26 • THE TEMPLE OF THE CROSS. 



Catherwood found it in the same jjlace. In 1832 tliere remained (in the temple) 

 only the stones forming the left and right sides of the relief, and in 1842* 

 Stephens found only that constituting the left side."f If, indeed, M. Waldeck 

 saw, in 1832, the right slab in its j^roper place — which I doubt, ascribing his 

 statement to a misconception on his part — it is really surprising that he 

 neglected to draw it, conscious as he was of the important character of the 

 sculpture. His large and well-executed double plate J shows only the middle 

 slab and that joining it on the left. 



Stephens and Catherwood, in fact, found the middle stone in the same place 

 where Waldeck had drawn it ; but Stephens as well as Charnay ascribe its removal 

 from the sanctuary to a different agency. " That on the left," says Mr. Stephens, 

 " is still in its place. The middle one has been removed and carried down the side 

 of the structure, and lies now near the bank of the stream. It was removed many 

 years ago by one of the inhabitants of the village, with the intention of carrying 

 it to his house; but, after great labor, with no other instruments than the arms and 

 hands of Indians, and poles cut from trees, it had advanced so far, when its 

 removal was arrested by an order from the government forbidding any farther 

 abstraction from the ruins. We found it lying on its back near the banks of the 

 stream, washed by many floods of the rainy season, and covered with a thick 

 coat of dirt and moss. We had it scrubbed and propped up, and probably the 

 next traveler will find it with the same props under it, which we placed there. 

 In the engraving it is given in its original position on the wall. The stone on the 

 right is bro/cen, and, xmfortimateli/, altogether destroyed ; most of the fragments 

 have disappeared ; hut, from the few we found among the ruins in the front of the 

 building, there is no doubt that it contained ranges of hieroglyphics corresponding in 

 general appearance with those of the stone on the left."^ 



The right slab, we thus learn, was, though in a fragmentary state, still at 

 Palenque in 1840, when Mr. Stephens explored the ruins. He might have 

 collected and united the pieces, and drawn them ; but the shortness of his 

 sojourn doubtless prevented him fi'om hunting for fragments, while there were 

 so many other objects of more prominent interest to be illustrated by pen and 

 pencil. The slab in question, I imagine, was broken in the process of removing 

 the central piece, which, indeed, hardly could have been detached without the 

 preliminary displacement of one of the lateral tablets. The fragments, as we 

 have seen, were brought to the United States not long after Stephens's explora- 

 tion of Palenque. 



* Should be 1840. 



t Waldeck : Description des Euines etc., p. vii, in : Monuments Anciens eto. 



X xxi and xxii in : Monuments Anciens etc. 



§ Stephens : Central America, etc. ; vol. ii, p. S45. 



