and machete, and the crash of falling trees, this feeling wore
away. We had thirty Indians, who, working under the direction of the
major domo, were equal to forty or fifty in our hands, and there was
the most glorious excitement I had experienced in walking along these
terraces, with Albino and the major domo to convey my directions to the
Indians. Indeed, I can hardly imagine a higher excitement than to go
through that country with a strong force, time, and means at command,
to lay bare the whole region in which so many ruined cities are now
buried.

In the mean time Mr. Catherwood, still an invalid, and deprived of
sleep the night before, had his hammock slung in an apartment at the
top of the building. By afternoon the clearing was finished, and he
made his drawing, which appears in the engraving opposite.

[Engraving 27: A grand Structure]

The lowest range or story is one hundred and forty-five feet in length.
The roof and a portion of the facade have fallen, and almost buried the
centre doorways. The apartments containing the staircases are indicated
in a plan hereinafter presented. Each staircase consists of two
flights, with a platform at the head of the first, which forms the foot
of the second, and they lead out upon the roof, under the projection
which stands like a watch-tower in the wall of the second range, and
from this range two interior staircases lead out in the same way to the
platform of the third.

The reader will observe that in the second and third ranges there are
no openings of any kind except those at the head of the staircases, but
simply a plain, solid wall. At first sight of this wall we thought we
had really at last found a casa cerrada, and almost wished for the cura
with his bombas. The major domo, looking up at it, called it so; but it
seemed strange that such a character had ever been ascribed to it; for,
barely working our way round the platform of the terrace, we found
ranges of doorways opening into apartments, and that this was merely
what we had often seen before, a back wall without doors or windows.
And we made another much more interesting and important discovery. The
elevation which we came upon first, facing the west, and shown in the
engraving, noble and majestic as it was, was actually the rear of the
building, and the front, facing the east, presented the tottering
remains of the grandest structure that now rears its ruined head in the
forests of Yucatan.

In front w