POPULAR BELIEFS, ETC. 387 



eagle's" — a passage which the Chaldee paraphrase ren- 

 ders, " Thou shalt renew thy youth like the eagle in the 

 world to come."* 



The Aztecs, according to Humboldt, felt the curiosity 

 common to man in every stage of civilization, to lift the 

 veil which covers the mysterious past and the more awful 

 future. They sought relief, like the nations of the old con- 

 tinent, from the oppressive idea of eternity by breaking it 

 up into distinct periods or cycles of time, each of several 

 thousand years duration. There were four of these cycles, 

 and, at the end of each, by the agency of one of the ele- 

 ments, the human family was swept from the earth, and 

 the sun blotted from the heavens, to be again rekindled. 

 The Aztec's conception of the origin of man is nobler, and 

 more approximated to that of the Jewish Scriptures, than 

 either the Egyptian or the Hindoo. The following are ex- 

 tracts from a translation of the Popol Yuh, or National 

 Book of the Quiches of Guatemala. How marvelously con- 

 formable is the first extract to the story of the earth as re- 

 cited by geology ! 



" There was not yet a single man ; not an animal ; nei- 

 ther birds, nor fishes, nor crabs, nor wood, nor stone, nor 

 ravines, nor herbs, nor forests ; only the sky existed. The 

 face of the land was not seen; there was only the silent sea 

 and the sky. There was not yet a body, naught to attach 

 itself to another ; naught that balanced itself, naught that 

 made a sound in the sky. There was nothing that stood 

 upright ; naught there was but the peaceful sea — the sea 

 silent and solitary in its limits ; for there was nothing that 

 was. * * * Those who fecundate, those who give being, 

 are upon the waters like a growing light. * * * While 

 they consulted the day broke, and at the moment of dawn 

 man appeared. * * * Thus they consulted while the earth 

 * " In mundo venturo renovabis, sicut aquila?, juventutem tuara." 



