"On the East side of the structure is a _broad range of stone steps_, between eight and nine inches high, and so steep, that the greatest care is required in ascending and descending: of these we counted _one hundred and one in their places_. _Nine were wanting at the top_, and perhaps _twenty_ were covered with rubbish at the bottom. At the _summit_ of the steps is a _stone platform_ four feet and a half wide, running along the rear of the building. There is no door in the centre, but at each end a door opens into an apartment eighteen feet long and nine wide, and between the two is a third apartment of the same width, and thirty-four feet long. _The whole building is of stone; inside the walls are of polished smoothness_; outside, up to the height of the door, the stones are plain and square; above this line there _is a rich cornice or moulding_, and from this to the top of the building, _all the sides are covered with rich and elaborate sculptured ornaments, forming a sort of arabesque_. The style and character of these ornaments were entirely different from those of any we had seen before, either in that country or any other; they bore no resemblance whatever to those of Copan or Palenque, and were quite as unique and peculiar. The designs were strange and incomprehensible, very elaborate, sometimes grotesque, but often simple, tasteful, and beautiful. Among the intelligible subjects, are squares and diamonds (_i. e._ forms), with busts of human beings, heads of leopards, and compositions of leaves and flowers, and the ornaments known every where as _grecques_. The ornaments which succeed each other are all different; the whole form an extraordinary mass of richness and complexity, and the effect is both grand and curious; and the construction of these ornaments is not less peculiar and striking than the general effect. There were no tablets or single stones, each representing separately, or by itself, an entire subject; but every ornament or combination is made up of separate stones, on each of which _part_ of the subject was carved [sculptured], _and was then set in its place in the wall_. (?) Each stone by itself was an unmeaning fractional part; but placed by the side of others helped to make a whole, which, without it would be incomplete. Perhaps it may, with propriety, be called a species of sculptured _mosaic_."