an
early dinner, prepared to leave the ruins. While the men were arranging
their loads I gave Doctor Cabot a direction to a point in the wall,
where, in measuring around it, Mr. Catherwood and I had started two
ocellated turkeys. He set out to cut his way in a straight line with
his hunting knife, and very soon, while sitting on the steps of the
Castillo, I heard him calling to me that he had come upon another
building which we had not seen. Having occasion to economize shoe
leather for the walk back over the cliff, I at first hesitated about
going to it, but he insisted. He was so near that we communicated
without any particular effort of voice, but I could see nothing of him
or of the building. Following his path, I found him standing before it;
and while working our way around it we discovered two others near by,
almost invisible, so dense was the foliage of the trees, but the
largest, except the Castillo, and most important of any we had seen.
Our plans were all deranged, for we could not go away without drawings
of these buildings. We returned to the steps of the Castillo, and
summoned all hands to council. The men had their back-loads ready,
Bernaldo reported two tortillas as the stock of provisions on hand, and
the idea of another night in the Castillo struck us with dismay. We had
been so long accustomed to sleep that it had become part of our nature;
a night's rest was indispensable, and we determined to break up and
return the next day.

Before daylight the next morning Albino set off with Molas and the
sailors, and by the time Mr. Catherwood arrived on the ground the
clearing of the first building was made.

[Engraving 64: A Building]

The plate opposite represents the front of this building. It faces the
west, measures twenty-seven feet in length and nineteen in depth, and
consists of two stories. The exterior had been richly decorated, and
above the cornice were fragments of rich ornaments in stucco. The lower
story has four columns, making five doorways opening into a narrow
corridor, which runs round and encloses on three sides a chamber in the
centre. The walls of the corridor on both sides were covered with
paintings, but green and mildewed from the rankness of vegetation in
which the building is smothered. A small doorway in front opens into
the chamber, which measures eleven feet by seven; of this, too, the
walls were covered with paintings, decayed and effaced, and against the
back wall was an al