Leaving this mound, again taking the milpa path, and following it to the distance of three or four hundred yards, we reach the foot of a terrace twenty feet high, the edge of which is overgrown with trees; ascending this, we stand on a platform two hundred feet in width by one hundred and forty-two feet deep, and facing us is the building represented in the plate opposite. On the right of the platform, as we approach this building, is a high range of structures, ruined and overgrown with trees, with an immense back wall built on the outer line of the platform, perpendicular to the bottom of the terrace. On the left is another range of ruined buildings, not so grand as those on the right, and in the centre of the platform is a stone enclosure twenty-seven feet square and seven feet high, like that surrounding the picote at Uxmal; but the layer of stones around the base was sculptured, and, on examination, we found a continuous line of hieroglyphics. Mr. Catherwood made drawings of these as they lay scattered about, but, as I cannot present them in the order in which they stood, they are omitted altogether. In the centre of the platform is a range of stone steps forty feet wide and twenty in number, leading to an upper terrace, on which stands the building. This building is one hundred and fifty-one feet front, and the moment we saw it we were struck with the extraordinary richness and ornament of its facade. In all the buildings of Uxmal, without a single exception, up to the cornice which runs over the doorway the facades are of plain stone; but this was ornamented from the very foundation, two layers under the lower cornice, to the top. The reader will observe that a great part of this facade has fallen; toward the north end, however, a portion of about twenty-five feet remains, which, though not itself entire, shows the gorgeousness of decoration with which this facade was once adorned. The plate opposite represents this part, exactly as it stands, with the cornice over the top fallen. [Engraving 39: Portion of a richly-sculptured Facade] The ornaments are of the same character with those at Uxmal, alike complicated and incomprehensible, and from the fact that every part of the facade was ornamented with sculpture, even to the portion now buried under the lower cornice, the whole must have presented a greater appearance of richness than any building at Uxmal. The cornice running over the doorways (which is stamped on the cover of this work), tried by the severest rules of art recognised among us, would embellish the architecture of any known era, and, amid a mass of barbarism, of rude and uncouth conceptions, it stands as an offering by American builders worthy of the acceptance of a polished people.