An exhaustive comparison of the ornamentation of Mayan and Eastern buildings would doubtless yield valuable data; but when we state that there are many hundreds of patterns of decoration employed on the buildings of Yucatan, it will be seen that this would need a volume to itself. Broadly speaking, the decorations of the two types of architecture are dissimilar; and if one reflects, this is really no more than one would expect. As we have said, the Eastern introducers of building could not bring with them much knowledge of detailed ornamentation. The actual decorative designs on Mayan structures might be reasonably expected to be developed in the country. Only in spots where the invaders had their actual settlements should we find any characteristic designs. And this is exactly what we do find at Copan and Quirigua, which we shall presently try to show were among the very earliest, if not _the_ earliest, of their locations. At these two places the ruins consist chiefly of stelae and altars, and the decorations of these are un-American and Oriental in character. [Illustration: THE NUNNERY, UXMAL.] But if there is little similarity between the minuter architectural details of the Mayan and Buddhist buildings, we believe that, carefully studied, the former, and particularly, as we should have expected, those at Copan and Quirigua, exhibit distinct survivals of Buddhist influence. Mr. Maudslay, in his superb series of photographs of stelae (_Biologia Centrali-Americana_), shows clearly in the hands of nearly every figure what he calls a "manikin staff"--a short stick surmounted by a human figure issuing from feathers or leaves. He cannot explain it, but we believe that it may be nothing less than a much corrupted survival of the sacred lotus held by Buddhist images. In photographs of carvings at Bharahat and also at Boro Budor, the Buddhas and their attendants appear to hold just such short staves, really the rubbery stem, surmounted by the lotus-flower, out of which seems to issue in some instances a kind of face. There appear, too, in the grasp of many figures on the friezes at Bharahat short sticks surmounted by manikins seated on bannerets. The "manikin staves" at Copan may be a blended memory of these two Buddhistic symbols. Again, Mr. Maudslay noticed a detail of Mayan decoration which has escaped other students. He points out that at Palenque and elsewhere is represented a plant which he calls a water plant because fish are seen feeding on the flowers. "The leaves and flower-buds," he writes, "are very clearly drawn, and have somewhat the appearance of those of a water lily." He is probably right: it is a water lily--the Buddhist lotus--which figures, often with fish swimming round, in almost every carving at Boro Budor and the ruined Buddhist cities. The drawing he gives of the Palenque carving is so exact a copy of the Buddhist lotus as to be quite amazing.