boards,' while the most important occurrences were likewise carved in stone on the walls of their public edifices, to preserve their record in a lasting and indelible manner for the knowledge of future generations. It is from these sculptured and written memoirs graven on their palaces at Uxmal and Chichen in the peninsula of Yucatan, the head of the imperial serpent and the seat of the government of the Maya Empire, that the author has learned the history of Queen Móo and her family.

At its southern extremity and on the top of the east wall of the tennis court at Chichen, there is a building that is of the greatest interest to the archæologist, the historian, and the ethnologist; while the architect may learn from it many useful lessons. John L. Stephens, who visited it in 1842, speaks of it as a casket containing the most precious jewels of ancient American art.2

It was a memorial hall erected by order of Queen Móo, and dedicated to the memory of her brother-husband, Prince Coh, an eminent warrior. Those paintings so much admired by Stephens, rivalling the frescos in the tombs of Egypt and Etruria, or the imagery on the walls of the palaces of Babylon mentioned by Ezekiel, were a pictorial record of the life of Prince Coh from the time of his youth to that of his death, and of the events that followed it. They thus form a few

1 Landa, Las Cosas de Yucatan, pp. 44, 316. Cogolludo, Historia de Yucathan, etc., lib. iv., cap. v.

These books were exactly like the holy books now in use in Thibet. These also are written on parchment strips about eighteen inches long and four broad, bound with wooden boards, and wrapped up in curiously embroidered silk.

C. F. Gordon Cumming, In the Himalayas and on the Indian Plains, p. 438.

2 John L. Stephens, Incidents of Travels in Yucatan, vol. ii., p. 310, et passim.

pages of the ancient history of the Maya nation, and of the last days of the Can dynasty.

This interesting edifice is now in ruins. Enough, however, remains to have enabled the writer to make not only an accurate plan of it, but a restoration perfect in all its details.

After climbing to the top of the wall, that formed a terrace six metres wide, levelled and paved with square marble slabs carefully adjusted, we find a broad stairway composed of five steps. Ascending these, we stand on a platform, and between two marble columns each one metre in diameter. The base of these columns is formed of a single monolith one metre twenty centimetres high and two metres long, carved in

GROUND PLAN.

the shape of serpent heads with mouth open and tongue protruding. The shaft represents the body of the serpent, emblem of royalty in Mayach, as it was in Egypt and as it is yet in many countries of Asia. It is covered with sculptured feathers, image of the mantle of feathers worn in court ceremonials by the kings and the highpriests as insignia of their rank.

Between these columns there was a grand altar supported by fifteen atlantes, three abreast and five deep, whose faces

were portraits of friends and relatives of the dead warrior. On this altar, placed at the door of the inner chamber, they were wont to make offerings to his manes, just as the Egyptians made oblations of fruits and flowers to the dead on altars erected at the entrance of the tombs.

From Papyrus IV., at

VERTICAL SECTION.

the Bulaq Museum, we learn that the making of offerings to the dead was taught as a moral precept. "Bring offerings to thy father and thy mother who rest in the valley of the tombs; for he who gives these offerings is as acceptable to the gods as if they were brought to themselves. Often visit the dead, may do for thee." 2

so that what thou dost for them, thy son

'Sir Gardner Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii., chap. xvi.

'Papyrus IV., Bulaq Museum. Translation by Messrs. Brugsch and E. de Rougé. Published by Mariette.