After our visit to the Lion’s Temple, now in a deplorable state of dilapidation, we crossed the high-banked river and reached a high level at the base of Cerro Alto, where we came upon a cluster of buildings composed of diminutive compartments which were used as tombs; two more were found by us in some other buildings to the north of the palace. These small monuments were constructed with uncemented stones, and were in good preservation. The tombs measured 6 feet 7 inches by 1 foot 8 inches to 1 foot 9 inches wide; they occupied the centre of the rooms and were built with flagstones; the bodies were found with two large flat-bottomed vases, ornamented with a little sunk flower, identical with those found at Teotihuacan.
Among the innumerable ruins we discovered were five temples; one, to judge from the height of the pyramid, which was divided into four stories, and its noble remains must have been important. As we descend the river to the north-west, pyramids, ruined buildings, groups of low houses, temples, and palaces, are found occupying the slopes of the Cordilleras, from the crest of the lesser chain to their base. The buildings are found on the high level and temples on eminences, followed by a vast space apparently unoccupied, perhaps the site of ancient gardens. To form an accurate idea of the plan of the city would necessitate the felling of forest over several square miles, an undertaking not to be thought of in our case. Bridges and roads connected the various edifices; some of these roads or streets measure several hundred yards, and I found one bridge of 32 feet square with one single opening, 3 feet 6 inches by 9 feet 9 inches deep. All were built with uncemented stones. Now most bridges have crumbled away, the torrents they spanned are blocked up, and the waters are drained through beds they have hewn for themselves, running over the structures and depositing on their façades stalactites which give them a strange appearance.
The explorer who sees the complete desolation of this ancient city must bear in mind, that in a tropical region excessively hot and damp a long time is not necessary to destroy even structures of solid stone, in order to avoid attributing great antiquity to these ruins. Now the ornamentation, both in the palaces of Palenque, on the upper part of friezes, or the dress of figures, consists of small rolls or round lines of plaster, studded with diminutive spheres or dots, which, as we explained before, were added at the very last, and is clearly seen in our restoration. That ornamentation at once so fragile could not last many hundred years in such surroundings, is proved by the fact that on the least touch round lines and dots come down, and that the ground is strewn with them. If we examine the stairways, which on both sides of the courtyard of the palace connected the two edifices, we shall find the steps unworn, the stairs new; yet communication must have been incessant, and if for long ages thousands of people descended and ascended these stairs, would not the wear and tear be traceable?
The stairs of our public buildings are worn away in no time; if we find them entire at Palenque, it is a proof that they were not long trodden. Nor is this all. The roofs, the walls and courts of the palaces are so well hidden under the thick vegetation which covers them, that a stranger might pass a few yards distant and never suspect their presence. The size of the trees growing between and over these structures has been adduced as a conclusive proof of the age of these monuments. Waldeck calculated their age at 2,000 years and more; Mr. Lorainzar computed that these monuments must be 1,700 years old, because he found a mahogany table made of one single piece from a tree in these ruins. His reasoning was based on the erroneous notion that a concentric circle represents one year, whereas I ascertained that in a tropical country nature never rests; for chancing to cut a twig some eighteen months old, I counted no less than eighteen concentric circles. To assure myself that this was not an isolated fact, I cut branches and trees of every size and description, when the same phenomenon occurred in exactly the same proportions. More than this: in my first expedition to Palenque in 1859, I had the eastern side of the palace cleared of its dense vegetation to secure a good photograph. Consequently the trees that have grown since cannot be more than twenty-two years old; now one of the cuttings measuring some two feet in diameter, had upwards of 230 concentric circles; that is at the rate of one in a month, or even less; it follows that the seventeen centuries of Mr. Lorainzar must be reduced to 150 or at most 200 years.
Stephens mentions a ceiba twenty-two years old of 6 feet 10 inches in diameter, and I noticed in Mexico some eucalyptus not eighteen years old, measuring 6 feet 9 inches in diameter; could these trees have only eighteen or twenty concentric circles?
To recapitulate, Palenque seems to us more modern, as she is far better preserved than Comalcalco; if the latter was inhabited at the time of the Conquest (and we think we have proved it), the former must have been likewise. Comalcalco was a Toltec city just as was Palenque, and this is clearly demonstrated in the pyramidal form given to the basement of edifices, in the invariable shape of the monuments, bearing so striking a resemblance to the Toltec calli, in the fragments, in the masks of terra-cotta, the pottery, and the small figures, facsimiles of those we found on the plateaux; in the cultus of the cross, emblem of the Toltec Tlaloc, and lastly in the important quotations from Juarros and Diaz, affirming that Palenque was called Tula.
We shall leave for the present this Toltec branch which founded Ocosingo, Colhuacan, and other cities of the Uplands, to visit the other branch which settled in the Yucatan peninsula.
STAIRCASE INSCRIPTIONS.