Page:A Glimpse at Guatemala.pdf/379

Rh to the east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepcc. With what other races the Mayas may have been brought in contact in their eastern home we do not know, but they were almost certainly people of lower culture, and it seems probable that we may possess specimens of their art in the rude images found near Guatemala city, which are shown on page 15, and that we may judge of their appearance from the figures of the prisoners carved on the Stela at Ixkun. After a period of time, which must have included the age during which the race reached the highest point of its development, the centres of population were abandoned and the Mayas disappeared from the southern part of the Maya area, their places being taken by the races whom the Spaniards found in occupation of the country—races speaking languages derived from Maya stock, and possibly allied to the Mayas by blood, but

THE ISLAND OF FLORES.

certainly behind them in the arts of peace and probably inferior in social organization. When and why the valleys of the Usumacinta and Motagua were deserted by the Mayas there is no evidence to show; there are not even vague traditions such as those which have been handed down regarding the disappearance of the Toltecs from Mexico. Famine and pestilence, civil strife, and the attacks of warlike neighbours have all been suggested as the causes, and all may have contributed to the result, but there is some reason for giving preference to the last. Mr. Mercer and other investigators have shown us that in Northern Yucatan the Mayas were the original inhabitants of the country and that they brought their culture with them from elsewhere,