CURIOUS PAINTING. 



73 



The apartment into which this door opened 

 had nothing to distinguish it from hundreds of oth- 

 ers we had seen, but in the corner one was the 

 mysterious painting at which we were gazing the 

 evening before, when night overtook us. The 

 end wall had fallen inward ; the others remain- 

 ed. The ceiling, as in all the other buildings, was 

 formed by two sides rising to meet each other, and 

 covered within a foot of the point of junction by a 

 flat layer of stones. In all the other arches, with- 

 out a single exception, the layer was perfectly plain : 

 but this had a single stone distinguished by a paint- 

 ing, which covered the whole surface presented to 

 view. The painting itself was curious ; the colours 

 were bright, red and green predominating ; the lines 

 clear and distinct, and the whole was more perfect 

 than any painting we had seen. But its position sur- 

 prised us more than the painting itself ; it was in the 

 most out-of-the-way spot in the whole edifice, and 

 but for the Indians we might not have noticed it at 

 all. Why this layer of stones was so adorned, or 

 why this particular stone was distinguished above 

 all others in the same layer, we were unable to dis- 

 cover, but we considered that it was not done ca- 

 priciously nor without cause ; in fact, we had long 

 been of opinion that every stone in those ancient 

 buildings, and every design and ornament that dec- 

 orated them, had some certain though now inscruta- 

 ble meaning. 



Vol. II.—K 7 



