176 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



fallen. The interior is divided longitudinally by a 

 w^all into tv^o corridors, and these again, by cross 

 v^alls or partitions, into oblong rooms. Every pair 

 of these rooms, the front and back, communicate by 

 a doorway exactly opposite a corresponding door- 

 way in front. 



The principal apartments in the centre, with three 

 doorways opening upon the terrace, are sixty feet 

 long. The one in front is eleven feet six inches 

 wide, and the inner one thirteen feet. The former 

 is twenty-three feet high to the top of the arch, and 

 the other twenty- two feet. The latter has but one 

 door of entrance from the front room, and except 

 this it has no door or aperture of any kind, so that 

 at the ends it is dark and damp, as is the case with 

 all the inner rooms. In these two apartments we 

 took up our abode. 



The walls are constructed of square, smooth 

 blocks of stone, and on each side of the doorway 

 are the remains of stone rings fixed in the walls with 

 shafts, which no doubt had some connexion with 

 the support of the doors. The floors were of ce- 

 ment, in some places hard, but, by long exposure, 

 broken, and now crumbling under the feet. 



The ceiling forms a triangular arch, as at Palen- 

 que, without the keystone. The support is made 

 by stones overlapping, and bevilled so as to present 

 a smooth surface, and within about a foot of the 

 point of contact covered by a layer of flat stones. 

 Across the arch were beams of wood, the ends built 

 in the wall on each side, which had probably been 



