52 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



some other detached portions, have been preserved. 

 Conspicuous over the head of this principal figure 

 is a large ball, with a human figure standing up be- 

 side it, touching it w^ith his hands, and another be- 

 low it with one knee on the ground, and one hand 

 thrown up as if in the effort to support the ball, or 

 in the apprehension of its falling upon him. In all 

 our labours in that country we never studied so dil- 

 igently to make out from the fragments the combi- 

 nations and significance of these figures and orna- 

 ments. Standing in the same position, and looking 

 at them all together, we could not agree. 



Mr. Catherwood made two drawings at different 

 hours and under a different position of the sun, and 

 Dr. Cabot and myself worked upon it the whole 

 day with the Daguerreotype. With the full blaze 

 of a vertical sun upon it, the white stone glared 

 with an intensity dazzhng and painful to the eyes, 

 and almost reahzing the account by Bernal Dias in 

 the expedition to Mexico, of the arrival of the Span- 

 iards at Cempoal. " Our advanced guard having gone 

 to the great square, the buildings of which had been 

 lately whitewashed and plastered, in which art these 

 people are very expert, one of our horsemen was 

 so struck with the splendour of their appearance in 

 the sun, that he came back at full speed to Cortez, 

 to tell him that the walls of the houses were of sil- 

 ver." 



Our best view was obtained in the afternoon, 

 when the edifice was in shade, but so broken and 



