principally because he could not find
them in the two codices at his command.[14-+] As he observes, they are
_composite_ signs, and this goes to explain the discrepancy; for it may
be regarded as established that the Maya script permitted the use of
several signs for the same sound, and the sculptor or scribe was not
obliged to represent the same word always by the same figure.

In close relation to chronology is the system of numeration and the
arithmetical signs. These are discussed with considerable fulness,
especially in the "Book of Chilan Balam of Kaua." The numerals are
represented by exactly the same figures as we find in the Maya
manuscripts of the libraries of Dresden, Pesth, Paris and Madrid; that
is, by points or dots up to five, and the fives by single straight
lines, which may be indiscriminately drawn vertically or horizontally.
The same book contains a table of multiplication in Spanish and Maya
which settles some disputed points in the use of the vigesimal system by
the Mayas.

A curious chapter in several of the books, especially those of Kaua and
Mani, is that on the thirteen _ahau katuns_, or epochs of the greater
cycle of the Mayas. This cycle embraced thirteen periods, which, as I
have before remarked, are computed by some at twenty years each, by
others at twenty-four years each. Each of these _katuns_ was presided
over by a chief or king, that being the meaning of the word _ahau_. The
books above-mentioned give both the name and the portrait, drawn and
colored by the rude hand of the native artist, of each of these kings,
and they suggest several interesting analogies.

They are, in the first place, identical, with one exception, with those
on an ancient native painting, an engraving of which is given by Father
Cogolludo in his "History of Yucatan," and explained by him as the
representation of an occurrence which took place after the Spaniards
arrived in the peninsula. Evidently, the native in whose hands the
worthy father fou