Early Years 



living with man in a state of nature — with absolute uncon- 

 taminated savages! . . . and the surprise of it was that I 

 did not expect to be at all so surprised. . . . These true 

 wild Indians of the Uaup^s . . . had nothing that we call 

 clothes ; they had peculiar ornaments, tribal marks, etc. ; 

 they all carried tools or weapons of their own manufac- 

 ture. . . .But more than all, their whole aspect and man- 

 ner was different — they were all going about their own 

 work or pleasure, which had nothing to do with white 

 men or their ways; they walked with the free step of the 

 independent forest-dweller, and, except the few that were 

 known to my companion, paid no attention whatever to 

 us, mere strangers of an alien race! In every detail they 

 were original and self-sustaining as are the wild animals 

 of the forest, absolutely independent of civilisation. . . . 

 I could not have believed that there would have been so 

 much difference in the aspect of the same people in their 

 native state and when living under European supervision. 

 The true denizen of the Amazonian forest, like the forest 

 itself, is unique and not to be forgotten." 



The foregoing ^^ impressions " recall forcibly those ex- 

 pressed by Darwin in similar terms at the close of his 

 " Journal '' : '^ Delight ... is a weak term to express the 

 feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wan- 

 dered by himself in a Brazilian forest. The elegance of 

 the grasses, the novelty of the parasitical plants, the 

 beauty of the flowers, the glossy green of the foliage . . . 

 the general luxuriance of the vegetation, filled me with 

 admiration. A paradoxical mixture of sound and silence 

 pervades the shady parts of the wood . . . yet within the 

 recesses ... a universal silence appears to reign . . . such 

 a day as this brings with it a deeper pleasure than he (a 

 naturalist) can ever hope to experience again.''' And in 



1 " Voyage of the Beagle," pp. 11-12. 

 31 



