Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/119

 ization lived in the tropical climes, so much more conducive to the welfare of man than our temperate zones.

It is in Southern Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, down to Darien, that the traveler pauses in amazement before splendid monumental remains that are scattered over vast territories. Who were the builders? The people found there at the time of the Conquest said they did not know; if any traditions existed among them they remained untold; nor is it to be wondered at when we consider the way in which the natives were treated by the European invaders.

Civilized as they were in some respects, the Americans at that epoch were degenerated—as history teaches us that all great nations do sooner or later degenerate, like individuals who, having reached maturity, pass to old age and decay. Even the Mayas, once masters of all Central America, the hardest to conquer, and the most civilized, would, after a few more centuries, have relapsed into a savage state, into a national second childhood. The palaces and temples of their ancestors make the peninsula of Yucatan, where there are several ancient cities, a very attractive place for antiquarians;