To the first portion of these we gave the name of the House of the Birds, from the circumstance of its being ornamented on the exterior with representations of feathers and birds rudely sculptured. The preceding engraving represents a part of these ornaments.
The remaining portion consists of some very large rooms, among which are two fifty-three feet long, fourteen wide, and about twenty high, being the largest, or at least the widest in Uxmal. In one of them are the remains of painting well preserved, and in the other is an arch, which approaches nearer to the principle of the keystone than any we had yet met with in our whole exploration of ruins. It is very similar to the earliest arches, if they may be so called, of the Etruscans and Greeks, as seen at Arpino in the kingdom of Naples, and Tiryns in Greece. (See engravings in the Appendix.)
From this range of buildings we descend to the House of the Dwarf, also known by the name of la Casa del Adivino, or the House of the Diviner, from its overlooking the whole city, and enabling its occupant to be cognizant of all that was passing around him.
The courtyard of this building is one hundred and thirty-five feet by eighty-five. It is bounded by ranges of mounds from twenty-five to thirty feet thick, now covered with a rank growth of herbage, but which, perhaps, once formed ranges of buildings. In the centre is a large circular stone, like those seen in the other courtyards, called the Picote.
The plate opposite represents the west front of this building, with the mound on which it stands The base is so ruined and encumbered with fallen stones that it is difficult to ascertain its precise dimensions, but, according to our measurement, it is two hundred and thirty-five feet long, and one hundred and fifty-five wide. Its height is eighty-eight feet, and to the top of the building it is one hundred and five feet. Though diminishing as it rises, its shape is not exactly pyramidal, but its ends are rounded. It is encased with stone, and apparently solid from the plain.
A great part of the front presented in the engraving has fallen, and now lies a mass of ruins at the foot of the mound. Along the base, or rather about twenty feet up the mound, and probably once reached by a staircase, now ruined, is a range of curious apartments, nearly choked up with rubbish, and with the sapote beams still in their places over the door.
At the height of sixty feet is a solid projecting platform, on which stands a building loaded with ornaments more rich, elaborate, and carefully executed, than those of any other edifice in Uxmal. A great doorway opens upon the platform. The sapote beams are still in their places, and the interior is divided into two apartments; the outer one fifteen feet wide, seven feet deep, and nineteen feet high, and the inner one twelve feet wide, four feet deep, and eleven feet high. Both are entirely plain, without ornament of any kind, and have no communication with any part of the mound.
The steps or other means of communication with this building are all gone, and at the time of our visit we were at a loss to know how it had been reached; but, from what we saw afterward, we are induced to believe that a grand staircase upon a different plan from any yet met with, and supported by a triangular arch, led from the ground to the door of the building, which, if still in existence, would give extraordinary grandeur to this great mound.
The crowning structure is a long and narrow building, measuring seventy-two feet in front, and but twelve feet deep.