THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



laughing country wench, such as might be walk in the forest. The fit of shi vei m* very 



met with any day among the laboring class often seized me before I got home, and! then 



in villages in our own country, than a canni- used to stand still and brave it out. When 



bal. I heard this artless maiden relate, in the steamer ascended in January 1858, Lieu- 



the coolest manner possible, how she ate a tenant Nunes was shocked to see me so much 



portion of the bodies of the young men shattered, and recommended me strongly to 



whom her tribe had roasted. But what in- return at once to Ega. I took bis advice, 



creased greatly the incongruity of this busi- and embarked with him, when he touched 



ness, the yoang widow of one of the victims, at St. Paulo on his downward voyage, on 



a neighbor of mine, happened to be present the 2d of February. I still hoped to 1> j 



during the narrative, and showed her interest able to turn my face westward again, t > 



in it by laughing at the broken Portuguese in gather the yet unseen treasures of the mar- 



which the girl related the horrible storjr vellous countries lying between Tabitinga 



and the slopes of the Andes ; but although, 

 after a short rest in Ega, the ague left me, 

 my general health remained in a state too 



the "sizoens," or ague of the country, weak to justify the undertaking of further 



which, as it left me with shattered health journeys. At length I left Ega, on the 3d 



and damped enthusiasm, led to my abandon- of February, 1859, en route for England, 

 ing the plan I had formed of proceeding to > I arrived at Para on the 17th of March, 



the Peruvian towns of Pebas and Moyo- after an absence in the interior of seven year a . 



bamba, 250 and 600 miles further west, and and a half. My old friends, English, Amer- 



so completing the examination of the natural ican, and Brazilian, scarcely knew me again, 



| history of the 'Amazonian plains up to the but all gave me a very_ warm welcome, es- 

 foot of the Andes. I made a very large col- 

 lection at St. Paulo, and employed a collec- 

 tor at Tabatiuga and on the banks of the 

 Jauari for several months, so that I acquired 

 a very fair knowledge altogether of the pro- 



In the fourth month of my sojourn t <rit. 

 Paulo I had a serious illness, an attack of 



ductions of the country bordering the Ama- 

 j zons to the end of the Brazilian territory, a 

 distance of 1900 miles from the Atlantic at 

 the mouth of the Para ; but beyond the Pe- 

 ruvian boundary I found now I should be 



pecially Mr. George Brocklehurst (of the 

 firm of R. Singlehurst & Co., the chief 

 foreign merchants, who had been iny corre- 

 spondents), who received me into his house, 

 and treated me with the utmost kindness. I 

 was rather surprised at the warm appreciation 

 shown by many of the principal people of 

 my labors ; but, in fact, the interior of the 

 country is still the " sertao" (wilderness) a 

 terra incognita to most residents of the sea- 



I unable to go. My ague seemed to be the port and a man who had spent seven years 

 I culmination of a gradual deterioration of and a half in exploring it, solely with scien 

 | health, which had been going on for several ' 

 years. I had exposed myself too much in 



of my 



suffered 



the sun, working to the utmost 

 strength six days a week, and had 

 much, besides, from bad and insufficient 

 food. The ague did not exist at St. Paulo ; 

 ibut the foul and humid state of the village 

 was, perhaps, sufficient to produce ague in a 

 person much weakened from other causes. 

 The country bordering the shores of the Sol- 

 ! imoens is healthy throughout ; some endemic 

 diseases certainly exist, but these are not of 

 a fatal nature, and the epidemics which des- 

 olated the Lower Amazons from Para to the 

 ' Rio Negro, between the years 1850 and 1856, 

 i had never reached this favored land. Ague 

 I is endemic only on the banks of those tribu 

 i tary streams which have dark 

 water. 



tific aims, was somewhat of a curiosity. I 

 found Para greatly changed and improved. 

 It was no longer the weedy, ruinous, village- 

 looking place that it appeared when I first 

 knew it in 1848. The population had been 

 increased (to 20,000) by an influx of Portu- 

 guese, Madeiran, and German immigrants, 

 and for many years past the provincial gov- 

 ernment hard spent their considerable sur- 

 plus revenue in beautifying the city. The 

 streets, formerly unpaved or strewn with 

 loose stones and sand, were now laid with 

 concrete in a most complete manner ; all the 

 projecting masonry of the irregularly-built 

 houses had been cleared away, and the build- 

 ings made more uniform. Most of the dilap- 

 idated houses were replaced by handsome 

 new edifices, having long and elegant balco- 

 nies :.ronting the first floors, at an elevation 

 of several feet above the roadway. The large 



I always carried a stock of medicine*, *Mth . .. . 



me ; and" a small vial of quinine, which I swampy squares had been drained, weeded, 



had bought at Para in 1851, but never yet and planted with rows of almond and casua- 



i had use for, now came in very useful. I rina trees, so that they were now a great or- 



! took for each dose as much as would lie on nament to the city, instead of an eyesore, as 



the tip of a penknife- blade, mixing it with they formerly were. My old favorite road. 



warm chamomile tea. The first few days the Monguba Avenue, had been renovated 



after my first attack I could not stir, and and joined to many other magnificent rides 



was delirious during the paroxysms of fever ; lined with trees, which in a very few years 



! but the worst being over, I made an effort to had grown to a height sufficient to afford 



\ rouse myself, knowing that incurable disor- agreeable shade ; one of these, the Estrada 



ders of the liver and spleen follow ague in this de Sao Jose, had been planted with cocoa-nut 



country if the feeling of lassitude is too much palms. Sixty public vehicles, light cabriolets 



indulged. So every morning I shouldered (some of them built in Para.), now plied in 



my gun or insect-net, and went my usl jhe streets, increasing much the animation of 



