The ruins
of Palenque lie in the Usumacinta River basin of Mexico, at the base of
the Chiapas mountains. The tropical rain-forest in which they are situated
receives the highest annual rainfall in the entire Maya region, and the
year 1840 proved no exception in this regard. After nineteen days at Palenque,
besieged by mosquitoes and
biting flies, the torrential onset of the region's rainy season drove Stephens
and Catherwood from the ruins. "Everything susceptible of injury from
damp was rusty or moldy and in a ruinous condition; we ourselves were not
much better," lamented Stephens. Two weeks later they were in Merida,
the principal city of Yucatan.
In New York, Stephens had made the acquaintance of Simon Peon, of Merida, a direct descendant of the Montejos, the "conquerers" of Yucatan. The Peon family were one of the largest landowners in Yucatan, and among their extensive holdings was the Hacienda Uxmal, on whose lands lay the ruined city of that name. Stephens had heard of these ruins from Don Simon, and his interest had been further excited by the illustrations in Waldeck's Voyage Pittoresque. Simon Peon was not at his residence in Merida, but was then at Uxmal, some 55 miles to the south, where Stephens and Catherwood set out to meet him.
The swarms
of mosquitoes which had tormented the explorers since their arrival in
Central America were the agents for a far more serious and debilitating
problem which had plagued the expedition since Copan-- malaria. Both Stephens
and Catherwood had been infected by this parasite, and were suffering (as
they were to suffer for the rest of their lives) from the periodic bouts
of fever which characterize the disease. On their second day at Uxmal Catherwood
became so ill that Stephens "considered it indispensible for him to
leave... the country altogether." They would return to Uxmal another
time. The Englishman's condition was grave, and he was unable to ride.
"As I followed Mr. Catherwood through the woods, borne on the shoulders
of Indians," Stephens wrote, athe stillness broken only by the shuffle
of their feet, and under my great apprehension for his health, it seemed
as if I were following his bier."