Another important edifice at Uxmal has been named “Casa de las Monjas,” House of the Nuns. It stands on a terraced foundation, and is arranged around a quadrangular court-yard 258 feet one way and 214 the other. The front structure is 279 feet long, and has a gateway in the centre 10 feet 8 inches wide leading into the court, and four doors on each side of it. The outer face of the wall, above the cornice, is ornamented with sculptures. The terrace without and within the inclosure was found covered with a very dense growth of vegetation, which it was necessary to clear away before the walls could be carefully examined. All the doorways, save those in front, open on the court. Mr. Stephens found the four great façades fronting the court-yard “ornamented from one end to the other with the richest and most intricate carving known to the builders of Uxmal, presenting a scene of strange magnificence which surpasses any other now seen among its ruins.” The long outer structure, on the side facing the entrance, had high turret-like elevations over each of its thirteen doorways, all covered with sculptured ornaments. This building appears to have inclosed another of older date. Figure 40 shows the ground plan of “Las Monjas.” [Illustration: Fig. 40.--Ground Plan of Las Monjas, Uxmal.] Other less important edifices in the ruins of Uxmal have been described by explorers, some of which stand on high pyramidal mounds; and inscriptions are found here, but they are not so abundant as at Palenque and Copan. KABAH. The ruins known as Kabah are on the site of what must have been one of the most imposing and important of the more ancient cities. Here the most conspicuous object is a stone-faced mound 180 feet square at the base, with a range of ruined apartments at the bottom. Three or four hundred yards from this mound is a terraced foundation 20 feet high and 200 by 142 in extent, on which stand the remains of a great edifice. At the right of the esplanade before it is a “high range of ruined structures overgrown with trees, with an immense back wall on the outer line of the esplanade perpendicular to the bottom of the terrace.” On the left is another range of ruined buildings, and in the centre a stone inclosure 27 feet square and 7 feet high, with sculptures and inscriptions around the base. Some of the ornamentation of this building has been described in the strongest terms of admiration. Mr. Stephens said of it, “The cornice running over the doorways, tried by the severest rules of art recognized among us, would embellish the architecture of any known era.” At Uxmal the walls were smooth below the cornice; here they are covered with decorations from top to bottom.