Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, Volume I (Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas & Yucatan Book 1)

Few explorers have had the experience of uncovering a civilization almost entirely unknown to the world. But Stephen's two expeditions to Mexico and Central America in 1839 and 1841 yielded the first solid information on the culture of the Maya Indians. In this work, and in his other masterpiece Incidents of Travel in Yucatan , he tells the story of his travels to some 50 ruined Mayan cities. In this book, he describes the excitement of exploring the magnificent ruined cities of Copan and Palenque, and his briefer excursions to Quirigua, Patinamit, Utatlan, Gueguetenango, Ocosingo, and Uxmal. For all these cities, his details are so accurate that more recent explorers used the book as a Baedeker to locate ruins forgotten by even the Indians. In addition to being a great book on archaeological discovery, Stephen's work is also a great travel book. Telling of journeying by mule back on narrow paths over unimaginable deep ravines, through sloughs of mud and jungles of heavy vegetation, describing dangers of robbery, revolution, fever, mosquitoes and more exotic insects, Stephen's narrative remains penetrating and alive. His account of his attempt to buy Copan for $50 is told with the adroitness of a Mark Twain, and his descriptions of Indian life — primitive villages a few miles from the ruins, burials, treatment of the sick, customs, amusements, etc. — never lose their interest. Frederick Catherwood's illustrations virtually double the appeal of the book. Highly exact, remarkably realistic drawings show overall views, ground plans of the cities, elevations of palaces and temples, free-standing sculpture, carved hieroglyphics, stucco bas-reliefs, small clay figures, and interior details. An instant best-seller when first published in 1841, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan by John Lloyd Stephens, with illustrations by Frederick Catherwood, continues to draw readers who want to see the ruins of Copan, Quirigua, Palenque, and Uxmal as this American lawyer and British artist first saw them on muleback more than 150 years ago. Although Stephens and Catherwood traveled without maps into the wilds of a region gripped by civil war, their detailed descriptions and drawings of the great "lost" civilization gave birth to Maya archaeology and led many others to follow in their footsteps. This new edition brings the best of both Stephens's narrative and Catherwood's drawings into a single volume with an added selection of photographs - many never before published - that expand a reader's view of the Maya ruins, the cities and scenes along the journey, and the native peoples whose cultures endure today. The illustrations include nineteenth-century scenes by the renowned photographer Eadweard Muybridge, portraits of Guatemalan Indians from the Smithsonian's Emilio Herbruger collection, and Osbert Salvin's early photos of Copan. More recent photographs of Guatemala by Jacques and Parney VanKirk and of the Lacandon in Mexico by Gertrude Duby Blom capture the timeless nature of the lands of the Maya that persists into the twentieth century. Now enhanced with historical and modern photographs, this new, one-volume edition of Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan is organized for the traveler by place and omits descriptions of Stephens's voyages to and from the region and his short trips to Costa Rica and Nicaragua, as well as some long historical digressions and anecdotes. It will remain a classic of travel literature and Maya archaeology. Stephens' two expeditions to Mexico and Central America in 1839 and 1841 yielded the first solid information on the culture of the Maya Indians. The books in this two-volume set relate his archeological discoveries and exploration of ruined cities, monuments, and temples with penetrating and exciting narrative. Remarkably realistic illustrations by Frederick Catherwood double the appeal of the books. With Illus. By Frederick Catherwood. Reprint Of The 1841 Ed. Unabridged Republication Of The First Edition (harper, 1841) With A Biographical Notice And Additional Illustrations By F. Catherwood As Published In The 1854 Ed. Of A. Hall, Virtue & Co., London.