18 PALENQUE. 



The north and south ends are each adorned with three of the large faces. The 

 upper cornice is ornamented with a moulding of beaded lattice-work. 



Some of the doorways both in the east and west face had been blocked up with 

 walls about a foot thick, and both corridors had been subdivided by transverse partition 

 walls evidently erected after the completion of the main building ; these secondary 

 walls have since been partly or completely destroyed, and in some cases can only be 

 traced by the scars which they have left on the original plaster coating of the walls 

 and floor. 



On the face of the main wall in the eastern corridor, just below the spring of the 

 roof, are nine large grotesque heads or masks (see Plate XXIV.). They face the 

 two doorways across which no secondary walls have been built. 



The chamber which was formed by the secondary wall in the south-west end of the 

 western corridor appears to have contained some especial object of reverence, perhaps 

 an altar against the main wall. Along the bottom of the wall ran an ornamental border 

 of symbols in stucco, and on one side of it the figure of a man has been moulded in 

 stucco. Only part of the feather head-dress remains on the wall, but the impression of 

 the whole figure can be traced. Above this, just below the spring of the roof, is painted 

 a seated figure with the head turned to the right and the right arm extended and 

 probably holding some object in the hand. The feather head-dress is very elaborate ; 

 near the head are several rows of black glyphs enclosed in red borders, the colours are 

 faint, but the prevailing hues, red, blue, and chocolate, can still be distinguished. 

 Unfortunately the painting was not sufficiently distinct for a copy of it to be made. 



There are T-shaped wall-holes both in the main and north walls, each of them 

 blocked up either in the middle or at one end. Remains of a plaster ornament can be 

 traced in the middle of the west face of the main wall just below the T-shaped 

 opening. 



Two rows of wooden struts have spanned the vault of the roof in each corridor. 



The eastern corridor of this house is one of the driest chambers in the ruins, and we 

 made it our headquarters. Perhaps for the same reason it may have been used as a 

 camping-ground by roving Indians, for when clearing out the courtyard round the 

 steps of the house we dug through a great mass of the shells of the edible water-snail 

 which is plentiful in the streams close by. 



The plaster on the floor of the house had also been mucli disturbed and broken, 

 probably the effect of camp fires. 



