life and patient cultivation, and it is an interesting fact that for years the identity of the wild plant from which it was produced remained a mystery. Other plants of economic importance were cacao, vanilla, tobacco and cotton, grown in the hot regions, and the agave or Mexican aloe which flourishes also in the higher country. The fauna includes jaguar ("tiger"), puma ("lion"), ocelot, deer, peccary, alligator, rattle-snake, turkey, humming-bird and the quetzal, the beautiful plumes of the latter being one of the most highly-prized articles of adornment. The distribution of these animals is not however constant throughout the whole area, but many of them are confined to the warmer countries. Little more need be said, for the purposes of this book, of the physical nature of the country, save that the rain-fall is not excessive, being heaviest upon the Atlantic slope; and that, while the land appears to be rising gradually on the Pacific side, much has been lost to the Atlantic on the east. With these few words of introduction an attempt will now be made to describe the inhabitants of the country and the culture which they built up before they came in contact with the Old World at the beginning of the sixteenth century.[1]
- ↑ A word of explanation should be said concerning the Mexican language. Like other American tongues its structure is such that long compound words and names are built up of significant elements, many of them being thus equivalent to a whole sentence. The practice is not unknown in this country, for is not "Obadiah Bindtheir-kings-in-chains-and-their-nobles-in-links-of-iron" familiar to every reader of Macaulay? At the same time it adds considerable difficulty to the study of Mexican archæology. As regards pronunciation, the chief points to be noted are as follows: X is always pronounced as SH and J as H; C is always hard except before E and I; CH is sounded as the CH in CHILD; Z as in ZEBRA.
In Maya we find a happy tendency to monosyllables. X again is pronounced as SH; but C is always hard.
