She told me they once possessed vast store of yellow metal and flashing stones, with other treasures.

Cities were set apart under guard to have special care over them.

Some of these have descended even unto the present, but are kept hidden away by the priests, though she promised later to let me view them secretly.

And she related a most strange tale of destiny--of a long, barbarous war, filled with the names of warriors and towns sounding most uncouth to my ears; a war lasting many years, during which the Chichimes--for so she named the wild hordes sweeping down upon them from the northward--drove their fathers backward from city to city, beginning far away in the kingdom named Talapa, and pillaging clear to the banks of the great river where Palenque reigned.

Their ancestors erected vast forts of earth, thus managing to hold their own against the invaders, so long as their slaves remained loyal.