CHURCH AND CONVENT. 



435 



corresponding dimensions of the mound, gave an 

 unusual impression of grandeur. 



Two or three streets distant from the plaza, but 

 visible in all its huge proportions, was the most stu- 

 pendous mound we had seen in the country, being, 

 perhaps, six or seven hundred feet long and sixty 

 feet high, which, we ascertained beyond all doubt, 

 had interior chambers. 



Turning from these memorials of former power 

 to the degraded race that now lingers round them, 

 the stranger might run w^ild with speculation and 

 conjecture, but on the north side of the plaza is a 

 monument that recalls his roving thoughts, and holds 

 up to his gaze a leaf in history. It is the great 

 church and convent of Franciscan monks, standing 

 on an elevation, and giving a character to the plaza 

 that no other in Yucatan possesses. Two flights 

 of stone steps lead up to it, and the area upon which 

 they open is probably two hundred feet square ; on 

 three sides is a colonnade, forming a noble promen- 

 ade, overlooking the city and the surrounding coun- 

 try to a great distance. This great elevation was ev- 

 idently artificial, and not the work of the Spaniards. 



At the earUest period of the conquest we have 

 accounts of the large aboriginal town of Iza- 

 mal, and, fortunately, in the pious care of the early 

 monks to record the erection of their church and 

 convent, the only memorials which, to the exclusive 

 and absorbing spirit of the times, seemed worth pre- 

 serving, we have authentic records w^hich incident- 



