Page:Queen Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx.djvu/76

 u-Mayach, the place of the ancestor's vérêtrum, or of the shoot of the tree.

These two imix differ somewhat in shape. The imix is meant to designate the Caribbean Sea, the eastern part of which being opened to the waves of the ocean is indicated by the wavy line, emblem of water. In this instance it may also denote the mountains in the islands, that close it, as it were, toward the rising sun. The other imix stands for the Gulf of Mexico, a mediterranean sea, completely land-locked, with a small entrance formed by the peninsula of Florida and that of Yucatan, and commanded by the island of Cuba. It is well to notice that, as has been already said, some of the signs in the horizontal legend are the same as those in the vertical legend, but placed in an inverse position with regard to one another. This is as it should naturally be. Of course, the particular names of the various localities in the country are somewhat different, and the signs indicating their position with reference to the cardinal points are not the same. The symbol imix, for instance, of the Mexican Gulf is placed in the vertical legend to the left, that is to the west, of the imix  image of the Caribbean Sea, as it should certainly be if we look at the map of Central America from the south, when it is apparent that the Gulf of Mexico lies to the westward of the Caribbean Sea. On the other hand, if we enter the country from the north, the Gulf of Mexico will be to the right, and the Caribbean Sea to the left, of the traveller, just as the Maya hierogrammatist placed them in the horizontal legend,.

To return to the character in which the foot of the tree is planted. Kan not only means "south," as we have just