RUINS OF MAYAPAN. 



131 



The ruins of Mayapan cover a great plain, which 

 was at that time so overgrown that hardly any ob- 

 ject was visible until we were close upon it. and the 

 undergrowth was so thick that it was difficult to 

 work our way through it. Our's was the first visit 

 to examine these ruins. For ages they had been 

 unnoticed, almost unknown, and left to struggle with 

 rank tropical vegetation ; and the major domo, who 

 lived on the principal hacienda, and had not seen 

 them in twenty-three years, was more famiUar with 

 them than any other person we could find He 

 told us that within a circumference of three miles, 

 ruins were found, and that a strong wall once en- 

 compassed the city, the remains of which might still 

 be traced through the woods. 



At a short distance from the hacienda, but invisi- 

 ble on account of the trees, rises the high mound 

 which we had seen at three leagues' distance, from 

 the top of the church at Tekoh, and which is rep- 

 resented in the following engraving. It is sixty feet 

 high, and one hundred feet square at the base ; and, 

 like the mounds at Palenque and Uxmal, it is an 

 artificial structure, built up solid from the plain. 

 Though seen from a great distance above the tops 

 of the trees, the whole field was so overgrown that 

 it was scarcely visible until we reached its foot ; 

 and the mound itself, though retaining the symme- 

 try of its original proportions, was also so over- 

 grown that it appeared a mere wooded hill, but pe- 



