inevitably have damaged the roof of a neighbouring building, so a ring of bark was stripped from its trunk, in the hope that it will cause it to die slowly and fall piecemeal.
The other buildings of the Palace group do not here need separate notice; some of them contain fragments of stucco or painted decoration, and one (E) has a finely-carved stone medallion let into the wall. The most curious feature of the southern half of the group is the existence of three subterranean passages leading to three long parallel chambers, of which two are enclosed within the foundation mound, and the third has doorways opening onto the southern slope. The entrances to two of the passages had been purposely blocked up, and part of one of the chambers had been walled up and filled in, probably with a view to affording a secure foundation for a building to be erected above it. Both passages and chambers are shown in the plan in dotted lines, but a part of the walls of the latter (surrounded by a wavy line) are shown in tint.
To the south-west of the Palace stands the Temple of Inscriptions, built on a foundation mound which backs against a spur running out from the hills.
The building itself is a fine one, and has been elaborately decorated on the outside, but it is especially interesting on account of the three stone panels which it contains, two of them let into the middle wail and one into the back wall of the building, on which is carved an inscription numbering six hundred glyphs, the longest continuous inscription of all those as yet discovered in Central America.
To the east of the Temple of Inscriptions, on the other side of the stream, three other temples will be found, marked on the plan as the Temple of the Cross, the Foliated Cross, and the Sun. They are all three built on much the same plan. The Temple of the Sun, which is the best preserved of the three, is shown on the Plate facing page 228, and a ground-plan and section is also given. The whole of the frieze and the piers of the façade were elaborately decorated with figures and inscriptions in stucco, of which little now remains. On the roof, above the wall which divides the two corridors, stood an ornamental superstructure (a feature common to all buildings of this class) formed of a light framework of stone, which served to support a number of figures and other ornaments moulded in stucco. The inner corridor of each of the three temples is divided by transverse walls into three small chambers; and in the middle chamber, built out from the back wall, stands the Sanctuary. The exterior of the Sanctuary was richly decorated with stone carving and stucco moulding, but the only ornament in the interior now to be seen is the carved stone panel let into the back wall.
On the next page is given a drawing of the carved panel from the
