From: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Travels through the Yucatan....
Date: 28 Aug 92 17:07:44 GMT
Article-I.D.: cbnewsj.1992Aug28.170744.27387
Organization: AT&T

In article <10489@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) writes:
> This was called, if I remember correctly, "Travels in the
> Yucatan," and was a non-fiction book, written in the mid or
> late nineteenth century.  I come up with a total blank trying
> to remember the author (my stupid mind, doing a table lookup,
> keeps coming up with "Beowulf".  Well, I *know* that is not
> it :-) but can't remember what it is).

John L. Stephens.

> Anyway, regardless of who the author might be (I can find out
> pretty easily, just can't remember it right now), I wonder if
> anyone else has read it?  And what they thought of it?  As I
> recall, he pretty much is credited with the discovery of a major
> portion of the Mayan ruins in Mexico.  I also read another book
> by him, which involved travels in Guatemala.  

From 1988:
      INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN YUCATAN by John L. Stephens (in two volumes)
Dover, originally published 1843, 0-486-20926-1 and 0-486-20927-X, $4.95 each.
                        A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
                         Copyright 1988 Evelyn C. Leeper

     This is one of the two old travel books I've read recently (the
other being Charles Darwin's VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE), yet it seems as if
it could have been written last year.  The sequel to his INCIDENTS OF
TRAVEL IN CENTRAL AMERICA, CHIAPAS, AND YUCATAN, this book chronicles
Stephens' return to Yucatan to seek out Mayan ruins.  He has the usual
set of traveler's problems (he's sick a lot, for example), but also
some more unusual ones, like the state of political unrest that existed
in Yucatan at that time.  True, travelers today can still have that
sort of problem, but with modern communications today's traveler has a
better chance of knowing what to expect when s/he arrives somewhere.

     Stephens begins his searches from Merida and travels extensively
in that area.  His descriptions of the ruins are quite detailed and
have proved extremely valuable to later investigators.  In this regard,
Stephens errs in his prediction that these ruins would crumble and be
forgotten in a hundred years.  While this is undoubtedly true of some
of the ruins he encountered, many of them have been preserved or even
restored and attract thousands of visitors a year.  This is true not
just of Chichen Itza and Tulum, the best known of the sites, but also
of lesser sites such as Uxmal and Kabah. If one compares Stephens'
diagrams and drawings with photographs taken at the sites today, one
can see the accuracy of detail that he demanded.

     Though Stephens spends a lot of time describing the ruins, he also
describes in great detail the living conditions and daily life of the
people of that area.  He also spends several pages refuting the
"ancient astronauts" theory.  Of course, it was not traveling under
that name at the time he wrote, but there were those who insisted that
the ruins could not have been built by the ancestors of the current
inhabitants and must have been constructed by some lost race, or by
Egyptians who crossed the Atlantic, or even by the Spanish.  Stephens
explains why these theories do not match his findings and says that, no
matter how "degraded" the state (as he describes it) the Indians live
in in his times, these natives were indeed the descendents of the
builders of these cities.

     I have not read INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN CENTRAL AMERICA, CHIAPAS,
AND YUCATAN, but I will certainly be looking for it.  If Hollywood was
still making adventure movies, here would be some great material--a
true story of "scientific adventure."

Evelyn C. Leeper  |  +1 908 957 2070  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  ecl@mtgzy.att.com
--
"IQ describes how big your gas tank is, but it doesn't tell if you're
running on empty." -- Harvey Newstrom (hnewstro@x102c.ess.harris.com)