The Visionary Mayan Queen: Yohl Ik'Nal of Palenque by Leonide Martin

Author:Leonide Martin [Martin, Leonide]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: AudioInk Publishing
Published: 2014-02-01T08:00:00+00:00

July 2, 1994

On this rainy afternoon, my work for the day finished, I’m continuing my notes about early explorers. At camp we really enjoy occasional rains during the dry season, it cools the air a little. The humidity increases; it must be close to 100% now judging from my totally damp clothes. The ceiling fan helps by moving the air. I marvel at the stamina of those early explorers who visited Palenque in the 19th century, without cabins and electricity. Thanks to the remarkable four-volume books Incidents of Travel, by Stephens and Catherwood, we are given much insight into the hardships of travel and the impact of this splendid and high civilization on these explorers.

John Stephens is a masterful storyteller and Frederick Catherwood a fine artist. Their first two-volume book, featuring Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, was published in 1841. It became an instant success, with publisher Harper and Brothers in New York making 11 printings of 20,000 copies each in only three months. I keep a copy with me to enjoy comparing their impressions with present-day Palenque. Although his prose is typical for that period, it’s richly descriptive and amusing. Stephens weaves details of their harrowing adventures, gives astute character profiles, evocative descriptions and levelheaded reasoning, spiced with wry humor. Catherwood provides distinctive drawings and quality architectural designs with floor plans, elevations and outside views of Palenque’s major structures. Thirty-one of his Palenque drawings were converted to engravings and published in the two Central American volumes.

You get a real sense of travel in the mid-1800s in the backcountry of Mexico and Central America. Stephens and Catherwood came from Guatemala to Ocosingo and followed the same route Dupaix took thirty years earlier, an ancient Indian path over mountains giving “one of the grandest, wildest, and most sublime scenes I ever beheld.” They made the trip in five days to reduce nights in the wild during the rainy season. Clambering along steep paths hovering over thousand-foot precipices, they mostly walked leading mules and occasionally risked being carried in a chair by an Indian using a tumpline across his forehead. The chair-bearer’s heavy breathing, dripping sweat and trembling limbs failed to inspire confidence and made them feel guilty, so they used the chair very little. The descent was even more terrible than the ascent, and the sun was sinking. Dark clouds and thunder gave way to a violent rainstorm, men and mules slipping and sliding. Stephens admits, “. . it was the worst mountain I ever encountered in that or any other country, and, under our apprehension of the storm, I will venture to say that no travelers ever descended in less time.”

Once on the plains below and camped for the night, they suffered an onslaught of “moschetoes as we had not before experienced.” Even fire and cigars could not keep the vicious insects at bay. After a sleepless and much-bitten night, Stephens went before daylight to the nearby shallow river “and stretched myself out on the gravelly bottom, where the water was barely deep enough to run over my body.

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