TIKAL. 49 



Many of the doorways in this and the other houses are covered with lintels formed 

 of beams of hard wood without any carved ornament, and wooden beams were 

 commonly used in the form of struts across the gable-roofs, as can be seen in the 

 photograph, Plate LXXX., a. It is worth noting that these beams are in many 

 instances quite sound, whereas at Palenque, where wooden lintels were also used, all 

 trace of wood has disappeared, the last small fragment of a wooden lintel having been 

 seen there by Stephens in the year 1840. 



On the north side of the Plaza, between Temples A and B, are three square 

 foundation-mounds supporting the remains of ruined buildings which were probably 

 temples, and in front of them are a number of small stone stelae and circular altars. 

 Some of them can be seen in the photograph on Plate LXX., a. The face of the most 

 important of these monuments is given on Plate LXXXI. A Maya chieftain or priest, 

 elaborately dressed, is holding in his hand what appears to be a " Mannikin sceptre," 

 and a fallen enemy or victim lies bound at his feet. 



The inscription is shown on Plate LXXXIL, a & h, and a drawing of the inscription 

 copied from these photographs is given on Plate LXXIX. 



A flat circular altar ornamented on the side is ljing in front of this monument. 

 Photographs of two other monuments are also given on Plate LXXXIL 

 Tikal is well worth the attention of future explorers, and would, I feel sure, amply 

 repay the labour of a lengthy and careful examination ; but before such an expedition 

 could be successfully undertaken adequate preparations must be made. 



The difficulty lies principally in the want of a sufficient supply of water. Every 

 drop of water we used had to be brought the distance of a mile and a half from an 

 overgrown muddy lagoon not more than 150 yards wide, and it was so thick and dirty 

 that I never dared to drink it until it had first been boiled and then filtered ; my 

 Indian workmen, who refused to take any precautions, suffered considerably from 

 fever. 



A few years before the date of my visit to Tikal a party of Indians from the borders 

 of the lake had attempted to form a settlement in the neighbourhood of the ruins. 

 The solitary survivor of this party accompanied me as a guide, all the others having 

 died of fever. This man told me that the small lagoon was the only source of water- 

 supply, and that the nearest running stream was a branch of the Rio Hondo, some 

 miles distant. The ancient inhabitants probably stored water in " chaltunes," the 

 underground cisterns which are found in such large numbers amongst the ruins in the 

 north of Yucatan ; I discovered two such cisterns beneath the floor of the plaza, but 

 had not time to clear them out. 



I have always deeply regretted that previous to my visits to Tikal I had not learnt 

 how to make paper moulds, as copies of the inscriptions on the stelse and the remains 

 of the carved wooden beams in the Temples would be of great value to archaeologists. 

 When I was on the frontier of British Honduras, in the month of April 1887, 1 tried 



