12 EXPLORATIONS OF PALENQUE. 



Palenque when the " Monuments Anciens " appeared. He saw the ruins several 

 years afterward, in 1871. 



Waldeck's plates are splendid lithographs, fifty-six in number, of which 

 forty relate to Palenque. Yet, though the artistic merit of these delineations is 

 worthy of the highest praise, they certainly create in the beholder some doubts 

 as to their being absolutely faithful likenesses of the objects they represent. 

 Like many other artists, Waldeck evidently had a tendency to use the pencil 

 with improving effect — a quality which did not escape the notice of the experts 

 selected for examining his drawings, and which was mildly designated in M. 

 Angrand's report as a disposition to attempt restorations {un penchant aux restau- 

 rations). I am under the impression that his drawings show the anatomical 

 proportions of the human figures much better than the sculptures themselves 

 warrant. This is certainly the case with the standing figures of the middle slab 

 in the Group of the Cross, which I have compared with Charnay's corresponding 

 photograph, of which more will be said hereafter. Considerations like these, I 

 may state in this place, have influenced me to reproduce as the principal illustra- 

 tion in this monograph Catherwood's representation of the bas-relief, in preference 

 to that given by Waldeck. 1 will admit, however, that in such a case no one who 

 has not seen the original can fairly estimate the merit of its delineation. 



In 1839 Mr. John Lloyd Stephens, of New Jersey, was entrusted by Presi- 

 dent Van Buren with a diplomatic mission to Central America : an office leav- 

 ing him much time for travel and that special kind of exploration which he had 

 before successfully pursued in Egypt, Arabia and Palestine. He surveyed 

 within ten months eight ruined cities, and published upon his return to the 

 United States his well-known " Incidents of Travel in Central America, 

 Chiapas, and Yucatan."* These volumes were illustrated by his fellow-traveler, 

 the artist Frederick Catherwood, of London. While they were going through 

 the press, he embarked again, in company with Mr. Catherwood, for Yucatan, 

 where his extensive explorations of ruins furnished him with the material for 

 his succeeding work " Incidents of Travel in Yucatan."t Stephens's reputation 

 as a talented and veracious author is so well established that any additional 

 laudatory remarks almost appear superfluous ; and a large share of praise is 

 likewise due to Catherwood, the skillful delineator. 



" Respecting the ability of these explorers," says Mr. Bancroft, " and the 

 faithfulness of their text and drawings, there can be but one opinion. Their 

 work in Chiapas is excelled only by that of the same gentlemen in Yucatan."| 



Hardly less emphatic is the approval of the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, 

 himself a traveler in those regions. Referring to "Incidents of Travel in 



* First edition : New York, 1842 (2 volumes), 

 t First edition : New York, 1843 (2 volumes). 

 X Bancroft: Native Races, etc.; vol. iv, p. 293. 



