eiling; in fact, it was
in shape exactly like the apartments above ground. It was eleven feet
long, seven wide, and ten high to the centre of the arch. The walls and
ceiling were plastered, and the floor was of cement, all hard and in a
good state of preservation. A centipede was the only tenant after the
evasion of the iguana.

While I was making these measurements, the Indians kept up a low
conversation around the hole. A mystery hung around it, transmitted to
them by their fathers, and connected with an indefinable sense of
apprehension. This mystery might have been solved at any time in five
minutes, but none of them had ever thought of doing it, and the old man
begged me to come out, saying that if I died they would have to answer
for it. Their simplicity and credulity seem hardly credible. They had
all sense enough to take their hands out of the fire without being
told, but probably to this day they believe that in that hole is the
owner of the building. When I came out they looked at me with
admiration. They told me that there were other places of the same kind,
but they would not show them to me, lest some accident should happen;
and as my attempt drew them all from work, and I could not promise
myself any satisfactory result, I refrained from insisting.

This chamber was formed in the roof of the lower building. That
building contained two corridors, and we had always supposed that the
great interval between the arches of the parallel corridors was a solid
mass of masonry. The discovery of this chamber brought to light a new
feature in the construction of these buildings. Whether the other
roofs, or any of them, contained chambers, it is impossible to say. Not
suspecting anything of the kind, we had made no search for them, and
they may exist, but with the holes covered up and hidden by the growth
and decay of vegetation. Heretofore I had inclined to the opinion that
the subterraneous chambers I had met with were intended for cisterns or
reservoirs of water. The position of this in the roof of a building
seemed adverse to such an idea, as, in case of a breach, the water
might find its way into the apartment below.

At the foot of the terrace was a tree, hiding part of the building.
Though holding trees in some degree of reverence, around these ruined
cities it was a great satisfaction to hear them fall. This one was a
noble ramon, which I had ordered to be cut down, and being engaged in
another direction, I