44 KTJIN3 OF MENCHE. 



By a recent treaty Menche and the valley of the Lacandon River have passed into 

 the possession of Mexico. 



Since the date of my visit a party of mahogany-cutters formed a camp on the ruins, 

 hut at the end of two years the "monteria" was abandoned, and the ancient city is 

 again left in the solitude of the forest. 



Detailed Description' of the Rcins. 



The plan on Plate LXXVI. must not be regarded as more than a rough sketch. I 

 had no instruments with me for measuring vertical angles; the distances were judged 

 by pacing, and checked by the occasional use of a tape measure. 



Traces of buildings could be detected for a distance of at least 150 yards to the east 

 of those shown on the plan. 



The houses marked on the plan with a definite outline are still in a fair state of 

 preservation, but when the outline is left indefinite the buildings have fallen and are 

 mere heaps of broken masonry. Both stone and wooden lintels had been used, but the 

 wooden beams had completely disappeared. The first line of buildings stood about 60 

 feet above the level of the river at the time of my visit. 



The ground-plan of House A is given on Plate LXXVII. There had been wooden 

 lintels over the doorways. The inner chamber appears to have been used as a burial- 

 place. The remains of a stone superstructure could be traced on the roof, similar to 

 that shown in the photograph of Temple K (Plates XC, b, & XCL), and this form of 

 structural ornament was probably used in many of the other buildings which are now 

 in ruins. 



Houses B, C, and D had stone lintels over the doorways, some of them ornamented 

 with carving. Those in House B are still in position, although the roof has fallen and 

 the chambers are completely blocked up. 



House D is wholly ruined, and the two lintels figured on Plates LXXIX. & LXXX. 

 were dug up out of the fallen masonry. 



At the back of this first line of houses are two pyramidal foundation-mounds. At 

 the west end of the line a stone-faced slope rises to a small level plaza. On the south 

 side of this plaza are the remains of a house, on the west side is a pyramidal foundation- 

 mound, and on the north side there is an oblong mound with three flat-topped circular 

 stones in front of it. The stones were probably used as altars and are of frequent 

 occurrence in the ruins. 



Between the front line of houses and the houses marked E, F, and G, there is a rise 

 in the ground marked by a stone-faced slope, and the principal approach to the 



