186 THE UPPER AMAZONS. Chap. III. 



common enough in the forest, but no accident happened 

 during the whole time of my residence. 



I suffered most inconvenience from the difficulty of 

 getting news from the civilised world down river, from 

 the irregularity of receipt of letters, parcels of books 

 and periodicals, and towards the latter part of my resi- 

 dence from ill health arising from bad and insufficient 

 food. The want of intellectual society, and of the 

 varied excitement of European life, was also felt most 

 acutely, and this, instead of becoming deadened by 

 time, increased until it became almost insupportable. 

 I was obliged, at last, to come to the conclusion that 

 the contemplation of Nature alone is not sufficient to 

 fill the human heart and mind. I got on pretty well 

 when I received a parcel from England by the steamer 

 once in two or four months. I used to be very eco- 

 nomical with my stock of reading lest it should 

 be finished before the next arrival and leave me 

 utterly destitute. I went over the periodicals, the 

 "Athenaeum/' for instance, with great deliberation, 

 going through every number three times ; the first 

 time devouring the more interesting articles, the second, 

 the whole of the remainder ; and the third, reading all 

 the advertisements from beginning to end. If four 

 months (two steamers) passed without a fresh parcel, 

 I felt discouraged in the extreme. I was worst off in 

 the first year, 1850, when twelve months elapsed with- 

 out letters or remittances. Towards the end of this 

 time my clothes had worn to rags ; I was barefoot, a 

 great inconvenience in tropical forests, notwithstanding 

 statements to the contrary that have been published by 



