tar for burning copal.

The building on the top stands directly over the lower chamber, and
corresponds with it in dimensions, this being the only instance we met
with in which one room was placed directly over another. There was no
staircase or other visible means of communication between the lower and
upper stories.

At the rear of this building were others attached to it, or connected
with it, but uprooted and thrown down by trees, and among the ruins
were two stone tablets with rounded surfaces, six feet six inches high,
two feet four inches wide, and eight inches thick, having upon them
worn and indistinct traces of sculpture.

[Engraving 65: A Building]

At the short distance of fifty-three feet is the building represented
in the engraving opposite. It stands on a terrace six feet high, with a
staircase in the centre, measures forty-five feet by twenty-six, has
two pillars in the doorway, and over the centre is the head of a
mutilated figure. The interior is divided into two principal and
parallel apartments, and at the north extremity of the inner one is a
smaller apartment, containing an enclosed altar five feet long, and
three feet six inches deep, for burning copal. The roof had fallen, and
trees were growing out of the floor.

Near this is another building, larger than the last, constructed on the
same plan, but more ruined. These buildings were all within about two
hundred feet of the steps of the Castillo. We were in the very act of
leaving before we discovered them, and but for the accidental attempt
of Doctor Cabot to cut through in search of birds, or if he had
happened to cut a few yards to the right hand or the left, we should
have gone away ignorant of their existence.

It will be borne in mind that when this city was inhabited and clear of
trees, the buildings were all visible from the sea; the Spaniards are
known to have sailed along this coast, and the reader will ask if they
have given us no accounts of its existence. The narrative of the
expedition of Grijalva, taken up at the point at which we left it,
after crossing from Cozumel, continues: "We ran along day and night,
and the next day toward sunset we saw a bourg, or village, so large
that Seville would not have appeared larger or better. We saw there a
very high tower. There was upon the bank a crowd of Indians, who
carried two standards, which they raised and lowered as signs to us to
come and join them. The same day we arrived at a b