A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



Equator the European is still a European; at first he feels an alien 

 in the tropics, and unrelated to tropical nature. And when he falls 

 under the spell of the sublimity of the forest, it is his European soul 

 that is thrilled and impressed, and all unknown to himself, the image 

 of the primeval forest that dwells within him draws a veil before 

 what he now beholds. But still more strongly does the power of the 

 innate influence the returned traveller who seeks to reproduce his 

 impressions of travel. This explains why it is that if a traveller in 

 the tropics — especially if he be a poet — has been, for example, to 

 India, he describes not the Indian landscape as it really is, but the 

 European landscape which has been familiar to him from child- 

 hood, disguised, so to speak, in an Indian dress. The poet in par- 

 ticular does not give us an objective impression, but the expression 

 of his own sensations. But even the ordinary descriptions of the 

 traveller are often distorted by his innate ideas. Only by a strenuous 

 and exhausting effort is one able to see into the alien Nature of the 

 tropics and realize its essential character. 



By comparing my visit to Ceylon (1910-11), which lasted for 

 six months, with my sojourn in South America (1923-24), when 

 I spent just a year on Brazilian soil, I learned that one does not 

 really obtain a complete impression of a country until one is able 

 to observe Nature through all the seasons of the year. But while 

 travelling in two different tropieal countries will prevent one from 

 drawing general conclusions from observations which hold good of 

 one country only, it also makes one realize that there is a definite 

 tropical character which is common to all countries under the 

 Equator, and which differs fundamentally from the character of 

 more temperate latitudes. To determine this difference, and to 

 explain it in a scientific manner, is the task I shall now set myself. 



The fundamental factor in the evolution of a type of vegetation is 

 the climate. People usually think that the tropical climate is dis- 

 tinguished from the climate of Europe by temperatures of a height 

 unknown to us. This is not the case. In Freiburg and Bayreuth, in 

 July and August 1925, my thermometer stood 7-2° higher than on 

 the hottest day in Pernambuco. Here is a table of maximum tem- 

 peratures in the middle of the year : 



Pernambuco 89° 



Colombo (Ceylon) 91° 



Rio de Janeiro 97 • 7° 

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