but the latter
might well have been a further development of the Mexican
system; the Maya system had probably developed some characters
with a phonetic value, i. e. was groping toward the
alphabetical stage; but how far this groping had gone must
remain very doubtful until the decipherment has proceeded
further. Dr. Isaac Taylor is too hasty in saying that "the
Mayas employed twenty-seven characters which must be admitted
to be alphabetic" (Taylor, _The Alphabet_, vol. i. p. 24); this
statement is followed by the conclusion that the Maya system of
writing was "superior in simplicity and convenience to that
employed ... by the great Assyrian nation at the epoch of its
greatest power and glory." Dr. Taylor has been misled by Diego
de Landa, whose work (_Relation des choses de l'Yucatan_, ed.
Brasseur, Paris, 1864) has in it some pitfalls for the unwary.]

[Sidenote: Ruined cities of Central America.]

These noble ruins have excited great and increasing interest since the
publication of Mr. Stephens's charming book just fifty years ago.[146]
An air of profound mystery surrounded them, and many wild theories were
propounded to account for their existence. They were at first accredited
with a fabulous antiquity, and in at least one instance this notion was
responsible for what must be called misrepresentation, if not
humbug.[147] Having been placed by popular fancy at such a remote age,
they were naturally supposed to have been built, not by the Mayas,--who
still inhabit Yucatan and do not absolutely dazzle us with their exalted
civilization,--but by some wonderful people long since vanished. Now as
to this point the sculptured slabs of Uxmal and Chichen-Itza tell their
own story. They are covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, and these
hieroglyphs are the same as those in which the Dresden Codex and other
Maya manuscripts still preserved are written; though their decipherment
is not yet complete, there is no sort of doubt as to their being written
in the Maya characters. Careful inspection, moreover, shows that the
buildings in which these inscriptions occur are not so very ancient. Mr.
Stephens, who was one of their earliest as well as sanest explorers,
believed them to be the work of the Mayas at a comparatively recent
period.[148] The notion of their antiquity was perhaps suggested by the
beli