Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/269

Rh mixture, it was decreed that if any cacique or noble, should marry one of plebeian blood, he should be degraded for ever, and all his descendants be rendered incapable of bearing office. By the penal laws the king could be tried by his nobles. High treason, adultery and rape, were punished with death. Murder by being thrown from a high rock, robbery by fine, and arson by death, because says the law fire has no bounds. Sacrilege subjected to death and degradation of the family. Prisoners if they confessed were immediately sentenced, but if the charge was denied they were subjected to cruel torture.

From all these statements, allowing for a certain portion of fiction which may have been mixed up with facts, it is at least evident that at the period of the conquest, the inhabitants were far more advanced in the state of moral being, than the grade they now occupy. It is equally evident from the numbers brought into the field, that they must have been far more numerous than at present; since by a census taken by order of the king of Spain in 1778, the whole population only amounted to 797,214.

In the variety of its languages, Guatimala presents a still more singular phenomenon than Mexico; not less than twenty-five, according to Juarros, being still spoken. The exact correctness of this statement it is difficult to prove; but