2 Through the BraziHan Wilderness 



presidency he and I should go up the Paraguay into the 

 interior of South America. At the time I wished to go 

 to Africa, and so the subject was dropped; but from 

 time to time afterward we talked it over. Five years 

 later, in the spring of 1913, I accepted invitations con- 

 veyed through the governments of Argentina and Brazil 

 to address certain learned bodies in these countries. 

 Then it occurred to me that, instead of making the con- 

 ventional tourist trip purely by sea round South Amer- 

 ica, after I had finished my lectures I would come north 

 through the middle of the continent into the valley of 

 the Amazon; and I decided to write Father Zahm and 

 tell him my intentions. Before doing so, however, I 

 desired to see the authorities of the American Museum 

 of Natural History, in New York City, to find out 

 whether they cared to have me take a couple of natural- 

 ists with me into Brazil and make a collecting trip for 

 the museum. 



Accordingly, I wrote to Frank Chapman, the curator 

 of ornithology of the museum, and accepted his invita- 

 tion to lunch at the museum one day early in June. At 

 the lunch, in addition to various naturalists, to my aston- 

 ishment I also found Father Zahm; and as soon as I 

 saw him I told him I was now intending to make the 

 South American trip. It appeared that he had made up 

 his mind that he would take it himself, and had actually 

 come on to see Mr. Chapman to find out if the latter 

 could recommend a naturalist to go with him; and he 

 at once said he would accompany me. Chapman was 

 pleased when he found out that we intended to go up the 

 Paraguay and across into the valley of the Amazon, be- 



