TICH, a ceremony practiced by the ancient Mayas,
and still performed by their descendants all through Central America.
This sacrifice or ceremony consists in presenting to BALAM, the
_Yumil-Kaax_, the "Lord of the fields," the _primitiae_ of all their
fruits before beginning the harvest. Katish, or _cah-tich_ would then be
the city of the sacrifices--the holy city.

EGYPT is the country that in historical times has called, more than any
other, the attention of the students, of all nations and in all ages, on
account of the grandeur and beauty of its monuments; the peculiarity of
its inhabitants; their advanced civilization, their great attainments in
all branches of human knowledge and industry; and its important position
at the head of all other nations of antiquity. Egypt has been said to be
the source from which human knowledge began to flow over the old world:
yet no one knows for a certainty whence came the people that laid the
first foundations of that interesting nation. That they were not
autochthones is certain. Their learned priests pointed towards the
regions of the West as the birth-place of their ancestors, and
designated the country in which they lived, the East, as the _pure
land_, the _land of the sun_, of _light_, in contradistinction of the
country of the dead, of darkness--the Amenti, the West--where Osiris sat
as King, reigning judge, over the souls.

If in Hindostan, Afghanistan, Chaldea, Asia Minor, we have met with
vestiges of the Mayas, in Egypt we will find their traces everywhere.
Whatever may have been the name given to the valley watered by the Nile
by its primitive inhabitants, no one at present knows. The invaders that
came from the West called it CHEM: not on account of the black color of
the soil, as Plutarch pretends in his work, "_De Iside et Osiride_," but
more likely because either they came to it in boats; or, quite probably,
because when they arrived the country was inundated, and the inhabitants
communicated by means of boats, causing the new comers to call it the
country of boats--CHEM (maya).[TN-20] The hieroglyph representing the
name of Egypt is composed of the character used for land, a cross
circumscribed by a circle, and of another, read K, which represent a
sieve, it is said, but that may likewise be the picture of a small boat.
The Assyrians designated Egypt under the names of MISIR or MISUR,
probably because the country is generally destitute of trees. These are
uprooted