I9I3.] HIGHEST NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 481 



with only short periods of rest. The cultivator must work harder 

 than in the wet places, but his success is less precarious, the efforts 

 of one year have a direct bearing on succeeding years, and perma- 

 nent industry in encouraged. 



Still another disadvantage of the low, wet regions needs to be 

 briefly discussed. It is hard for mankind to get a living under any 

 circumstances in the genuine tropical forest, and he must work at 

 least moderately for one in the dry parts of tropical lands. In the 

 big jungle, however, game is abundant, wild fruits ripen at almost all 

 seasons, a few banana plants, palm trees, and yams will almost 

 support a family, and if a corn crop is obtained at all, the return is 

 large in proportion to the labor. Thus, so long as the population is 

 not too dense, life is easy and there is little stimulus to effort. Under 

 such conditions the density of population is not likely to increase, 

 for only by a revolutionary access of skill and industry would it be 

 possible to change from the easy, hand to mouth life of the present 

 to the intensive, industrious life which would be necessary in order 

 to support a dense population. 



Thus far we have seen that the distribution of population in 

 Guatemala to-day is unquestionably very different from what it 

 was in the past. We have further seen that the physical conditions 

 which make for density of population and increase of civilization 

 are distributed in a peculiar fashion. They prevail in the high- 

 lands where there is no evidence that the civilization of the past was 

 any higher than that of the present ; and do not prevail in the low- 

 lands where there is the clearest and most abundant evidence of 

 the prevalence for many centuries of a civilization far in advance of 

 that of to-day. Moreover the ancient civilization did not come to 

 the country full-fledged as did that of Spain in later times. It did 

 not do its finest work at once and then decline as did that of the 

 Spaniards after they had built their massive old churches. On the 

 contrary it apparently arose where we find its ruins, and it endured 

 for centuries before it decayed. The most fundamental fact is not 

 the great change which has taken place in the character of the Maya 

 race. Nor is it the fall of Maya civilization, whether from internal 

 decay or external attack. It is merely the simple fact that the 



