UNSCRUPULOUS POLICY OF SPANIARDS. 447 



mation. The pages of the historians are dyed with 

 blood; and saiUng on the crimson stream, with a 

 master pilot at the helm, appears the leading, stern, 

 and steady poHcy of the Spaniards, surer and more 

 fatal than the sword, to subvert all the institutions 

 of the natives, and to break up and utterly destroy 

 all the rites, customs, and associations that might 

 keep alive the memory of their fathers and their an- 

 cient condition. One sad instance shows the effects 

 of this policy. Before the destruction of Mayapan, 

 the capital of the kingdom of Maya, all the nobles 

 of the country had houses in that city, and were ex- 

 empted from tribute ; according to the account from 

 which Cogolludo derives his authority, in the year 

 1582, forty years after the conquest, all who held 

 themselves for lords and nobles still claimed their 

 solares (sites for mansions) as tokens of their rank ; 

 but now, he says, " from the change of government 

 and the little estimation in which they are held, it 

 does not appear that they care to preserve nobility 

 for their posterity, for at this day the descendants of 

 Tutul Xiu, who was the king and natural lord by 

 right of the land of Maya, if they do not work with 

 their own hands in manual offices, have nothing to 

 eat." And if at that early date nobles no longer 

 cared for their titles, and the descendants of the 

 royal house had nothing to eat but what they earn- 

 ed with their own hands, it is not strange that the 

 present inhabitants, nine generations removed, with- 

 out any written language, borne down by three cen- 



