144 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



side is a pit five feet square and seventeen feet deep, 

 cased with stone. At the bottom is an opening two 

 feet four inches high, with a wall one foot nine inches 

 thick, which leads into a chamber ten feet long, five 

 feet eight inches wide, and four feet high. At each end 

 is a niche one foot nine inches high, one foot eight inch- 

 es deep, and two feet five inches long. Colonel Galin- 

 do first broke into this sepulchral vault, and found the 

 niches and the ground full of red earthenware dishes 

 and pots, more than fifty of which, he says, were full 

 of human bones, packed in lime. Also several sharp- 

 edged and pointed knives of chaya, a small death's 

 head carved in a fine green stone, its eyes nearly closed, 

 the lower features distorted, and the back symmetrical- 

 ly perforated by holes, the whole of exquisite work- 

 manship. Immediately above the pit which leads to 

 this vault is a passage leading through the terrace to 

 the river wall, from which, as before mentioned, the 

 ruins are sometimes called Las Ventanas, or the win- 

 dows. It is one foot eleven inches at the bottom, and 



one foot at the top, in I | this form, and barely 



IZ □ 



large enough for a man to crawl through on his face. 



There were no remains of buildings. In regard to 

 the stone hammock mentioned by Fuentes, and which, 

 in fact, was our great inducement to visit these ruins, 

 we made special inquiry and search for it, but saw no- 

 thing of it. Colonel Galindo does not mention it. 

 Still it may have existed, and may be there still, broken 

 and buried. The padre of Gualan told us that he had 

 seen it, and in our inquiries among the Indians we met 

 with one who told us that he had heard his father say 

 that his father, two generations back, had spoken of such 

 a monument. 



