392 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



apartments, and these formed not more than one 

 third of the building. At the rear and under the 

 same roof were two ranges of apartments of the 

 same dimensions with those just described, and 

 having a rectangular area in front. The whole 

 edifice formed nearly a square, and though having 

 less front, with a great solid mass, nearly as thick as 

 one of the corridors, for the centre wall, it covered 

 nearly as many square feet as the Casa del Goberna- 

 dor, and probably, from its lavishness of ornament, 

 contained more sculptured stone. The rest of the 

 building, however, was in a much more ruinous con- 

 dition than that presented. At both ends the wall 

 had fallen, and the whole of the other front, with 

 the roof, and the ruins filled up the apartments so 

 that it was extremely difficult to make out the plan. 



The whole of the terrace on this latter side is over- 

 grown with trees, some of which have taken root 

 among the fragments, and are growing out of the in- 

 terior of the chambers. 



The sketch opposite will give some idea of the 

 manner in which the rankness of tropical vegetation 

 is hurrying to destruction these interesting remains. 

 The tree is called the alamo, or elm, the leaves of 

 which, with those of the ramon, form in that coun- 

 try the principal fodder for horses. Springing up 

 beside the front wall, its fibres crept into cracks and 

 crevices, and became shoots and branches, which, as 

 the trunk rose, in struggling to rise with it, unset- 

 tled and overturned the wall, and still grew, carry- 



