The padre is a young man, quite sociable, and he occasionally preaches. When this happens, it is in the Maya language.
The town is small, and has nothing particularly to recommend it to the stranger. It is built upon a shelving rock, a customary site for towns in this province.
Plan of the Ruins of Uxmal.
At nine o’clock we were again in our saddles for Uxmal,[[8]] distant about four leagues. I saw at a distance the ruins of Nohpat; but my haste to reach Uxmal would not allow us to stop. I passed several fine estates on the way before reaching that place. The road was a path cut through the bushes, but easy to travel. I arrived at noon at the hacienda owned by a gentleman at Merida, before mentioned, who kindly had furnished me with a letter to his major-domo; which gave me every facility required to visit the extraordinary ruins in the vicinity. The house of the hacienda had just gone through a complete repair and cleaning, and held out many inducements for me to make my quarters there; but, preferring to be near to the place where I intended to spend my time, I ordered our trappings to be removed to the ruins, distant about one mile, whither I followed. I was at a loss which of the splendid structures to appropriate to my use; but the governor’s house had the appearance of being more tenable than all the rest, or perhaps more conspicuous. I chose that for my future place of residence, so I wended my way towards it—passing a grand and lofty pyramid on the right—and scrambled up the broken steps of the southeast angle of my prospective domicile. The governor not being at home, I took quiet possession of three rooms: one for my kitchen, the others for my parlor and bed, or rather, sleeping-room. The rubbish was cleared away, and my furniture, consisting of a table and a chair, with which the major-domo had kindly supplied me, was duly arranged; and some corn, dried pork, lard, sundry eggs, &c., were carefully provided. José selected the most finely finished pieces of ornamented stones which were lying about the door, and silently disposed them around the parlor as seats for the accommodation of company. We then felt ourselves perfectly at home, and ready to receive our friends as soon as they might be pleased to wait upon us. From our door we could see, on our right, beautiful hills undulating like the ground-swell of the sea; on the left, the Cordilleras, looking down with an air of great complaisance upon the plain beneath. Nature is renewing the fields far as the eye can reach; while in the foreground are the time-defying monuments of other days, garlanded with luxuriant shrubs and flowers, to sustain which they had been compelled to give up their own symmetry and beauty. It was nature in her second childhood.
The Governor’s House[[9]] is a vast and splendid pile of ruins. It stands upon three ranges of terraces; the first of which is a slight projection, forming a finish. The great platform, or terrace above it, measures upwards of five hundred feet long, and four hundred and fifteen broad. It is encompassed by a wall of fine hewn stone thirty feet high, with angles rounded, still in good preservation. In the centre of this platform, upon which trees and vegetation grow in profusion, stands a shaft of gray limestone in an inclined position, measuring twelve feet in circumference and eight in height; bearing upon its surface no marks of form or ornament by which it might be distinguished from a natural piece. Near by is a rude carving of a tiger with two heads; also, I saw excavations near them with level curbings and smoothly finished inside, which are conjectured to have been cisterns or granaries. Along the southern edge of this platform are the remains of a range of small pillars, now broken and in confusion.
Upon the north-west corner of this platform is an edifice, which was, no doubt, from its location, connected with the Governor’s House. It is the smallest of all the ruins. Its ornaments are few and plain; the most remarkable of which is a continuous line of turtles, cut from stone of about a foot square, arranged under the cornices.
SECTION OF FAÇADE, GOVERNOR’S HOUSE.
UXMAL RUINS.
Restored after Waldeck.
The south-west corner has connected with it two piles of loose stones, in the pyramidical form; one eighty, and the other a hundred feet high, the sides of the bases measuring about two hundred feet. Their tops are broad platforms, over which, and down the sides, are scattered the remains of edifices, of which these pyramids were once probably the foundations. Here we found pieces of pottery, consisting of broken pieces of vases, and supposed cooking utensils.