260 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
great terrace was not entirely artificial, The substratum was a natural 
rock, and showed that advantage had been taken of a natural elevation as 
far as it went, and by this means some portion of the immense labor of con- 
structing the terrace had been saved.”' The three terraces with their slop- 
ing walls are shown in the engraving, the house standing upon an elevation 
forty-two feet above the surrounding area. The ascent from terrace to 
terrace was made by flights of stone steps, which are not distinctly shown. 
When newly constructed and inhabited, this structure, from its command- 
ing situation, its great size, and conspicuous terraces, must have presented 
a striking appearance. It is doubtful whether any of the Aryan tribes, 
when in the Middle Status of barbarism, have produced houses superior to 
those in Yucatan. 
The house is symmetrical in structure, three hundred and twenty-two 
feet long, thirty-nine feet deep, and about twenty-five feet high. It has 
eleven doorways, besides two small openings in front, and contains twenty- 
two apartments, two of which are each sixty feet long The rear wall is 
solid, and in the central part is nine feet thick. A parallel wall through 
the center divides the interior into two rows of apartments, of which those 
in front are eleven feet six inches deep and twenty-three feet high to the 
top of the arch, and those back of them are thirteen feet deep and twenty- 
two feet high. Both inside and out the walls are of dressed stone laid in 
courses. No drawings of the rooms in the Governor’s House are furnished 
in Mr. Stephens’ work. The back rooms are dark, excepting the light 
received through the front doorway. 
‘The House of the Nuns,” says Mr. Stephens, “‘is quadrangular, with 
a court yard in the center. It stands on the highest of three terraces. 
The lowest is three feet high and twenty feet wide; the second, twelve feet 
high and forty-five feet wide; and the third, four feet high and five feet 
wide, extending the whole length of the front of the building. The front 
[building] is two hundred and seventy-nine feet long, and above the cornice, 
from one end to the other, is ornamented with sculpture. In the centre is 
a gateway ten feet eight inches wide, spanned by the triangular arch, and 
leading to the court yard. On each side of this gateway are four doorways 
1Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, i, 128, 
