Another description of a piece of Sculpture (in stucco) upon a building near the Temple of Palenque, will be reserved for illustrating a powerful similitude to a Tyrian branch of worship. This will receive a full investigation in the chapter devoted to the national Analogies. On the map of the Ruins of Palenque, and in the descriptions (as furnished in Mr. Stephens's work), the Temple, and _five other_ edifices, all rise from a pyramidal base, having _four sides_; this fact will again be brought forward in refutation of one of his architectural conclusions. SECTION IV. THE RUINS OF UXMAL. These monuments of antiquity are situated in Yucatan, the great Peninsula of Mexican America. "Emerging suddenly from the woods, to my astonishment, we came at once upon a large open field strewed with mounds of ruins, and vast buildings on terraces, and _pyramidal structures_, grand, and in good preservation, richly ornamented, without a bush to obstruct the view; and in picturesque effect, almost equal to the Ruins of Thebes. [Egypt] Such was my report I made to Mr. Catherwood on my return, who, lying in his hammock unwell, and out of spirits, told me I was romancing; but early the next morning we were on the ground, and his comment was, that the _reality exceeded the description_!" It should be remembered that the above distinguished artist (Catherwood) had visited and copied the Ruins of Thebes and Egypt generally, and consequently his testimony is of more than common authority. "The place of which I am now speaking (Uxmal) was, beyond all doubt, once a large, populous, and highly _civilized city, and the reader can nowhere find one word of it on any page of history_. Who built it?--why it was located on that spot, away from water, or any of those natural advantages which have determined the sites of cities whose histories are known, what led to its abandonment, no man can tell. The only name by which it is known, is that of the Hacienda [_i. e._ farm-plantation] on which it stands. In the oldest deed, belonging to the Peon family [_i. e._ the owners], which goes back a hundred and forty years, the buildings are referred to in the boundaries of the estate as _Las Casas de Piedra_ [_i. e._ the stone-houses]. This is the only ancient document or record in existence, in which the place is mentioned at all. The Ruins were all exhumed: within the last year the trees had been cut down and burned, and the whole field of Ruins was in view." * * * * "In attempting a description of the Ruins, so vast a work rises up before me, that I am at a loss where to begin." * * * * "Drawn off by mounds of ruins and piles of gigantic buildings, the eye returns, and again fastens upon a lofty structure. It was the first building I entered. _From its front doorway I counted sixteen elevations_ [buildings], _with broken walls and mounds of stones, and vast magnificent edifices_, which at that distance seemed untouched by time and defying ruin.