Atlantic Monthly
Atlantic Monthly
Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858
Book Excerpt
more teachable race. But with these
the difficulty for the new law-givers is that they find nothing
corresponding to the productions of the country from which they had
come. Fruits are in abundance, but there is no grain which requires
culture, and which would give origin to a continued industry. The legend
relates, somewhat naively, the hunger and distress of these elevated
beings, until at length they discover the maize, and other nutritious
fruits and grains in the county of Paxil and Cayala.
Our author places these latter in the state of Chiapas, and the countries watered by the Usumasinta. The provinces of Mexico and the Atlantic border of Central America he supposes to be those where the first legislators of America landed, and where was the cradle of the first American civilization. In these regions, the great city attributed to Votan,--Palenque,--the ruins of whose magnificent temples and palaces even yet astonish the traveller, was one of the first products of this civilization.
With regard to
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