Journey to the Sky: Analysis of Major Characters.

John Lloyd Stephens, an American lawyer, diplomat, explorer, and travel writer. After practicing law for several years, the adventurous Stephens has traveled for two years in Africa, Europe, and Asia and written two well-received books on his travels. He comes across a report by Colonel Juan Galindo that mentions seeing some strange old buildings in the wilds of the Yucatán and Central America. He decides to find these ruins. He enlists his friend, Frederick Catherwood, as the expedition's artist. Equipped with an unexpected appointment as President Martin Van Buren's confidential agent to the Central American Confederation, this versatile and adaptable man sets out to find the Indian ruins. After landing in a country in the midst of civil war, then coping with treacherous terrain and a troublesome muleteer who deliberately misguides them, he and Catherwood at last find the ruins of Copan, an ancient Mayan city of worship, now overgrown with centuries of vegetation. Although beset by mosquitoes and hot weather, Stephens sets about the task of clearing idols and monuments, and Catherwood draws them. Later, he and Catherwood set out on a long trek across Central America to the ruins at Palenque. Despite bouts with malaria, mosquitoes, and other parasites, he and Catherwood manage to explore these ruins, as well as another set at Uxmal. Stephens dies in 1852 of malaria contracted while he is president of the Panama Railway Company, never having returned to the ruins he uncovered at Copan. His work there was largely forgotten until the 1940's.