Besides these, there were other and more curious remains. These were representations of human figures, or of animals, with hideous features and expressions, in producing which the skill of the artist seems to have been expended. The sculpture of these figures was rude, the stones were timeworn, and many were half buried in the earth. The following engraving represents two of them. One is four, and the other three feet high. The full length seems intended to represent a warrior with a shield. The arms are broken off, and to my mind they conveyed a lively idea of the figures or idols which Bernal Dias met with on the coast, containing hideous faces of demons. Probably, broken and half buried as they lie, they were once objects of adoration and worship, and now exist as mute and melancholy memorials of ancient paganism. At a short distance from the base of the mound was an opening in the earth, forming another of those extraordinary caves before presented to the reader. The cura, the major domo, and the Indians called it a senote, and said that it had supplied the inhabitants of the old city with water. The entrance was by a broken, yawning mouth, steep, and requiring some care in the descent. At the first resting-place, the month opened into an extensive subterraneous chamber, with a high roof, and passages branching off in every direction. In different places were remains of fires and the bones of animals, showing that it had at times been the place of refuge or residence of men. In the entrance of one of the passages we found a sculptured idol, which excited us with the hope of discovering some altar or sepulchre, or perhaps mummied figures. With this hope, we sent the Indians to procure torches; and while Mr. Catherwood was making some sketches, Doctor Cabot and myself passed an hour in exploring the recesses of the cave. In many places the roof had fallen, and the passages were choked up. We followed several of them with much toil and disappointment, and at length fell into one, low and narrow, along which it was necessary to crawl on the hands and feet, and where, from the flame and smoke of the torches, it was desperately hot. We at length came to a body of water, which, on thrusting the hand into it, we found to be incrusted with a thin coat of sulphate of lime, that had formed on the top of the water, but decomposed on being brought into the air. Leaving the cave or senote, we continued rambling among the ruins. The mounds were all of the same general character, and the buildings had entirely disappeared on all except one; but this was different from any we had at that time seen, though we afterward found others like it. [Engraving 4: Circular Edifice]