28 THE TEMPLE OF THE CROSS. 



sides of the doorway leading into tlie Sanctuary of the Cross.* Stephens figures 

 them on the two plates inserted between pages 352 and 353 in Vol. II of his work 

 on Central America, and again, on a smaller scale, as ornamenting the outside 

 of the piers forming the entrance to the oratory in the Temple of the Sun. 

 He could not have made this mistake, if he had read Dupaix's and Gralindo's 

 statements concerning these tablets. 



" The two figures," he says, " stand facing each other, the first on the right 

 hand, fronting the spectator. The nose and eyes are strongly marked, but 

 alto"-ether the development is not so strange as to indicate a race entirely 

 difl'erent from those which are known. The head-dress is curious and compli- 

 cated, consisting principally of leaves of plants, with a large flower hanging 

 down ; and among the ornaments are distinguished the beak and eyes of a bird, 

 and a tortoise. The cloak is a leopard's skin, and the figure has rufiles around 

 the wrists and ankles. 



" The second figure, standing on the left of the spectator, has the same pro- 

 file which characterizes all the others at Palenque. Its head-dress is composed of 

 a plume of feathers, in which is a bird holding a fish in its mouth ; and in 

 different parts of the head-dress there are three other fishes. The figure wears a 

 richly embroidered tippet, and a broad girdle, with the head of some animal in 

 front, sandals, and leggins : the right hand is extended in a prayerful or depre- 

 cating position, with the palm outward. Over the heads of these mysterious 

 personages are tlireef cabalistic hieroglyphics. "| 



These two tablets were also drawn by Waldeck,§ who is certainly right in 

 stating that they had belonged to the Temple of the Cross. They had been 

 removed before his visit from their places, and imbedded in the wall of the 

 sala in the house belonging to the deputy Bravo, in the village of Santo Domingo. 

 " They are probably still there," he adds, " for no one could obtain them, unless 

 by marrying one of the sisters of the deputy." || Mr. Stephens found the house 

 in possession of two unmarried ladies who set a high value on the tablets, and 

 hardly would allow Mr. Catherwood to draw them. Stephens intended to buy 

 them and carry them home " as a sample of Palenque." But they could only be 

 purchased with the house, a condition to which he was willing to submit. There 

 were, however, difficulties in the way which frustrated his plan.^ Charnay saw 



* See pp. 18 and 19 of this publication, 

 f His engravings show four. 



J Stephens : Central America, etc.; vol. ii, p. 353. 



§ Plates xxiii and xxiv in : Monuments Anciens etc. Less correct representations of these tablets are found 

 in the reports of Del Eio and Dupaix. 



11 Waldeck: Description dcs Euines do Palenque, p. vn in : Monuments Anciens etc. 

 1[ Stephens: Central America, etc.; vol. ii, p. 353. 



