File:The American Egypt - a record of travel in Yucatan (1909) (14591053049).jpg

Identifier: americanegyptrec00arno (find matches)
Title: The American Egypt : a record of travel in Yucatan
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Arnold, Channing Frost, Frederick J. Tabor
Subjects: Mayas Yucatán (Mexico : State) -- Description and travel Yucatán (Mexico : State) -- Antiquities
Publisher: London Hutchinson & Co.
Contributing Library: Brown University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brown University

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unded cities, such as Merida andValladolid, all vestiges of the ancient grandeur of Mayanbuildings. If anybody troubled to remember that in theearliest years of the Conquest the caciques of Chichen, Uxmaland so on had proved troublesome foes, there was certainlyno one intelligent or energetic enough to bother himself with ajourney to these dead cities. And so it was that when in 1770some stray Spanish travellers stumbled across Palenque, thenews of their discovery burst like a bombshell in archaeologicalEurope. It was not until 1776, however, that the King of Spainordered an exploration. On the 3rd of May, 1787, one CaptainAntonio Del Rio was commissioned to investigate the romanticreport of the hidden city. In his official account he writesthat on his first attempt, owing to the thickness of the woodsand a fog*so dense that it was impossible for the men to dis-tinguish each other at five paces, the principal building wascompletely concealed from their view. After a delay of a few 214
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216 THE AMERICAN EGYPT days, occupied by him in collecting several score of Indiansto clear the woods, he was enabled to make a survey. Hiswritten report for some unexplained reason was for yearsburied in the archives of Guatemala, not seeing the lightuntil 1822, when the original MS. somehow fell into the handsof an English traveller who published it in London in thatyear. Meantime in 1807, by the order of Charles IV. of Spain,a Captain Dupaix visited Palenque. It was not until 1835,twenty-eight years after his expedition, that the report ofDupaix was published in Paris in four folio volumes at theprice of eight hundred francs. Before Stephenss investigations the wildest reports as tothe extent of the ruins were current. These varied betweensixty miles and twenty miles. Stephens once and for all gavethe lie to these fairy tales, and showed that the ruins did notcover a square mile. But this fact does not weigh against theassumption, so soundly based upon the grandeur and artisticglor

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