139 Mr. Ranking on the Ruins ofPalenqiie, 



which has, at a regular distance, flats or landings, each having 

 its respective doorway, ornamented in front like Fig. 18. Fig. 

 19 represents another entrance, and there is a third buried 

 beneath heaps of rubbish. In another of the many entrances, 

 there was a stone, (No. 7,) Avhich I broke off from the left 

 hand side of the first step, with various devices in bas-relief, as 

 in Fig. 20 . On reaching the second door, we continued the 

 descent, with artificial light^ by a very gentle declivity. Turning 

 at right angles, we entered through a door into a chamber 

 sixty-four yards long, and nearly as large as those before de- 

 scribed ; beyond this there is another, exactly similar, having 

 light from windows commanding a corridor fronting the south. 

 Nothing was found in these places, except some plain stones, two 

 yards and a half long by one yard and a quarter broad, supported 

 by four square stands of masonry, rising about half a yard above 

 the ground, partitioned off in the forms of alcoves, and were ob- 

 viously receptacles for sleeping. 



On an eminence to the south, there is a building about 

 forty yards in height, forming a parallelogram, resembling 

 the former in architecture ; it has square pillars, an exterior 

 gallery, and a saloon, twenty yards by three and a half, em- 

 bellished with a frontispiece, on which are described female 

 figures, with children in their arms, all of the natural size, 

 in stucco medio-relief; they are without heads, as in Figs. 

 21 and 22. Some whimsical designs, as ornaments to the cor- 

 ners of the house, were brought away; they are numbered 

 8, 9, and 10. The inhabitants used such devices for the con- 

 veyance of their thoughts, but we cannot know their real mean- 

 ing. In the gallery there are three stones, each three yards 

 high and one broad, covered with the hieroglyphics in bas- 

 relief recently mentioned. The whole of the gallery and 

 saloon are paved. Passing by some ruins, in a little valley 

 there is a similar structure. (Fig. 23.) Eastward there are 

 three small eminences, forming a triangle, upon each of which 

 is a square building, eighteen yards long, and eleven broad, 

 having, along the thin roofings, superstructures about three 

 Jrards high, resembling turrets, covered with ornaments and 

 devices in stucco. In the interior of the first mansion, at the 

 end of a dilapidated gallery, is a saloon, with a small chamber 



