and of a difficult pronunciation only to be learnt in the country. The ch not barré has the sound of tch; h is a guttural aspirate; u has the sound of ou in French, replaced frequently by the w; and the x the sound of ch in French, or sh in English.

At page 120 of the Relation is the following. The Maya alphabet has not the letters d, f, g, q, r, s, which they did not appear to require; but they had to double others and add others: as, pa means "to open", and ppa (pressing the lips firmly) means "to break"; tan is "lime" or "ashes"; and tan, pronounced strongly by the tongue and upper teeth, means "to speak”.

The five days were Kan, Chiccan, Cimi, Manik, and Lamar.

It may be asked how Bishop Landa made out these symbols to be of an alphabetic character.

At first he would form a vocabulary from the sounds of words in the Maya with the Spanish, which would lead him to an explanation of the symbols representing the days, months, and years of the Maya calendar; and lastly, to the history of this aboriginal people.

Landa has preserved to us the symbols of the eighteen months of the Maya year, and the symbols representing the twenty days of the month, with their Maya names in our letters. He has also given the whole of the annual calendar, one series commencing on the 1st of January = twelfth day, Ben, in the eighth month, Chen. The other series commencing the Maya year on the twelfth day, Kan, in the first month, Pop = to 16th July.

=

360 days, to

The eighteen months were of twenty days which were added five days; viz., Kan, Chiccan, Cimi, Manik, and Lamat, to make up the 365 days of the solar year.

I will give a short specimen of the Maya language:-Lelo lai u tzolan ti Mayab Uaxab (VIII) Ahau, or, "Epochs of the Maya history, beginning in the VIII Ahau," or 401 a.d.

We have still to ascertain if, with this alphabet of the ancient Mayas, the Yucatan cartouches, and perhaps some of the Mexican picture-writing, may be satisfactorily read.*

*The Maya Language.-Dr. Berendt, a German physician and naturalist, who has been for some twelve years a resident in Mexico and Central America, has recently succeeded in tracing to the possession of Mr. John Carter Brown, of Providence,-a well-known collector of choice American books,a valuable MS. Dictionary of the Maya Language, as written three centuries ago. This work contains nearly 20,000 words, and was compiled by a Franciscan monk in Yucatan, between the years 1570 and 1600. It contains synonymes and examples in addition to ordinary explanations, and is being transcribed by Dr. Berendt for publication. It is hoped that the work will assist materially in the explanation of many of the remarkable hieroglyphic inscriptions found in the monuments and ruins scattered through Central America. The Maya language is still taught in the schools of Yucatan, and many books have been printed in that language. Trübner's American and Oriental Literary Record, No. 1, March 16, 1865.

In Revue Amér. Orientale, deuxième série, No. 4, 1864, there is an article by the learned Léon de Rosny on L'écriture hiératique de l'Amérique Centrale (with plate containing the Alphabet hiératique). See Trübner's Record, No. 5, July 10, 1865. M. de Rosny, in a note in the Revue Amér., observes, that MSS. in the Maya character are very rare indeed; only two are known,-one belonging to the Bibliothèque Royale de Dresden, in a good state of preservation; the other, much deteriorated, in the Bibliothèque Impériale of Paris. See an account of these two MSS. in the le Série de la Revue Américaine, t. i, p. 35 (article with fac-simile), and Ecritures figuratives et hieroglyphiques des différens peuples anciens et modernes, p. 19.

See vol. ii, p. 432-3, Stephens' Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. Stephens unfortunately failed to obtain at Uxmal, in Yucatan, a beam of wood, on the face of which was a line of characters carved or stamped, almost obliterated, but which he made out to be hieroglyphics, and, so far as he could understand them, similar to those of Copan and Palenque. He observes, "By what feeble light the pages of American history are written! There are at Uxmal no idols, as at Copan; not a single stuccoed figure or carved tablets, as at Palenque. Except this beam of hieroglyphics, though searching earnestly, we did not discover any one absolute point of resemblance; and the wanton machete of an Indian may destroy the only link that connects them together. Don Simon Peon of Uxmal, or his family, may still be in possession of this beam."

55

VI.—Observations on the People Inhabiting Spain. By H. J. C. BEAVAN, F.R.G.S., F.A.S.L., Hon. Sec. A.S.L.

THAT once great and glorious kingdom of Spain, the land of Gonsalo de Cordova, of Ferdinand and Isabella, of Lope de Vega, Calderon and Murillo,—has again begun to take its proper place in the interest of men of literature and science. The beauty of its landscape and mountain scenery, the fertility of its soil, the richness of its mineral resources, and even the backward state of its agriculture and national industry, have begun to strike travellers and anthropologists, and to instil into their minds a hope that the day is not far distant when Spain will appear once more as a great power, purged by many troubles and sufferings of the evils and abuses that grew up side by side with her former glory and wealth, and which at length overwhelmed her.

There is a wide field for the anthropologist in Spain, and it would, indeed, be a very difficult matter to grasp in any one paper, or in any one volume, a really good account of anthropology in that country, even if we had sufficient data for such a work, which at present we have not. Nobody, with the exception perhaps of Zamacola (Hist. de las Naciones Bascos), and one or two other authors, has paid much attention to the various races, and crosses of races, in Spain. These are so distinct, however, as to require for each a special history. The population of Spain, in fact, may be divided into four distinct races, the Spaniards Proper, the Basques, the descendants of the Moors, and the Gitanos, or gypsies. The Morescoes (or descendants of the Moors) are to some extent pure; but the great majority of them have intermarried with Spaniards, producing thereby a race very much darker in feature than is usually the case in Spain, but with clear complexion and finely formed and beautiful features. These people are proud of their descent, and consider themselves