several
feet with mortar and stones, and appearing to have been originally
filled up solid to the ceiling, making again casas cerradas, or closed
houses. The whole number of chambers in this wing is nine, and these
are all the apartments on the ground floor. The great structure to
which the wing adjoins is apparently a solid mass of masonry, erected
only to hold up the two ranges of buildings upon it. A grand staircase
fifty-six feet wide, the largest we saw in the country, rises to the
top. On one side of the staircase a huge breach, twenty or thirty feet
deep, has been made by the proprietor, for the purpose of getting out
building stone, which discloses only solid masonry. The grand staircase
is thirty-two feet high, and has thirty-nine steps. On the top of the
structure stands a range of buildings, with a platform of fourteen feet
in front extending all round.

From the back of this platform the grand staircase rises again, having
the same width, fifteen steps to the roof of the second range, which
forms a platform in front of the third range; this last is
unfortunately, in a ruinous condition, and it is to be observed that in
this, as in all the other cases, these ancient architects never placed
an upper building on the roof of a lower one, but always back, so as to
rest on a structure solid from the ground, the roof of the lower range
being merely a platform in front of the upper one.

The circumference of this building is six hundred and thirty-eight
feet, and its height, when entire, was sixty-five feet. It seems to
have been constructed only with reference to the second range of
apartments, upon which the art and skill of the builders have been
lavishly expended. It is one hundred and four feet long and thirty feet
wide, and the broad platform around it, though overgrown with grass
several feet high, formed a noble promenade, commanding a magnificent
view of the whole surrounding country.

On the side of the staircase are five doorways, of which the three
centre ones are what are usually called false doors, appearing to be
merely recesses in the wall. The compartments between the doorways
contained combinations of ornaments of unusual taste and elegance, both
in arrangement and design. The two extreme doorways open into chambers,
in each of which are three long recesses in the back wall, extending
from the floor to the ceiling, all of which, from the remains still
visible, were once ornamented with painting