way appears on each side of the centre,
the front wall at the two ends having fallen. On both sides of this
centre doorway were two other doorways opening into apartments. Each
apartment contains two chambers, with the back one raised, but there
are no steps, and the only ornament is a row of small pilasters about
two feet high under the door, and running the whole length of the room.

Such is a brief description of the facade and front apartments, and
these formed not more than one third of the building. At the rear and
under the same roof were two ranges of apartments of the same
dimensions with those just described, and having a rectangular area in
front. The whole edifice formed nearly a square, and though having less
front, with a great solid mass nearly as thick as one of the corridors,
for the centre wall, it covered nearly as many square feet as the Casa
del Gobernador, and probably, from its lavishness of ornament,
contained more sculptured stone. The rest of the building, however, was
in a much more ruinous condition than that presented. At both ends the
wall had fallen, and the whole of the other front, with the roof, and
the ruins filled up the apartments so that it was extremely difficult
to make out the plan.

The whole of the terrace on this latter side is overgrown with trees,
some of which have taken root among the fragments, and are growing out
of the interior of the chambers.

[Engraving 41: Rankness of Tropical Vegetation]

The sketch opposite will give some idea of the manner in which the
rankness of tropical vegetation is hurrying to destruction these
interesting remains. The tree is called the alamo, or elm, the leaves
of which, with those of the ramon, form in that country the principal
fodder for horses. Springing up beside the front wall, its fibres crept
into cracks and crevices, and became shoots and branches, which, as the
trunk rose, in struggling to rise with it, unsettled and overturned the
wall, and still grew, carrying up large stones fast locked in their
embraces, which they now hold aloft in the air. At the same time, its
roots have girded the foundation wall, and form the only support of
what is left. The great branches overshadowing the whole cannot be
exhibited in the plate, and no sketch can convey a true idea of the
ruthless gripe in which these gnarled and twisted roots encircle
sculptured stones.

Such is a brief description of the first building at Kabah. To many of
thes