Ruined Spanish cliiirch beside the road on the way from Dzitas to Cliichen Itza 



used as a place of sacrifice where human 

 victims were thrown into the pool 

 below; the other, called the Grand 

 Cenote furnished water for the inhabi- 

 tants of the city. The name Chichen 

 Itza means "the mouth of the wells of 

 the Itza." The Itza were a tribe, clan 

 or political division of the Maya nation, 

 who have been named the Greeks of the 

 New World. 



Tlie volan is a medieval instrument of torture in 

 which one travels over the Yucatan solid stone 

 roads 

 18 



At Chichen Itza seven or eight struc- 

 tures are still in a fair state of preserva- 

 tion, but the bush for miles about is 

 filled with heaps of cut stone that mark 

 the sites of other buildings now in utter 

 ruin. The most impressive structure is 

 doubtless the Castillo or Castle — the 

 temple on the pyramid seen as we entered 

 the ruins. The pyramid rises steeply 

 in nine terraces faced with cut stone and 

 decorated with sunken panels and on 

 each side is a wide stairway with balus- 

 trades. The base of the pyramid meas- 

 ures 195 feet and its height seventy-eight 

 feet. The temple on the summit rises 

 an aflditional twenty-four feet, so the 

 structure as a whole is more than one 

 hundred feet in height. This temple has 

 on one side an ample doorway with two 

 serpent columns, that leads into a 

 vaulted portico. Directly behind this is 

 the sanctuary. On the other three sides 

 of the temple are doorways giving access 



