Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/955

 1869.] Ancient American Architecture. 779 windows and present no appearance of decoration on the walls. The lower part of the building is of plain wrought stone, but the upper portion is covered profusely with decoration. So enor- mous is the quantity of surface thus carved in stone, that it amounts alto- gether to nearly eight hundred feet in length, carried round the sides of the building. Every room displays a sin- gular kind of arch, which seems to have formed a principal feature in the archi- tecture of the country. These arches are of a triangular form, constructed of courses of stone, each of which projected bej-ond the one beneath, until the aper- ture in the middle became sufficiently small to be closed by a flat stone at the top. This is exactly the same kind of arch as is believed to have been the fore- runner of the true or keyed arch in Greece and Rome. In the building at Uxmal the lintels of the doors were of wood, which has so far decaj-ed as to cause the fall of the masonry which they supported. There is a sculptured cornice going entirely round the top of the building, on all four sides. This Casa has a very imposing appear- ance, owing to the lofty terrace on which it is built. There is in the first place a platform about three feet high ; and, fif- teen feet within this is another platform about twenty feet high ; two hundred and fifty feet within this is another platform also about twenty feet high, and on the uppermost platform the Casa is built. Within about sixty feet of either end of the building are arched gateways, of which the masonry is similar to that of the rest of the building. Of another of these interesting build- ings, the palace at Palenqua, Mr. Cath- erwood remarks : "It stands on an arti- ficial mound whose base is three hun- dred and ten feet by two hundred and sixty feet, and forty feet high, with stair- cases on the four sides. The building itself measures two hundred and twenty- eight feet by one hundred and eighty feet, twenty-five feet high, and is of one story. The front and rear have each fourteen doorways, and eleven at each end. The piers dividing the door-ways still present traces of admirable stuc- coes, which were painted. The interior is divided into three court-yards, with a tower in one of them. Every part ap- pears to have been elaborately decorated with sculptures in stone, stuccoes, and paintings. In several of the apartments, which have the usual triangular arch, I noticed that the walls had been painted several times, as traces of earlier sub- jects were discernable where the outer coat of paint had been destroyed. The paintings were of the same nature as the frescoes of Italy, — water colors applied to cement. " The other buildings are inferior in size to the Palace, but all on high mounds, richly decorated with numer- ous stone tablets of hieroglyphics, and sculptures of figures well executed, which have awakened a lively interest in the antiquarian world. " In another place a building has been discovered, forming four sides of a square, and enclosing a court-yard mea- suring three hundred feet each way. Each of the four sides of the buildino- shows a design different from the others, as also do the rear fronts and the ends ; so that the buildings altogether present sixteen facades, all different, and all richly sculptured and painted, with all the details of the ornaments picked out in colors and in gold. The appearance of the building must,as Mr. Catherwood remarks, have been gorgeous in the ex- treme." One of the strangest features con- nected with these ruins is, that they are often buried in the depths of a forest, where they almost escape human eyes. Thus Mr. Stephens, travelling along with his companions on horseback, encoun- tered an immense mass of building in the following way : "After proceeding a mile and a half," he says, " we saw at some distance before us a great tree-