It was one hundred and fifty feet high on the slope, and about
two hundred and fifty feet long at the base. At the top, the mound,
with the building upon it, had separated and fallen apart, and while
one side still supported part of the edifice, the other presented the
appearance of a mountain slide. Cocome, our guide, told us that the
separation had happened only with the floods of the last rainy season.
We ascended on the fallen side, and, reaching the top, found,
descending on the south side, a gigantic staircase, overgrown, but with
the great stone steps still in their places, and almost entire. The
ruined building on the top consisted of a single corridor, but three
feet five inches wide, and, with the ruins of Nohpat at our feet, we
looked out upon a great desolate plain, studded with overgrown mounds,
of which we took the bearings and names as known to the Indians; toward
the west by north, startling by the grandeur of the buildings and their
height above the plain, with no decay visible, and at this distance
seeming perfect as a living city, were the ruins of Uxmal. Fronting us
was the great Casa del Gobernador, apparently so near that we almost
looked into its open doors, and could have distinguished a man moving
on the terrace; and yet, for the first two weeks of our residence at
Uxmal, we did not know of the existence of this place, and, wanting the
clearings that had been made at Uxmal, no part of it was visible from
the terraces or buildings there.

[Engraving 33: Colossal Stone Figure]

Descending the mound, we passed around by the side of the staircase,
and rose upon an elevated platform, in the centre of which was a huge
and rude round stone, like that called the picote in the courtyards at
Uxmal. At the base of the steps was a large flat stone, having
sculptured upon it a colossal human figure in bas-relief, which is
represented in the following engraving. The stone measures eleven feet
four inches in length, and three feet ten in breadth, and lies on its
back, broken in two in the middle. Probably it once stood erect at the
base of the steps, but, thrown down and broken, has lain for ages with
its face to the sky, exposed to the floods of the rainy season. The
sculpture is rude and worn, and the lines were difficult to make out.
The Indians said that it was the figure of a king of the antiguos, and
no doubt it was intended as a portrait of some lord or cacique.

At a short distance to the southeast