THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 307 



in reality they were more than five miles off. The last three of these 

 five miles' travel was over nothing but a succession of sand hills 

 covered with a tall coarse grass, with two or three heads on each stalk, 

 which seemed to be peculiar to this place. The horses sank more 

 than fetlock-deep into the soft yielding sand ; while it was with great 

 difficulty that the mules, at a snail's pace, drew the wagons along. 



At eleven o'clock in the forenoon we came to the last high ridge on 

 the point of which the ruins are situated. This ridge is composed of 

 dark blue compact hmestone, which crops out in several places along 

 its slopes. The ascent is quite abrupt on every hand, except towards 

 the east; the ridge is prolonged in that direction for several miles. We 

 all felt rejoiced that finally we had reached a place about which so 

 much had been written, and yet so little had really been known. 



Whatever may have been the grandeur and magnificence of that 

 place in ages long past, its present appearance and condition are easily 

 described. 



We found the ruins of Gran Qaivira to consist of the remains of a 

 large church, or cathedral, with a monastery attached to it; a smaller 

 church or chapel; and the ruins of a town extending nine hundred feet 

 in a direction east and west, and three hundred feet north and south. 

 All these buildings had been constructed of the dark blue hmestone 

 which is found in the vicinity. 



The cathedral, which we had seen from Laguna de la Puerta, is one 

 hundred and forty feet long outside, with the walls nearly six feet in 

 thickness. It stands longitudinally W. 15c> S., with the great entrance 

 in the eastern end. The altar was in the western end. Like the 

 churches at Abo and Quarra, it is constructed in the form of a cross. 

 From the doorway at the foot of the cross to the transept, it is eighty- 

 four feet seven inches ; across the transept it is twenty-one feet six 

 inches ; and from thence to the head of the cross it is twenty-two feet 

 seven inches ; making the total length, inside, one hundred and twenty- 

 eight feet eight inches. The width of the nave is twenty-seven feet ; 

 the length, inside of the short arm of the cross, is thirty-six feet. A 

 gallery extended along the body of the cathedral for the first twenty- 

 four feet. Some of the beams which sustained it, and the remains of 

 two of the pillars that stood along under the end of it which was nearest 

 to the altar, are still here ; the beams in a tolerably good state of pre- 

 servation — the pillars very much decayed ; they are of pine wood, and 

 are very elaborately carved. There is also what, perhaps, might be 

 termed an entablature supporting each side of the gallery, and deepl}^ 

 embedded in the main wall of the church ; this is twenty-four feet long 

 by, say, eighteen inches or two feet in width ; it is carved very beauti- 

 fuU}^, indeed, and exhibits not only great skill in the use of various 

 kinds of tools, but exquisite taste on the part of the workmen in the 

 construction of the figures. These beams and entablatures would be 

 an ornament to any edifice even at the present day. We have cut one 

 of the beams into three parts, to take back with us. The entablatures 

 are so deeply set in the walls that we are unable to procure a piece of 

 them. The beams are square, and are carved on three sides; the 

 floor of the gallery rested on the fourth side. 



The stone of which the cathedral was built was not hewn, nor even 



