104, TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. VI. 
addition to this peculiarity, which they share with the majority of 
buildings in Yucatan, Guatemala and Mexico, they have that of being 
perfectly oriented, that is to say, their four faces are opposite the cardinal 
points. Their plan is that of long parallelograms, and they are generally 
placed on natural or artificial eminences. 
The great palace of the kings presents the most complete idea of a 
royal habitation. The pyramidal construction which forms its base is a 
parallelogram of 1,080 feet in circumference by 60 in height; it is built 
of stone and mortar. It is ascended by a colossal staircase situated 
below the eastern facade, and its steps of a foot high seem made for the 
strides of a race of giants. Thus the summit of the terrace in front of 
the palace is reached, and entrance is gained by five doors ; of the two 
chief ones, that on the right leads to the great court of honour, the other, 
on the left, to the inner apartments. The extent of the building is 240 
feet in length, and 145 in diameter. Its height is 36 feet. This gives 
96 to the whole mass from base to summit. Within and without runs a 
double corridor, which, inside the palace, constitutes in many places 
separate apartments. The openings between the pillars are hardly more 
than six feet high in the outside corridor, but those of the interior 
buildings are generally higher. The vaulted ceilings, resting upon walls 
of prodigious thickness more than twenty feet above the floor, form at 
the top a truncated angle, bounded by large and very thick slabs. The 
building is crowned on the outside by a large frieze framed in two 
double cornices square in shape. Finally, between all the doors, upon 
the face of each of the pillars of the corridor which runs round this 
monument, full reliefs in stucco are incrusted, representing figures of 
more than ordinary stature, and cartouches of sculptured writing. 
The interior of the palace does not present the same regularity, but 
it seems to correspond better to the magnificence of the princes who 
inhabited it. There may be seen several immense courts surrounded by 
great porticos with granite columns, covered with figures in relief double 
the size of those without. Magnificent peristyles lead to various dwelling 
quarters intelligently distributed. Succeeding the two courts of honour, 
there rises a tower of eight stories, the staircase of which in many places 
is upheld by vaulted arches, and from the top of which the eye can gaze 
far over the city, the country and the sea. 
But even the irregularity which reigns in these arrangements, and 
above all, the vast difference between the proportions of the inside 
buildings and the principal corridor which surrounds the palace, without 
dwelling on the peculiar elegance that is observable in the form of the 
Se a ee ee, ee 
