THE CASA SERRADA. 



23 



here we found ourselves in apartments finished 

 with walls and ceilings like all the others, but filled 

 up (except so far as they had been emptied by 

 the Indians) with soHd masses of mortar and stone. 

 There were ten of these apartments in all, 220 

 feet long and ten feet deep, which being thus 

 filled up, made the w^hole building a solid mass; 

 and the strangest feature was that the filling up of 

 the apartments must have been simultaneous with 

 the erection of the buildings, for, as the filling-in 

 rose above the tops of the doorways, the men who 

 performed it never could have entered to their work 

 through the doors. It must have been done as the 

 walls were built, and the ceiling must have closed 

 over a solid mass. Why this was so constructed 

 it was impossible to say, unless the sohd mass was 

 required for the support of the upper terrace and 

 building ; and if this was the case, it would seem to 

 hav€ been much easier to erect a solid structure at 

 once, without any division into apartments. 



The top of this building commanded a grand 

 view, no longer of a dead plain, but of undulating 

 woodlands. Toward the northwest, crowning the 

 highest hill, was a lofty mound, covered with trees, 

 which, to our now practised eyes, it was manifest 

 shrouded a building, either existing or in ruins. The 

 whole intervening space was thick wood and under- 

 brush, and the Indians said the mound was inacces- 

 sible. I selected three of the best, and told them 

 that we must reach it ; but they really did not know 



