422 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



forming a sort of arabesque. The style and character 

 of these ornaments were entirely different from those of 

 any we had ever seen before, either in that country or 

 any other ; they bore no resemblance whatever to those 

 of Copan or Palenque, and were quite as unique and 

 peculiar. The designs were strange and incomprehen- 

 sible, very elaborate, sometimes grotesque, but often 

 simple, tasteful, and beautiful. Among the intelligible 

 subjects are squares and diamonds, with busts of human 

 beings, heads of leopards, and compositions of leaves 

 and flowers, and the ornaments known everywhere as 

 grecques. The ornaments, which succeed each other, 

 are all different ; the whole form an extraordinary 

 mass of richness and complexity, and the effect is both 

 grand and curious. And the construction of these or- 

 naments is not less peculiar and striking than the gen- 

 eral effect. There were no tablets or single stones, 

 each representing separately and by itself an entire 

 subject ; but every ornament or combination is made 

 up of separate stones, on each of which part of the sub- 

 ject was carved, and which was then set in its place in 

 the wall. Each stone, by itself, was an unmeaning 

 fractional part ; but, placed by the side of others, helped 

 to make a whole, which without it would be incomplete. 

 Perhaps it may, with propriety, be called a species of 

 sculptured mosaic. 



From the front door of this extraordinary building a 

 pavement of hard cement, twenty-two feet long by fif- 

 teen broad, leads to the roof of another building, seated 

 lower down on the artificial structure, as shown in the 

 engraving. There is no staircase or other visible com- 

 munication between the two ; but, descending by a pile 

 of rubbish along the side of the lower one, and groping 

 around the corner, we entered a doorway in front four 



I 



