| 442 from this, by a flight of descending stairs, the travellers [travelers] came to three corridors, each 180 feet long. They extend the whole breadth of the building, and are very gloomy, requiring torch lights in their examination.
These corridors are not ornamented, but they contain several stone tables or beds about six or seven feet in length which were supposed to have been used as grateful and cool couches, when the inhabitants retired in the heat of the day. The Palace also contained a small private chapel or altar, which had probably only been used by the inmates of the Royal Family. The other rooms, which were numerous, generally displayed the remains of rich ornaments of Stucco, painted, the paintings in some instances being discovered to be five different subjects painted over each other. The travellers [travelers] slept in the outer corridor, where they were exposed to terrific storms of thunder, lightning, and rain, which also uniformly came on in the afternoons and nights.
Besides the Palace there were other structures, which are called "stone houses," and which the travellers [travelers] supposed to be temples. The first was situated on a pyramidal base of 110 feet on a slope, and the whole were covered with forest trees of a large size. This "stone house" was described with doors and six piers, and as measuring 76 feet in front, which is ornamented with hieroglyphics and stucco figures, representing a female holding a child in her arms. This house is situated 300 or 400 feet southwest of the palace, and so densly [densely] surrounded by forest trees, that it is not discernable [discernible] even a few feet distant, and without the aid of a guide the ruins would not be discovered, though lying at the travelers' feet. In the interior are found massive stone tablets, thirteen feet long, each tablet having 240 squares of hieroglyphics. Of the uses of this building no satisfactory conclusion can be arrived at; while the travellers [travelers] supposed it to be a temple, and the Indians called it the school, some Spanish priest has described it as a place of justice, and the tables of hieroglyphics as the tables of the law; and not the least interesting feature, in connection with these tablets, is , that the same hieroglyphics are used there, as were used at other distant places.-There are three other stone houses, very much of the same description, but instead of tablets of hieroglyphics, they contain tablets of sculptured figures. In one of these there is an altar, which bears a large stone tablet, representing two singular personages opposite to each other, making offerings to an object, represented on the tablet as supported by two figures with rows of hieroglyphics on each side. The two figures standing one on each side of this tablet, have the peculiar facial angle before described, with noses and eyes strongly marked, representing a race of people totally different from any now seen on this continent. The head dress of one is coarse and complicated, consisting of leaves and plants, interspersed with the beaks and eyes of birds, and also a tortoise. A leopard's skin is thrown over the shoulders, and the figure is represented with sandals and with ruffles round the wrists and ankles,-The other figure has a head dress compesed [composed] of a plume of feathers, in the midst of which a bird may be distinguished, and beneath, certain hieroglyphics which, unfortunately cannot at present be read.
A tablet, or small plaister [plaster] cast, which was a fac simile [facsimile] of one, of the tables of hieroglyphics, seen in these ruins, was exhibited by the lecturer to his audience,
Another of these houses was represented by a drawing of which we shall hereafter give an engraving. It has a double platform the first of which is 60 feet high. The steps were said to be from 8o0 to 90 in number, and the upper part of the building to be richly ornamented. Inside the building there are recesses which contain stone tablets of rich and beautiful workmanship. The principal ornaments is a cross, but it has no resemblance to the cross of the Christians.
While there the lecturer dug up a statue ten feet high, very much resembling in its general propotions [proportions] some the Egyptian statues.
It remained now only to describe the Aqueduct. This structure was by the side of the great palace: it was 200 feet in length, as far as could be explored, 12 feet high, and 6 feet wide; with a large body of water passing through it still. There were several other small buildings, which do not cover a large extent of ground. No other were heard of by these travellers [travelers] in that neighborhood, but so dense is the forest that it is impossible to penetrate many yards in any direction, for these ruins are literally imbedded in a forest of mahogany, and ceiba, and India rubber tree, with a great variety of other descriptions, no human inhabitant remaining to relieve the solitude. Of Uamal, which is situated in Yucatan,, a country, in breadth about 200 miles by 300 miles in length which is doubtless covered by the ruins of former magnificence, and the memorials of early civilization, he could say but a few words, as a full description would occupy more time than he could then command. The buildings are numerous-they are in a good state of preservation, but they are of a character distinguished from those at Palenque and Copan, not having either statues of bas reliefs. The fronts were, in some instances, 300 feet in length, and they were richly ornamented with sculptured stone, a specimen of which the lecturer exhibited, to give some idea of the workmanship, at a time when the use of iron was unknown. The lecturer supposed the chisels then in use to have been of copper, but that those people had some mode of hardening copper which is unknown to the present generation.
These travellers [travelers] visited eight ruined cities, situated at great distances apart, to which they had to travel by road of the worst possible description.
On Friday last eleven wagons passed through this place with families for the City of Nauvoo, Illinois, the Mormon city. More, we learned from one of them are to follow soon. They are all from Chester co. Pa.-Journal
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