In the following short account of the principal buildings I shall keep to the old but somewhat misleading names by which they are known to the villagers of Santo Domingo. There is no evidence that the so-called Palace, of which a separate plan is given on the following page, was used as the dwelling of a great chief, and I am inclined to look on it as a collection of buildings raised at different periods of time and devoted to religious purposes. All trace of a stairway has disappeared from the outer slopes of the foundation mound, which are covered with stones and rubble fallen from the buildings above. In structure the separate houses which form the palace group do not differ materially from those found at Chichén and Copan; they usually consist of two narrow chambers side by side, roofed with high-pitched stone vaults. The outer piers of house A are decorated with human figures moulded in a hard stucco and surrounded with an ornamental border. The western piers of houses C and D are decorated in the same manner, and there are many other traces of similar ornament on other buildings, usually too much destroyed for the design to be made out. In some instances these decorations have been preserved in a very curious way: the water continually dripping on them from above has passed through the dense mass of decaying vegetation which covers the roofs of the buildings, and become charged with carbonic acid in the process; it has then filtered through the slabs of which the roof and cornice are built, dissolving some of the limestone on its way, and re-depositing it in a stalactitic formation on the face of the piers. Mr. Price and I worked for some weeks at clearing the carvings of this incrustation, which varied from a hardly perceptible film to five or even six inches in thickness. The thinner parts were the more difficult to deal with, as they were exceedingly hard; where the thickness exceeded two inches a few taps with a hammer would sometimes bring away pieces two or three inches square, and we were fortunate in some instances in finding the colours on the surface of the stucco ornament underneath still fresh and bright. An example of this colouring is given on the outside cover of this volume.
PALENQUE. PLAN OF THE PALACE.
The Eastern court, after being cleared of vegetation, was found to be so choked up with debris from the half-ruined buildings which surrounded it, that it was necessary to dig it out in some places to the depth of four feet, a task which we found to be very laborious. Some idea of the appearance of the court when the digging was finished can be formed from the photograph on the following page, which was taken from the front of House C looking south-east on the last day of our stay in the ruins, and shows some of the men setting out with their loads. The house on the north side of the court was completely ruined and much of the masonry had fallen over the northern slope of the foundation mound—a destruction which was very likely due to an earthquake, as a distinct rift can be traced right across the northern end of the mound. By standing on the broken masonry, a fine view is gained over the forest-covered plain which stretches northward to the Gulf of Mexico.
PALENQUE, THE EASTERN COURT.
The house marked C is the best-preserved building in the Palace group, and it was in its eastern corridor that Mr. Price and I took up our abode, the western corridor serving as kitchen and store-room. The terrace on the western side of the house marked D was our favourite resort of an evening, as here we caught the breath of the night wind and escaped to some extent from the attacks of the myriads of mosquitos which rose to plague us as soon as the sun had set. On a moonlight night the view from this terrace of the Temple of Inscriptions with its background of giant forest was exquisite beyond description. The Tower, which is shown in the view of the western court, is a most curious and interesting building. It rises in three stories above a solid foundation, around which are clustered a number of small and now half-ruined chambers. The outer wall is pierced on all four sides by large openings, and encloses a central rectangular shaft of masonry which contains the stairway giving access to the different floors. Between the first and second floors is an intermediate story containing three minute chambers and a narrow passage connecting them without any exterior openings. The top story is half destroyed, and the whole structure was in great danger of being overthrown in a heavy gale from the weight of the huge trees which were growing out of it. At considerable risk of accident my men succeeded in felling all but one of these trees, and I hope that the safety of the tower is now secured for some years to come. It was perilous work, as the foothold was uncertain, and there was great danger of the trees tearing away the loose masonry in their fall. One tree alone was left standing, as its fall must inevitably have damaged the roof of a neighbouring building, so a ring of bark was stripped from its trunk, in the hope that it will cause it to die slowly and fall piecemeal.
PALENQUE, THE WESTERN COURT & TOWER.
The other buildings of the Palace group do not here need separate notice; some of them contain fragments of stucco or painted decoration, and one (E) has a finely-carved stone medallion let into the wall. The most curious feature of the southern half of the group is the existence of three subterranean passages leading to three long parallel chambers, of which two are enclosed within the foundation mound, and the third has doorways opening onto the southern slope. The entrances to two of the passages had been purposely blocked up, and part of one of the chambers had been walled up and filled in, probably with a view to affording a secure foundation for a building to be erected above it. Both passages and chambers are shown in the plan in dotted lines, but a part of the walls of the latter (surrounded by a wavy line) are shown in tint.