The others directed their march towards the south and founded Palenque and Ocosingo, then falling back on the Usumacinta, settled at Lorillard and the more distant Tikal. Here took place the branching off which we mentioned above; one division, from which the Tutulxius were descended, going north, founded Nohbeccan, Iturbide, Labna, Kabah, Uxmal, and Chichen; whilst the other built Coban, Copan, and Quirigua, where they met and amalgamated with the branch which had followed the Pacific coast. The latter, after they had traversed the region inhabited by the Zapotecs (Oaxaca), tarried at Tehuantepec, then resumed their march towards Guatemala, where they laid the foundations of Utatlan, Xelahu, Atitlan, Patinamit, etc., and joined the northern branch at Copan.
STELA OF TIKAL (FROM A. MAUDSLAY).
As will be seen, this is but a broad outline which leaves out a number of localities we could name, and many others which we do not know, but which we hope will be discovered some day. We have also traced in our map the return march of the Iztas (or Iztaes) from Chichen to Tayasal.
The line in our Map which to the north goes into Huaxteca, shows the course pursued by the Toltec branch mentioned by Ixtlilxochitl and Torquemada; and the monuments in that region, which all bear a resemblance with those of Tabasco and Yucatan, are the works of the Toltecs just as much as those of the above-mentioned states. We wish also to point out that the towns in this region, as yet unexplored, were inhabited and the monuments standing at the time of the Conquest, and that a few years sufficed to dilapidate and deface them.
Nicholas de Witt, who visited Huaxteca in 1543, in a letter (1554) published by Ternaux Campan, says that the region contained great cities and was more thickly populated than any other, but that when he visited it, twenty years after the Conquest, it was deserted and covered with ruins; because some years before, the Spaniards had basely massacred the inhabitants. They had invited all the chiefs to a conference in a large wooden house, and burnt them alive. After this cruel act, the Huaxtecs abandoned their town and retired in the woods.
INTERIOR OF AN APARTMENT IN THE GRAND PALACE OF MITLA-OAXACA.