1898-99. DECIPHERING HIEROGLYPHIC INSCRIPTIONS OF CENTRAL AMERICA, 113 
have developed or even continued the high art of these ancient buildings; 
such art could only flourish in a large and wealthy community under 
enlightened patronage. There is nothing at all absurd in the supposition 
of Mr. Stephens, which he shared with all the other explorers, that the 
houses of the people were what the present dwellings of the natives are, 
common and perishable structures. It is, however, likely that Du Paix 
and De Bourbourg have exaggerated the size of the city of Palenque, 
and that a good many miles should be deducted from its twenty-one to 
twenty-four in length. Making every allowance for such exaggeration, 
the ruins indicate a very large city in a high state of aboriginal civiliza- 
tion, and its written records cannot fail to excite the intelligent 
curiosity of all who seek to learn more than we yet know of ancient life 
in the cradle of American history. 
CHAPTER II. 
THE TABLET OF THE CROSS. 
In the preceding chapter reference has been made more than once to 
maeetemple or -house of the {Gross., The Rev. Stephen “DP, Peet, in a 
resumé of the late Dr. Charles Rau’s monograph upon the tablet, thus 
describes the building in which it was found. “The temple which con- 
tained it was situated on a pyramid, which was 134 feet high on the 
slope. The pyramid itself was on a broken stone terrace sixty feet high, 
with a level esplanade around its base, 160 feet in breadth. The 
dimensions of the temple are as follows: Fifty-one feet front, thirty- 
one feet deep, height about forty feet. This would make the total 
height of the pyramid, terrace, and temple, two hundred and thirty-four 
feet. The temple had three entrances at the front; and was covered 
with stucco ornaments. The piers between the entrances contained 
hieroglyphics and figures in bas-relief. The interior was divided into 
three parts: an outer corridor, an inner corridor, which might be called 
the sanctuary, and a chamber called the adoratorio, at the rear of the 
sanctuary. There was a door or opening from the outer corridor to the 
inner, and another door or opening into the chamber. These three 
doors, that in the front, that between the corridors, and that into the 
_ chamber or adoratorio, were all in a line and so arranged that the light 
from+the outside could penetrate into the adoratorio and strike the 
tablet. The tablet was on the wall back of the chamber or adoratorio, 
and covered nearly the entire wall. Stephens gives the dimensions of 
the entire room containing the tablet as follows: ‘Thirteen feet in 
