es and to
honour those who had created them. Then the gods said to the animals:

'You will be changed, because you cannot speak. We have changed your
speech. You shall have your food and your dens in the woods and crags;
for our glory is not perfect, and you do not invoke us. There will be
beings still that can salute us; we shall make them capable of
obeying. Do your task; as to your flesh, it will be broken by the
tooth.'

Then follows the creation of man. His flesh was made of earth (_terre
glaise_). But man was without cohesion or power, inert and aqueous;
he could not turn his head, his sight was dim, and though he had the
gift of speech, he had no intellect. He was soon consumed again in the
water.

And the gods consulted a second time how to create beings that should
adore them, and after some magic ceremonies, men were made of wood,
and they multiplied. But they had no heart, no intellect, no
recollection of their Creator; they did not lift up their heads to
their Maker, and they withered away and were swallowed up by the
waters.

Then follows a third creation, man being made of a tree called tzite,
woman of the marrow of a reed called sibac. They, too, did neither
think nor speak before him who had made them, and they were likewise
swept away by the waters and destroyed. The whole nature--animals,
trees, and stones--turned against men to revenge the wrongs they had
suffered at their hands, and the only remnant of that early race is to
be found in small monkeys which still live in the forests.

Then follows a story of a very different character, and which
completely interrupts the progress of events. It has nothing to do
with the creation, though it ends with two of its heroes being changed
into sun and moon. It is a story very much like the fables of the
Brahmans or the German Maehrchen. Some of the principal actors in it
are clearly divine beings who have been brought down to the level of
human nature, and who perform feats and tricks so strange and
incredible that in reading them we imagine ourselves in the midst of
the Arabian Nights. In the struggles of the two favourite heroes
against the cruel princes of Xibalba, there may be reminiscences of
historical events; but it would be perfectly hopeless to attempt to
extricate these from the mass of fable by which they are surrounded.
The chief interest of the American tale consists in the points of
similarity which it exhibits with the tales of the Old Wo