270 
GUATEMALA. 
silver they possessed, even to the royal insignia; and to 
emphasize his demand he snatched from the wretched 
kings their earrings, so that they shed tears at the 
physical pain. u If within five days all your gold is 
not here, woe be unto you! I know well my heart! ” 
The kings, advised by a native priest, decided to leave 
the city with their wives and children, and they reso¬ 
lutely refused to return when Alvarado sent friendly 
messages and promises to them. Then the Spaniards 
began a war of extermination and slavery against 
the Cakchiquels, and the Quiches and Tzutohiles now 
took the side of the invaders against their hereditary 
enemies. All this destruction and misery had come 
upon Guatemala in one year, 1524. When the tribes 
were conquered, one by one, their sufferings only com¬ 
menced ; for so terrible was the slavery to which the 
Indian population of Guatemala was reduced that death 
was welcomed by the sufferers, and the Quiche nobles 
refused to rear children to serve their conquerors. 
I do not care to follow the history of Guatemala 
under Spanish rule ; it would be no pleasure excursion 
through the sloughs of deceit and over mountains of 
tyranny. Priests and soldiers vied with each other in 
iniquity; and the Indios, then as now, seem to have 
been the most moral part of the population. 
In closing this long chapter on the early people of 
the kingdom, I would call the attention of my readers 
to the present Indians of Guatemala and their rela¬ 
tionship, according to Dr. Otto Stoll. This learned 
ethnologist classifies the Indios mainly by language 
rather than by physical data, and I am myself seep- 
