Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vol. II.

by John L. Stephens

The following engraving represents the ground plan of the three ranges, and gives the dimensions of the terraces. The platforms are wider in front than in the rear; the apartments vary from twenty-three to ten feet, and the north side of the second range has a curious and unaccountable feature. It is called the Casa Cerrada, or closed house, having ten doorways, all of which are blocked up inside with stone and mortar. Like the well at Xcoch, it had a mysterious reputation in the village of Nohcacab, and all believed that it contained hidden treasure. Indeed, so strong was this belief, that the alcalde Segundo, who had never visited these ruins, resolved to take advantage of our presence; and, according to agreement in the village, came down with crowbars to assist us in breaking into the closed apartments and discovering the precious hoard. The first sight of these closed-up doorways gave us a strong desire to make the attempt; but on moving along we found that the Indians had been beforehand with us. In front of several were piles of stones, which they had worked out from the doorways, and under the lintels were holes, through which we were able to crawl inside; and here we found ourselves in apartments finished with walls and ceilings like all the others, but filled up (except so far as they had been emptied by the Indians) with solid masses of mortar and stone. There were ten of these apartments in all, 220 feet long and ten feet deep, which being thus filed up, made the whole building a solid mass; and the strangest feature was that the filling up of the apartments must have been simultaneous with the erection of the buildings, for, as the filling-in rose above the tops of the doorways, the men who performed it never could have entered to their work through the doors. It must have been done as the walls were built, and the ceiling must have closed over a solid mass. Why this was so constructed it was impossible to say, unless the solid mass was required for the support of the upper terrace and building; and if this was the case, it would seem to have been much easier to erect a solid structure at once, without any division into apartments.

The top of this building commanded a grand view, no longer of a dead plain, but of undulating woodlands. Toward the northwest, crowning the highest hill, was a lofty mound, covered with trees, which, to our now practised eyes, it was manifest shrouded a building, either existing or in ruins. The whole intervening space was thick wood and underbrush, and the Indians said the mound was inaccessible. I selected three of the best, and told them that we must reach it; but they really did not know how to make the attempt, and set out on a continuation of the road by which we had reached the ruins, and which led us rather from than to the mound. On the way we met another Indian, who turned back with us, and a little beyond, taking his range, he cut through the woods to another path, following which a short distance, he again struck through the woods, and, all cutting together, we reached the foot of a stony hill covered with the gigantic maguey, or Agave Americana, its long thorny points piercing and tearing all that touched them. Climbing up this hill with great toil, we reached the wall of a terrace, and, climbing this, found ourselves at the foot of the building.

It was in a ruinous condition, and did not repay us for the labour; but over the door was a sculptured head with a face of good expression and workmanship. In one of the apartments was a high projection running along the wall; in another a raised platform about a foot high; and on the walls of this apartment was the print of the red hand. The doorway commanded an extensive view of rolling woodland, which, with its livery of deep green, ought to have conveyed a sensation of gladness, but, perhaps from its desolation and stillness, it induced rather a feeling of melancholy. There was but one opening in the forest, being that made by us, disclosing the Casa Grande, with the figures of a few Indians still continuing their clearings on the top.

In front of the Casa Grande, at the distance of five hundred yards, and also visible from the top, is another structure, strikingly different from any we had seen, more strange and inexplicable, and having at a distance the appearance of a New-England factory.

The engraving which follows represents this building. It stands on a terrace, and may be considered as consisting of two separate structures, one above the other. The lower one, in its general features, resembled all the rest. It was forty feet front, low, and having a flat roof, and in the centre was an archway running through the building. The front is fallen, and the whole so ruined that nothing but the archway appears in the engraving. Along the middle of the roof, unsupported, and entirely independent of everything else, rises a perpendicular wall to the height of perhaps thirty feet. It is of stone, about two feet thick, and has oblong openings through it about four feet long and six inches wide, like small windows. It had been covered with stucco, which had fallen off, and left the face of rough stone and mortar; and on the other side were fragments of stuccoed figures and ornaments. An Indian appears before it in the act of killing a snake, with which all the woods of Yucatan abound. Since we began our exploration of American ruins we had not met with anything more inexplicable than this great perpendicular wall. It seemed built merely to puzzle posterity.

These were the only buildings in this immediate neighbourhood which had survived the wasting of the elements; but, inquiring among the Indians, one of them undertook to guide me to another, which he said was still in good preservation. Our direction was south-southwest from the Casa Grande; and at the distance of about a mile, the whole intermediate region being desolate and overgrown, we reached a terrace, the area of which far exceeded anything we had seen in the country. We crossed it from north to south, and in this direction it must have been fifteen hundred feet in length, and probably was quite as much in the other direction; but it was so rough, broken, and overgrown, that we did not attempt to measure it.

On this great platform was the building of which the Indian had told us; I had it cleared, and Mr. Catherwood drew it the next day, as it appears in the engraving opposite. It measures one hundred and seventeen feet in front, and eighty-four feet deep, and contains sixteen apartments, of which those in front, five in number, are best preserved. That in the centre has three doorways. It is twenty-seven feet six inches long, by only seven feet six inches wide, and communicates by a single doorway with a back room eighteen feet long and five feet six inches wide. This room is raised two feet six inches above the one in front, and has steps to ascend. Along the bottom of the front room, as high as the sill of the door, is a row of small columns, thirty-eight in number, attached to the wall.

In several places the great platform is strewed with ruins, and probably other buildings lie buried in the woods, but without guides or any clew whatever, we did not attempt to look for them.