Page:Queen Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx.djvu/64

 and Uxmal, whose history, portrayed in the mural paintings, is also recounted in the legends and the sculptures still adorning the walls of their palaces and temples; and to learn that these ancient personages had already been converted, at the time the author of the Troano MS. wrote his book, into the gods of the elements, and made the agents who produced the terrible earthquakes that shook parts of the "Lands of the West" to their very foundations, as told in the narrative of the Akab-ɔib, and finally caused them to be engulfed by the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. The author of the Troano MS. gives in his work the adjoining map (Plate II.) of the "Land of the Beb" (mulberry tree), the Maya Empire. In it he indicates the localities which were submerged, and those that still remained above water, in that part of the world, after the cataclysm.

In the legend explanatory of his object in drawing that chart, as in many other places in his book, he gives the serpent head kan, "south," as symbol of the southern continent. He represents the northern by this monogram that reads aac, "turtle." By this sign placed between the two others, he intends to convey to the mind of his readers that the submerged places to which he refers are situated between the two western continents, are bathed by the waters of the Mexican Gulf, and more particularly by those of the Caribbean Sea — figured by the image of an animal resembling a deer, placed over the legend. It is well to remark that this animal is typical of the submerged Antillean valleys, as it will plainly appear further on.