‘wy Or 
1898-99. | DECIPHERING HIEROGLYPHIC INSCRIPTIONS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. eT 
roofs, and the spaces between, called courts, are simply open lanes or 
passage ways between the structures. An inspection of the ground plan 
of the Palenque ruins in the folio volume of Du Paix, or in the work of 
Mr. Stephens, will be apt to mislead, unless this feature of the archi- 
tecture is kept in mind. There are in reality seven or eight distinct 
edifices crowded together upon the summit level of the platform. Mr. 
Stephens speaks of it as one structure. ‘The building, he remarks, 
‘was constructed of stone, and the whole front was covered with stucco 
and painted. . . . . The doorways have no doors, nor are there 
the remains of any. . . . . The tops of the doorways were all 
broken. They had evidently been square, and over every one were large 
niches in the wall on each side, in which the lintels had been laid. 
These lintels had all fallen, and the stones above formed broken natural 
arches. The interior walls in two rooms shown by engravings were 
plastered over. 
“ Architecturally, Palenque is inferior to the House of the Nuns; but it 
is more ornamental. It has one peculiar feature not generally found in 
the Yucatan structures, namely, a corridor about nine feet wide, supposed 
to have run about the greater part of the exterior on the four sides. 
The exterior walls of these corridors rest on a series of piers, and 
the central or next parallel wall is unbroken, except by one doorway on 
each of three sides, and two in the fourth, thus forming a narrow 
promenade. One of the interior buildings consists of two arch corridors, 
but wider, on opposite sides of a central longitudinal wall. All the rooms 
in the several edifices are large. In one of the open spaces is a 
tower about thirty feet square, rising three stories, The Palenque 
structures are quite remarkable, standing upon an artificial eminence 
about forty feet high, and large enough to accommodate three thousand 
people living in the fashion of Village Indians. 
“An impression has been propagated that Palenque and other 
pueblos in these regions were surrounded by dense populations, living 
in cheaply constructed tenements. Having assigned the structures 
found, and which undoubtedly were all that ever existed,-to Indian 
kings or potentates, the question might well be asked, if such palaces 
were provided for the rulers of the land, what has become of the 
residences of the people? Mr. Stephens has given direct countenance 
to this preposterous suggestion. In his valuable work he has shown a 
disposition to feed the flames of fancy with respect to these ruins. 
After describing the ‘palace,’ so called, at Palenque, and remarking 
that ‘the whole extent of ground covered by these (ruins) as yet known, 
as appears by the plan, is not larger than our Park or Battery’ (in New 
