Correspondence of Mr. Bates. 3323 



is the most practicable of all the branch rivers, and much more moun- 

 tainous and picturesque than any of them. I have got here the most 

 accurate information about it, and am quite sanguine that in Santarem 

 I shall get the one thing needful to make the trip, i. e., row-men. Our 

 friends in England will now be well aware of the great difficulties of 

 travelling in the interior here, from the letters of Mr. Spruce, who has 

 fared rather worse than any of us, owing to the hostility of the autho- 

 rities and natives. 



You would receive by the "George Glen" my letters stating the 

 death of poor Herbert Wallace and Mr. Miller ; I have now to add 

 another, our good-hearted friend Bradley, whom you will recollect as 

 being a trader in the interior. He caught a fever in the Rio Negro 

 last voyage, neglected himself, and came down to Para in a dreadfully 

 exhausted state last August, dying about a month ago. The health 

 of the city has been wretched; since May last about 800 have died of 

 small pox out of a population of 15,000, but we foreigners have all 

 escaped it. I have had one touch of yellow fever, and diarrhoea twice, 

 but am at present quite strong and well. 



I intend at my leisure to make out a copy of my notes on the dra- 

 gon-flies, their colours in life, &c, for you to send to the Baron de 

 Selys. 



With regard to maps and books, send me the two sections of the 

 Maps of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, relating 

 to the Upper Amazons, also a copy of the newest editions of all the 

 cheap Museum Catalogues, a number or two of the ' Zoologist,' when 

 any notes of mine are inserted, and the number (if possible) wherein 

 the Callithea Batesii is described and figured. Any little work de- 

 scribing South-American birds and quadrupeds, not costing more than 

 15s. or 20s., such as Temnrinck's ' Manual of Birds,' either in English, 

 French or Latin, would be of great service to me. Having these com- 

 panions, and a little canoe with a good servant or two, I -eould explore 

 the country to the Andes. 



Ega was certainly a rich locality. I am convinced I could have 

 done twice the amount there in the same time, if I had had funds and 

 books. I was there ten months, and utterly lost three from being de- 

 pendant upon a gentleman at whose house I was living, and whom I 

 accompanied in his excursions. The fishes and reptiles were mostly 

 different from those below, but I could not buy either bottles or spi- 

 rits. I have frequently landed on islands in the main river, under cir- 

 cumstances when I could not possibly collect, and have seen many 

 species of butterflies new to me, especially on one occasion swarms 



