ALE

Not far from this is a singular ruin, consisting of groups of small columns standing in rows five abreast, the tallest being not more than six feet high. Many of them have fallen. It is impossible to determine how they were used, or what they mean.

OTHER RUINS IN YUCATAN.

Izamal, Labna, Zayi, and some of the other ruins are sufficiently important for special notice; but they present every where the same characteristics, differing a little in the style or method of ornamentation. At Labna there is among the ruins an ancient gateway, beautiful in design and construction, a view of which is given in the Frontispiece. The best account of some of the other ruins on this peninsula can be found in the volumes of Mr. Stephens, entitled "Incidents of Travel in Yucatan." At Zayi there is a singular building, which, as seen at a distance by Mr. Stephens, "had the appearance of a New England factory." But what seemed to be a "factory" is, in fact, nothing more than a massive wall with oblon openings, which runs along the middle of the roof, and rises thirty feet above it. The building was below this wall, but the front part of it had fallen. Among the remains at Xcoch is the great mound represented in Figure 44.

There is a remarkable ruin at Ake, at the south, which deserves mention. Here, on the summit of a great mound, very level, and 225 feet by 50 in extent, stand 36 shafts or columns, in three parallel rows. The columns are about 15 feet high and 4 feet square. The

ruins of Ake, which cover a great space, are ruder and more massive than most of the others. The island of Cozumel and the adjacent coast of Yucatan were populous when the Spaniards first went there, but the great towns then inhabited are now in ruins.

Water is scarce on this peninsula, and a sufficient supply is not obtained without considerable difficulty. The ancient inhabitants provided for this lack of water by constructing aguadas or artificial ponds. These, or many of them, doubtless, are as old as the oldest of the ruined.

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cities. Intelligence, much skill in masonry, and much labor were required to construct them. They were påved with several courses of stone laid in cement, and in their bottoms wells or cavities were constructed. More than forty such wells were found in the bottom of one of these aguadas at Galal, which has been repaired and restored to use. A section of the bottom of this aguada is shown in Figure 45. In some places long subterranean passa

ges lead down to pools of water, which are used in the dry season. One of these subterranean reservoirs, and the cavernous passage leading to it, are shown in Figure 46. The reservoir is 450 feet below the surface of the ground, and the passage leading to it is about 1400 feet long. Branching passages, not shown, lead to two or three other basins of water.

The wooden lintels, which are common in Yucatan,

do not appear in the other ruins, and there is a difference in the style of ornamentation between those at .

Palenque or Copan, for instance, and those at Uxmal, but every where the architecture is regulated by the same idea, the differences indicating nothing more than

different periods and different phases of development in the history of the same people.

Some of the great edifices in these old ruins, such as the "Palace" at Palenque, and the "Casa del Gobernador' at Uxmal, remind us of the "communal buildings" of the Pueblos, and yet there is a wide difference between them. They are not alike either in character or purpose, although such great buildings as the "Palace” may have been designed for the occupation of several families. There is no indication that "communal" resi.dences were ever common in this part of the country. At the time of the Conquest the houses of the people were ordinary family dwellings, made of wood, and we may reasonably suppose this fashion of building was handed down from the earlier ages. Herrera, who supposed, mistakenly, that all the great stone edifices were