Page:A Glimpse at Guatemala.pdf/297

Rh paintings; but of this decoration only a few fragments two or three inches square remained. The broad terrace around the house was on a level with the tree-tops, and our view extended over the forest-covered plain to the far horizon. To the southward, where no clearing had yet been made, the sea of verdure spread unbroken from our feet. During the lovely tropical nights, when a gentle breeze swayed the tree-tops, and the moonlight rippled over the foliage, it seemed to be a real sea in motion below us, and one almost expected to feel the pulsation of ocean waves against the walls. In the daytime the woods were alive with birds the beautiful motmots were so tame that they flew fearlessly in and out of our rooms, and mocking-birds and scarlet cardinals poured forth a flood of melody such as I have never heard equalled.

The east wing of the Nunnery extends towards some detached buildings, of which one, known as "la iglesia," is shown on the accompanying plate. Huge grotesque masks or faces with projecting snouts are the most prominent objects in the decoration of this building. On either side of the middle mask in the lower frieze is a panel holding two dilapidated figures of humanized animals: the figure on the right of the central mask is clearly intended for a turtle, and that on the left for an alligator.

Looking northwards from our high platform the ruins lay spread out before us. To the right we could see the front of the many-chambered "Ak at 'cib" ("the writing in the dark"), so called from the carved inscription on the doorway of an inner room. More immediately in front of us rose the strange circular building known as the "Caracol," from the small winding stairway hidden in the central mass of masonry. The circular form of this building, and the curiously unsymmetrical arrangement of the terraces, steps, and doorways, suggest the idea that it may have been used as an observatory, and that the direction of the lines of the terraces and the outlook from the doorways may have reference to the rising and setting of the heavenly bodies. To the left stands the Casa Colorada and the much-ruined buildings surrounding it. Beyond this, again, rises a pyramid which once had supported a temple of which nothing now remains but the two serpent columns which formed the doorway.

About three hundred yards to the N.E. of our house lay the 'cenote from which we drew our supply of water, its rocky and precipitous banks overhung by a thick growth of trees which afforded a grateful shade. The water was about sixty feet below the level of the ground, and could only be reached at one spot by a rough pathway, but we eased the labour of drawing water by rigging up a rope and pulley to an overhanging tree and hauling up the water in a bucket. Beyond the buildings I have already mentioned, we