"On the East side of the structure is a broad range of stone steps, between eight and nine inches high, and so steep, that the greatest care is required in ascending and descending: of these we counted one hundred and one in their places. Nine were wanting at the top, and perhaps twenty were covered with rubbish at the bottom. At the summit of the steps is a stone platform four feet and a half wide, running along the rear of the building. There is no door in the centre, but at each end a door opens into an apartment eighteen feet long and nine wide, and between the two is a third apartment of the same width, and thirty-four feet long. The whole building is of stone; inside the walls are of polished smoothness; outside, up to the height of the door, the stones are plain and square; above this line there is a rich cornice or moulding, and from this to the top of the building, all the sides are covered with rich and elaborate sculptured ornaments, forming a sort of arabesque. The style and character of these ornaments were entirely different from those of any we had seen before, either in that country or any other; they bore no resemblance whatever to those of Copan or Palenque, and were quite as unique and peculiar. The designs were strange and incomprehensible, very elaborate, sometimes grotesque, but often simple, tasteful, and beautiful. Among the intelligible subjects, are squares and diamonds (i. e. forms), with busts of human beings, heads of leopards, and compositions of leaves and flowers, and the ornaments known every where as grecques. The ornaments which succeed each other are all different; the whole form an extraordinary mass of richness and complexity, and the effect is both grand and curious; and the construction of these ornaments is not less peculiar and striking than the general effect. There were no tablets or single stones, each representing separately, or by itself, an entire subject; but every ornament or combination is made up of separate stones, on each of which part of the subject was carved [sculptured], and was then set in its place in the wall. (?) Each stone by itself was an unmeaning fractional part; but placed by the side of others helped to make a whole, which, without it would be incomplete. Perhaps it may, with propriety, be called a species of sculptured mosaic."
This last sentence cannot be entertained,—for mosaic is an arrangement of COLOURED stones, to represent a painted floor, wall, or ceiling,—their shape is not material, but they must be possessed of different colours. Now this does not appear upon the walls of Uxmal [i. e. of the edifice now in review], and the absence of coloured stones gives the negative to their being even "a species of mosaic." Nor were the stones first sculptured, "and then set in their places in the wall;" that is entirely a modern custom; but by applying the history of ancient sculpture to the preceding description, the means whereby the accuracy of facial sculpture of the wall was obtained, is at once defined and established. The Greeks placed the stones of their friezes and pediments upon their Temples in their rough state,—they were sculptured afterwards, and consequently the greatest accuracy in the connecting lines from one stone to another was obtained, and could be by that manner only. The fluting of a column (of one or more blocks of marble) was always sculptured after it had been erected in its rough state. This was the only practice in that branch of art, and without doubt it was (it must have been) so practised upon the beautiful and unique walls of Uxmal.
In perusing the foregone descriptions, the reader may almost ask himself if his perceptive powers are not betraying him?—whether he is reading of an Athenian display of Sculpture, or really of an ancient edifice on the Western Continent! Well might it have appeared to the bewildered traveller as "a work of enchantment." He then proceeds to describe another building of the same character and sculpture: an edifice supposed to have "some reference to the Vestals, who in Mexico were employed to keep burning the sacred fire." It is thus sketched:
"It is situated on an artificial elevation about fifteen feet high. Its form is quadrangular, and one side, according to my measurement, is ninety-five paces in length. It was not possible to pace all around it, from the masses of fallen stones which encumbered it in some places, but it may be safely stated at two hundred-and-fifty feet square [i. e. one thousand feet in the entire measurement!]. It is built entirely of cut stone [like the other buildings] and the whole exterior is filled with the same rich, elaborate, and incomprehensible sculptured ornaments. The principal entrance is by a large doorway into a beautiful patio or courtyard, grass-grown but clear of trees, and the whole of the inner façade is ornamented more richly and elaborately than the outside, and in a more perfect state of preservation."
This may be accounted for from the apparent fact, that the interior sculpture was executed after that on the outward walls; for it appears to be far more beautiful and elaborate, and thence more time would be required for its completion, and as a consequence, it could only be finished at a later date; added to this a greater protection from the weather is given to the inside of quadrangular walls than on the outside, and that without any reference to roofs or coverings: for a strong wind striking, for instance, an easterly wall on the outside, the force of the wind is destroyed, and consequently reaches the opposite wall in the area with a greatly diminished power. The same argument would apply to the wind from any quarter, blowing upon unroofed quadrangular structures, and this these builders seem to have completely understood by making the Sculpture more refined and delicate upon the inside.
"On one side the combination [of the Sculpture] was in the form of diamonds, simple, chaste, and tasteful: and at the head of the courtyard two gigantic serpents (with their heads broken and fallen) were winding from opposite directions along the whole façade"—[i. e. one thousand feet].
It will be remembered that the Chief Altar at Copan has sculptured on it two serpents: in the Analogies we shall endeavour to read these wily hieroglyphics.
"In front and on a line with the door of the preceding edifice, is another building on a lower foundation of the same general character, called Casa de Tortugas, from the sculptured turtles over the doorway."
That the reader may not be misled, these "turtles" are not as defined in Scripture (i. e. young doves), but the tortoise, the well-known shellfish; and in the splendid illustrations of these Ruins in Waldeck's work (folio, 1838) the tortoise is distinctly given, and without doubt is so meant by Mr. Stephens. There are four of them in a group, their heads approaching to a centre, each tortoise is in a square, and in the two external angles of each square is an Egg. The tortoise and the egg, are both National emblems, and the Nation claiming them will be proved in the Analogies.