ii^ 



NOTES OF A NATURALIST 



IN SOUTH AMERICA. 

 CHAPTER I. 



\'oyage across the Atlantic — Barbadoes — Jamaica — Isthmus of 

 Panama — Buenaventura, tropical forest — Guayaquil and 

 the river Guayas — Payta — The rainless zone of Peru — 

 Voyage to Callao. 



A VOYAGE across the Atlantic in a large ocean 

 steamer is now as familiar and as little troublesome 

 as the journey from London to Paris. It rarely offers 

 any incident worth recounting, and yet, especially as 

 a first experience, it supplies an abundant variety of 

 sources of curiosity and interest. It is easy for a man 

 to sit down at home and within the walls of his own 

 study to find the requisite materials for investigating 

 the still unsolved problems presented by the physics 

 and meteorology of the ocean, or the evidence favour- 

 able or hostile to the important modern doctrine of the 

 permanence of the great ocean valleys ; but in point 

 of fact very few men who stay at home do occupy 

 themselves with these questions, and it is no slight 



