Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/271

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substantive, the plural or the superlative. A kiss is called in the Mexican language, Tetennamiquiliztli; a word formed from the verb tennamiqui to embrace, and the additive particles te and litzli. The most remarkable example he adds, I have met with of a real composition of words, is found in the word amatlacuilolitquitcatlaxtlahuilli which signifies, the reward given to the messenger who carries a paper on which is painted tidings. This word which forms by itself an Alexandrine line, contains Amatl, paper (of the Agave,) cuiloa to paint or trace hieroglyphics; and tlaxtlahuilli, the wages or salary of a workman.”

Like the rest of their countrymen, the Indians of Guatimala were idolaters, which soon excited in the minds of the bigoted Spaniards the same chivalric spirit that had distinguished their course in Mexico, while fighting for the honour of the Virgin Mary, and the extension of the Roman apostacy. The Pope and the mass book floated along the stream of blood, and superseded idolatries more harmless perhaps than their own, to substitute the forms of a worship dazzling to the eye, and eminently dangerous, inasmuch as the corruptions of truth are infinitely more difficult to eradicate than errors founded on pure ignorance without system or object. Crowds of monks followed the track of the conquerors, and