RUINS OF NOHPAT. 



363 



the foot of this we dismounted and tied our horses. 

 It was one hundred and fifty feet high on the slope, 

 and about two hundred and fifty feet long at the base. 

 At the top, the mound, with the building upon it, 

 had separated and fallen apart, and while one side 

 still supported part of the edifice, the other present- 

 ed the appearance of a mountain slide. Cocome, 

 our guide, told us that the separation had happened 

 only with the floods of the last rainy season. We 

 ascended on the fallen side, and, reaching the top, 

 found, descending on the south side, a gigantic stair- 

 case, overgrown, but with the great stone steps still 

 in their places, and almost entire. The ruined 

 building on the top consisted of a single corridor, 

 but three feet five inches wide, and, with the ruins 

 of Nohpat at our feet, we looked out upon a great 

 desolate plain, studded with overgrown mounds, of 

 which we took the bearings and names as known 

 to the Indians; toward the west by north, startling 

 by the grandeur of the buildings and their height 

 above the plain, with no decay visible, and at this 

 distance seeming perfect as a living city, were the 

 ruins of Uxmal. Fronting us was the great Casa 

 del Gobernador, apparently so near that we almost 

 looked into its open doors, and could have distin- 

 guished a man moving on the terrace ; and yet, for 

 the first two weeks of our residence at Uxmal, we 

 did not know of the existence of this place, and, 

 wanting the clearings that had been made at Ux- 



