Treasure Seekers: Code of the Maya Kings Page #3

---

So the lawyer put on

his diplomatic coat,

and went to the village to negotiate.

You are perhaps curious to know

how old ruins sell in Central America.

I paid $50 for Copan.

There was never any difficulty

about price.

I offered that sum, for which

Don Jose Maria thought me only a fool.

If I had offered more,

he would probably have considered me

something worse.

Ownership settled, the team set about

surveying the ruined city,

measuring and mapping its buildings.

Catherwood is a remarkable

character as well.

I wish we knew more about him.

One gains some sense of the

Stephens personality,

just from the written word.

The Catherwood personality

doesn't emerge much.

Stephens treats him very formally,

and he appears as Mr. Catherwood.

At first Mr. Catherwood found it

almost impossible to draw the monuments.

Their tropical luxuriance defied

his restrained British hand.

Stephens mentions coming upon him

in the woods one day.

Catherwood is standing in front of

a big upright monument.

It is a statute of one of the Copan

rulers, and all intricately carved.

Catherwood's standing there almost

obscured by a pile of crumpled paper,

which represents the output so far

that day of unsuccessful attempts

to draw this thing.

Fortunately, Catherwood had

brought along a camera lucida a box

with a prism inside which allowed him

to trace a reflected image.

To please the perfectionist

Mr. Catherwood,

every detail had to be correct.

With the coming of Spring,

they were ready to begin

the search for the next great goal,

Palenque.

The territory to the north,

through the Sierra Madras Mountains,

was wild and uncharted.

As one local said, the road to

Palenque were only for birds.

Snakes and clouds of mosquitoes

dogged their steps.

To Stephens the worst part was

the local custom of carry a visitor up

the steepest trail on a chair,

strapped to the back of an Indian.

I rose and fell with every breath,

felt his body trembling under me,

and his knees seemed giving way.

The slightest irregular movement on my

part may bring us both down together.

I would have given him a release

for the rest of the journey

to be off his back.

On and on they traveled.

It took more than a month

to reach the fabled ruins

that had first inspired their journey.

Palenque seemed to hang on

the edge of the mountains.

It's graceful buildings dominating

the plain below.

Wherever we moved,

we saw the evidence of their tastes,

their skills in arts,

their wealth and power.

In the midst of desolation and ruin,

we looked back to the past,

cleared away the gloomy forest

and fancied every building perfect,

lofty and imposing.

Palenque's architecture

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes