Ground Plan of the Casa del Gobernador.
Section of the Casa del Gobernador.
The upper platform supports, and forms a promenade thirty feet wide round the Casa del Gobernador, which is a building three hundred and twenty-two feet long, thirty-nine feet wide, and twenty-six feet high,[V-14] built of stone and mortar. A central wall divides the interior longitudinally into two nearly equal corridors, which, divided again by transverse partition walls, form two parallel rows of rooms extending the whole length of the building. The arrangement of these rooms will be best understood by a reference to the accompanying ground plan from Mr Stephens.[V-15] The two central apartments are about sixty feet long and twelve feet wide; the others, except the two in the recesses, are twelve by twenty-five feet. Those of the front corridor are twenty-three feet high, while in the rear they are only twenty-two, authorities differing somewhat, however, on this point. There are two doorways in the rear, one on each end, and thirteen on the front; with nine interior doorways exactly opposite the same number on the exterior. The rear, or western wall, except for a short distance at each end, is nine feet thick and perfectly solid, as was proved by an excavation; the transverse walls corresponding with the two recesses are of about the same thickness; and all the other walls are between two and three feet thick. The stone for the facings of the whole building is cut in smooth blocks nearly cubic in form and of varying but nowhere exactly stated dimensions; but the mass of the structure, as is proven by M. Charnay's photograph, is an agglomeration of rough, irregular fragments of stone in mortar. The construction of the whole will be understood by a glance at the cut, which represents a section of the building at the central doorway in very nearly its true proportions, although the proper size and cubical form of the blocks are not observed.[V-16] At about mid-height of each room the side walls begin to approach each other, one layer of stones overlapping the one below it, until they are only one foot apart, when a number of blocks, longer than usual, are laid across the top, serving by means of the mortar which holds them in place and the weight of the superimposed masonry, as key-stones to this arch of the true American type. The projecting corners of the overlapping blocks are beveled off so that the ceiling presents two plane stone surfaces nearly forming an acute angle at the top. Above and between these arches all is solid masonry to the flat roof, giving to the apartments the air of galleries excavated in the solid mass, rather than enclosed by walls. The top of each doorway is formed by a stout beam of zapote-wood which has to bear the weight of the stone-work above. One of these lintels in the southern apartment, ten feet long, twenty-one inches wide, and ten inches thick, is elaborately carved; the rest, not only in this building, but in all at Uxmal, are plain.[V-17] Many of them are broken and fallen. It is to the breaking of these wooden lintels that is to be attributed nearly all the dilapidation observable about this ruin, especially over the outer doorways. Some special motive must have influenced the builders to use wood in preference to the more durable stone, and this motive may be supposed to have been the rarity and value of the zapote, which is said not to grow in this part of the state. The only traces preserved of the means by which these doorways were originally closed are the remains, on the inside of some of them near the top, of rings, or hooks, which may have served as hinges, or more probably for the support of a bar from which to suspend curtains. The dimensions of the doorways are not stated, but they are about ten feet high and seven feet wide. They are the only openings into or between the apartments, there being absolutely no windows, chimneys, or air-holes. Across the ceilings from side to side at about mid-height stretch small wooden beams, whose ends are built into the stone-work. The only suggestions respecting their use are that they served to support the ceilings while in process of construction, and that they served for the suspension of hammocks.[V-18] The inner surface of the rooms is that of the plain smooth stone blocks, except in one or two of them where a very thin coating of fine white plaster is noticed. There is no trace of painting, sculpture, or other attempt at decoration. The floors and roof are covered with a hard cement. Nothing further worthy of particular notice demands our attention in the interior of the Governor's House, except the small apartments corresponding with the recesses near each end of the building. In these the sides of the ceiling instead of beginning to approach each other by means of overlapping blocks at mid-height of the room, begin at or near the floor, thus leaving no perpendicular walls whatever. The explanation of this seems to be, so far as can be judged from Catherwood's drawing and Charnay's photograph, that originally an open passage about twenty feet wide at the bottom, narrowing to two or three feet at the top, and twenty-four feet high, extended completely through the building from front to rear at each of the recesses, and that afterwards this passage was divided into two small apartments by three partition walls, a small door being left in the front and rear.[V-19]
