scovered, which is represented in the engraving that follows. It
was found standing on its feet, in the position represented in the
engraving. It is carved out of a single block of stone, and measures
three feet two inches in length and two feet in height. It seems
intended to represent a double-headed cat or lynx, and is entire with
the exception of one foot, which is a little broken. The sculpture is
rude. It was too heavy to carry away. We had it raised to the side of
the mound for Mr. Catherwood to draw, and probably it remains there
still. The _picote_, or great stone, before referred to, appears in the
engraving in the distance.

[Engraving 14: Double-headed Lynx]

Why this monument had been consigned to the strange place in which it
was discovered we were at a loss to conjecture. This could never have
been its original destination. It had been formally and deliberately
buried. In my opinion, there is but one way of accounting for it. It
had been one of the many idols worshipped by the people of Uxmal; and
the probability is, that when the inhabitants abandoned the city they
buried it, that it might not be desecrated; or else the Spaniards, when
they drove out the inhabitants and depopulated the city, in order to
destroy all the reverential feelings of the Indians toward it, followed
the example of Cortez at Cholula, and threw down and buried the idols.

At a distance of 130 feet from this mound was a square stone structure,
six feet high and twenty feet at the base, in which we made an
excavation, and discovered two sculptured heads, no doubt intended as
portraits.

From the centre of this great platform a grand staircase 130 feet
broad, which once contained 35 steps, rises to the third terrace, on
which the building stands; besides this there is no staircase connected
with either of the three terraces, and the only ascent to the platform
of the second is by an inclined plane 100 feet broad, at the south end
of the building, which makes it necessary for all approaching from the
north to pass the whole length of the lower terrace, and, ascending by
the inclined plane, go back to reach the steps. The probability is,
that the labour of this was not regarded by the ancient inhabitants,
and that all visiters or residents in the building passed in and out on
the shoulders of Indians in coches, as the rich do now.

[Engraving 15: House of the Turtles]

There remains to be noticed one important building on the gran